Before Sunrise Read online

  “What?”

  “Well, the baby and everything. I know you worry. Besides, we just moved here, it means I’ll have to commute to Chapel Hill.”

  “I’m happy. We can have two places. I’ll get you an apartment up there. Okay?”

  “Two places? We can’t afford that, Liam.”

  “Actually, it’s perfect. You can stay on campus maybe? Be a real college student.”

  Kennedy frowned. She’d suffered greatly when he went off to school to get into the SEAL program. She’d commuted, first to Tidewater Community College and then to Old Dominion. William and Mary was too long a drive. She had no desire to be away from him when he returned home after a deployment.

  “Now we have a reason to celebrate, some good news to replace the sad.”

  “What?” Kennedy frowned.

  “I have to leave, babe. Me and Eric got our orders. Deployment’s in two days.”

  “Two days? That’s not enough time!”

  “Shhh.”

  “No, Liam. Please. I need at least a week to get ready.”

  “Hey, it’s all right, Kay. You know our rule.”

  He always liked to hear her say it. She shut her eyes and tried to smile. “When I close my eyes on the day of your return, you will be home...before sunrise,” she repeated. It was from a short poem she’d written him and put in his bag on his first deployment. He told her later that’s what had gotten him through.

  “That’s my girl. Now let’s eat. Your man is starving.”

  Kennedy decided to make their own little movie. She picked up his fork and began feeding him. Liam smirked up at her. She couldn’t love him any more than she did.

  Kennedy woke alone. She kicked back the covers and found her robe. The house had settled into a still quietness, but she felt a draft and looked over to the patio door. It was ajar. Her vision sharpened as she sought Liam through the shadows. He sat out in the yard, his dog tags glistening in the moonlight and on several empty bottles at his feet. He turned up the neck of his beer and took down big gulps, making his Adam’s apple bob in his throat.

  “Liam?”

  “Go back to bed, Kay.”

  “Everything all right?”

  He just stared at her. She walked out into the night and immediately regretted that she hadn’t put on her slippers. “Come back inside. Let me hold you until you go to sleep. Don’t drink, Liam.”

  “I’m cool, Kay. Go back to bed.”

  “No.”

  Liam sighed. “Fine, come here.”

  Kennedy went to him. He set all four legs of the deck chair back on the ground. She dropped into his lap. “What’s wrong?”

  “Look, I want you to send me e-mails of the sonogram and any news from the doctors, I don’t care what.”

  His eyes were bloodshot. She rubbed the side of his face. “Okay.”

  “Also I plan to ask Phil to look in on you.”

  Kennedy froze. Liam hated Phil. This had to be some kind of mistake. “You what?”

  “Oh, trust me, that motherfucker knows I’ll bury him if he ever touches you, steps out of line in any way, shape, or form.” Liam’s eyes flashed a deep blue as he ground out each word. “But I need someone who’s on their game. A man. I don’t want you having to go back to your mother. She fucking hates me, will talk shit about me to poison my kid before she ever gets here. And I can’t trust this truce with my mom. We cool now, but yeah, I can’t trust it. So as much as I fucking hate that sneaky dipshit, I know he’ll be on ten when it comes to my girl. And don’t forget, I got eyes behind my back. I just need a reason to throttle his ass.”

  “Liam, you won’t be gone that long—”

  “Listen, babe, we don’t know nothing for certain anymore. So let me handle this. Phil will check on you, help you get into law school. Then we work out how to set you up in Chapel Hill. I know he has this crush on you and I’m trying to set that aside. Trying to be secure here, not be the hothead everybody says I am.”

  “No, he doesn’t.”

  “Whatever. I also want you to stay with Angelina until we figure out the school stuff.”

  “No.” Kennedy stood. “I won’t leave our house. No way.”

  “Not open for debate. She’s going to be alone with those twin babies. My boy Ant is sick about it. Talking crazy shit about getting a psych leave to delay his deployment.” Liam looked her right in the eye. He made his disapproval of Vasquez’s plan perfectly clear. A psych leave meant Ant’s career would be over.

  And then who will have Liam’s back? she wondered. Kennedy nodded slowly and surely. Liam continued as though there had been no interruption. “So this will set both our minds at ease. You said you liked her. You two can be strong together. Get close. Do some knitting or something, what mothers do.”

  Kennedy smacked him upside the head. He caught her by the wrist and yanked her toward him. She straddled his lap in a full pout.

  “C’mon, Kay, don’t fight me on this. I need you to be okay.”

  “How long? A few weeks, right?”

  Liam sighed. “This time it’s different. The world is different, babe. I don’t know how soon I’ll be back.” He took her hand. “But go ahead and start the process for school. Maybe by the time you finish, this mess will be over. I think we can swing this. No, I know we can.”

  “But how will we do that when you have to be on base? I need to be here when you return. Besides, the baby and everything, maybe school should wait. I’ll have to stop soon after anyway.”

  “We can wait now or wait later, but you will be a lawyer. I’m going to make sure that you get all your dreams. I know your family thought I’d ruin your life when you left with me. I know you gave up a lot to be with me.”

  “I’d do it all again, Liam. We’re going to have a baby. Law school can definitely wait.”

  “If we can’t do them both, then we’ll deal. But right now, let’s try. Okay? You know I don’t give up.”

  “I love you.” And she did. She cupped his cheek, staring him in the eyes. Their lips, like magnets, were instantly drawn to each other. The spark of Liam’s urgent need, his probing tongue, sent her head to swimming. He ran his calloused fingers down her back and she shivered through her nightgown. The night felt comfortably warm all of a sudden, or was that her blood? Kennedy eased up, reaching between them to release his cock from where it coiled behind his zipper. She was well practiced at this. The kiss became flicks of her tongue against his and nips to his succulent lips as she lowered on his erection.

  Oh, it felt divine. Thick hardness filled her to the point of a scream. She dropped her head back and he peppered her neck with kisses. She stretched and adjusted to him. He hooked her legs over the bends of his arms so he could open her wider. His strong hands, twice the size of her own, cupped and separated the halves of her ass, lifting and dropping her on his cock. Kennedy held to his shoulders. She worked her body as best she could, feeling him down to her curled toes. Suddenly, his movements grew frenzied. She bounced on his cock and dug her nails into his shoulders, holding on for the explosion. Then she came apart.

  Liam held her. She went through two deep, climatic spasms with him buried inside of her. She wrapped her arms around his neck.

  “Kay, I love you so much. I won’t be gone long. Trust me, babe, I’ll be back before you know it.

  “Before sunrise?” she sighed.

  “Before sunrise.”

  Chapter Two

  September 2006

  Desert sand swirled into a frenzied funnel cloud that made the night air impossible to breathe. During the day this would have been a telltale sign of the squad’s approach. However, in this part of the world, the night proved to be excellent cover. The descent of the stealthy black helicopter, hardly seen, and barely heard, hovered then plunged lower. Two four-man strike teams scaled down cables, swift, silent, and deadly, just as they’d been trained, then double-timed it to their checkpoints outside the compound of the high-value target.

  Captain An
thony Vasquez watched the progress over a secure feed in the Forward Ops center. The moonless night blanketed his mission in complete darkness, but through the technological magic of his team’s helmet-mounted night-vision systems, he could see exactly what they saw.

  So far, they saw nothing.

  Their orders were to find and eradicate any trace of the enemy off the desert banks of the Pahkthi Peninsula. They’d gotten false intelligence before. Possibly the unit had received more of the same. Vasquez knew there would be only one option: prosecute the information to the fullest. If it panned out, they’d have the wild card in their terrorism deck, none other than Taliban military strategist Amir Sarkhir. If Vasquez’s team brought this prick down, many young lives, both American and Afghan, would be saved.

  “Captain Vasquez, sir.” Special Operator Jeffries, a man of barely twenty-four, short and stocky with his cover always pulled down over his eyes, appeared with a salute.

  Vasquez lingered near the satellite monitors, his eyes glued to the screens. He looked up once the display returned to the start of the next cycle, and nodded at Jeffries. Before the interruption, the tent had been filled with tomblike silence. Every man on his squad knew Vasquez preferred no idle chatter. Jeffries’ arrival meant news.

  “At ease.” Contrary to his order, Jeffries stood upright, ramrod-straight.

  “Sir. We have word from team two, sir.“

  “Go on.”

  “They have visual on the target. Ready to move on your orders, sir.”

  Vasquez needed Sarkhir alive. This enemy behaved different. They lived by a code beyond his understanding. It wouldn’t be beneath Sarkhir to use women and children as human shields when they moved in. He’d seen it before. Better yet, intelligence warned Sarkhir would torch the camp and everything in it rather than surrender. He gave a perfunctory nod, knowing that each member of the team, hand-selected by him and Liam years before, understood the goal of this mission. “We need a total sweep.” He turned for his gear. “Once it’s confirmed, I’ll be there with team three.”

  “Yes, sir,” came the response.

  “We have a standing order from the top, Jeffries. Tell McKinley we are go.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  The date was September 2nd, 2006, and Vasquez had reached his twenty-two days target for a return stateside to his pregnant wife and twin six-year-old sons. His request to lead the primary team on this mission had been flatly denied; he’d had to call in every favor owed to him just to put in with the follow-on squad and get there thirty minutes after all the action. But it was the best he could negotiate, and his presence the past few days had brought a tense energy to the men. They’d heard the tales of his tours after 9/11, and his unit’s successes, though never publicly acknowledged, had become the stuff of legends. Vasquez knew that some of the stories batted around were exaggerations at this point, but many of them weren’t.

  Nonetheless, if the primary team succeeded, Vasquez and team three would be inside the compound, in prime position to see the capture of Amir Sarkhir. Over the monitors, Vasquez heard the sharp crackle of the first shots of gunfire. He turned and walked calmly toward the exit with his escort, Major Anders, on his heels. Hell had opened its gates and the strike team would be in full combat within seconds. Sarkhir’s men would presumably fight to the death, which fit Vasquez’s plans perfectly. Less shit for him to secure, after-the-fact.

  Major Anders raced to keep up. “Sir, we can move in with the all-clear. Permission to speak freely, sir?”

  “Go ahead,” Vasquez strode to the helicopter, which was spun-up and waited only for him. Anders hurried his steps to match, like some attention-starved child.

  “Allow the men to confirm capture first before we move in,” he shouted. “I suggest another hour sweeping the outer sectors. Heat signatures indicate there are some underground bunkers and tunnels that head west into the mountains.”

  Vasquez hopped into the bay door and found the last jump-seat along the wall. The lieutenant had no choice but to wait on the tarmac while the heavy bird lifted and held for an overlong moment, before it rose and rocketed toward the target. For the most part, Vasquez ignored the request. His heart beat madly in his chest. He’d missed the days of shoulder-to-shoulder in combat with men he respected, especially on a bitch of a mission like this. It reminded him of when he’d first joined, when he’d been part of the Wolf, a brotherhood of Marines, SEALs, and Delta Force all baked together as one, with Liam Flanagan guarding his back. Things had been different then.

  Vasquez had never met a more skilled combatant. Liam’s temper had, at first, made Vasquez doubt him as a soldier, much less a Special Forces operator. But his friend soon proved him wrong. Vasquez knew few men who could take on the rigid CT training with the fearlessness that Liam possessed. He’d been top of his class, until his hair-trigger temper had nearly gotten him kicked out of the covert Wind Scorpion program;. The infraction? He’d choked an instructor who’d made the unfortunate mistake of speaking ill of Liam’s young wife. Her name was Kennedy. The sweetest kid and the only person Vasquez had actually seen Liam soften with. A petite black girl with thick, curly hair she was always pushing back from her face. She had been quite spunky, too. The appeals board had taken into consideration that despite Liam being an Irish boy from the mean streets of Chicago, he’d never had a single reprimand. His interracial relationship had been the target of mocking by a trainer determined to break him. The board deemed the trainer’s action inappropriate and Liam’s unit learned quickly nothing was off limits, except Kennedy.

  Vasquez smiled, remembering how the services found the perfect place for a soldier like Liam Flanagan: an off-the-grid counter-terrorism unit they’d named ‘Wolfpack’. Liam’s SEAL unit had met with the elite tactical force Vasquez led within the Marines and he had seen fit to bring Vasquez with him as his third-in-command. Thanks to the successful deployments of the Wolfpack, Vasquez got his bars. He fully believed that if Liam had lived, he’d have become even more of a legend.

  As the bird traveled low and soundlessly over the flat desert sands, Vasquez itched for the takedown. Secretly he wished Sarkhir were out there in the desert cowering against a sand dune like a little bitch. The bastard had taken so many innocent lives. He wanted to drag him out like the mad dog he was and show these people he was nothing more than a murdering piece of shit, and not some messiah.

  Now that the area had been secured, the bird set down just outside the compound and Hicks, the ground chief, met the team. Vasquez watched impassively as several of their men dragged terrorists and dropped them face down in the sand. The wounded were airlifted out. “How many of ours, Sergeant?” he called back over his shoulder.

  “Six, sir.”

  “Fuck me,” mumbled Vasquez. This had better bear fruit. He got out and marched over to where the captured were held. One by one, Hicks lifted each man by his shoulder and bound wrists so Vasquez could confirm their identities. Vasquez pointed out the three he would want questioned and immediately they were separated from the others.

  “Sarkhir?” Vasquez asked the approaching Chief Operator.

  “Sir, we have men being questioned now. They put up one bitch of a fight.”

  Vasquez nodded to be shown. He promptly followed his men into a two-story building the color of the sand it had been erected upon. The windows were blown out. Vasquez’s lifted his gaze to the roof. Several soldiers paced with their guns pointed downward.

  He entered a room that reeked of gunpowder and shit. Pressed against the wall were two men in turbans. One on his strike team yelled in Arabic at a mean-looking bastard who shouted the same repeated prayer, over and over. Vasquez scanned the weapons discharged and discarded. This couldn’t be the cell he’d been searching for. These men didn’t look to be held up with the same equipment as the other four. There were no computers here. Hell, the electricity didn’t even work. Still, something stuck in his craw. Why would they fight so hard if Sarkhir, or something of more value, wasn’t
nearby?

  “Sir!”

  “What is it?”

  “This one thinks we’re here for the Americans. He wants to trade for his release, sir.”

  Vasquez’s throat went dry. “What Americans? Civilians?”

  “I’m not sure, sir.” The sergeant swallowed. “He keeps saying the words for ‘army man’, sir, over and over, sir.”

  Vasquez narrowed his eyes. The report made no sense. There were no missing units in this region, Army or Marine, and if there were some other CT force in theater, they’d have told him when he requested authorization for the op. Every man in the room vibrated with tension. The idea that there were fallen comrades in this compound had them itching to rip loose on the few surviving captives.

  “Where? Where are they?” Vasquez asked in disbelief. He watched as the soldier pressed the deadly end of his assault rifle to the center of the man’s brow. He said a few words in Arabic. Vasquez’s hands clenched. He held his breath and waited. This could be bullshit, a diversion to get him off Sarkhir’s scent. POWs in his region? No fucking way. That lame lie had been the first thing they always threw at him, and Vasquez had learned not to chase those rumors. Not a single one had ever been true.

  The man nodded and raised his hands, giving the universal sign of compliance. Vasquez ordered Hicks to ensure the place had been rigged with explosives. They walked out of the building with the prisoner leading the way. Several yards to the south of the building he stopped before a patch of sand, thinly covered with straw-like weeds. The man brushed the debris away with his hands to reveal a door. Flinging it open, he stepped back.

  “It’s gotta be booby-trapped, sir,” shouted Hicks, who stepped bodily between Vasquez and the hole.

  “Move.”

  “Sir, let the men go in.”

  “Move!”

  Hicks shifted aside, then immediately followed Vasquez down the sand-covered steps into a dank, dark, cramped hole. The stench was so strong Vasquez fought back his gag reflex. Maybe Sarkhir was cowering in the corner with a grenade. He’d promised Angelina that he would return to her. That he would take no risks. But it was Sarkhir who’d sent a hand-launched missile into Liam’s airlift, killing Vasquez’s best friend and several others on their team. At the time, Vasquez had been stateside for the birth of his twins. Payback’s a bitch, and he’d go out firing his last round into the shitface scumbag before he let the bastard commit a suicide drop on him.