“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Jules admitted to the woman who’d been one of his best friends for years, because although light banter was preferred at times like this, an honest heart-to-heart was better than silently wondering about the fate of the other members of the Troubleshooters team. Sam wasn’t the only one out there—Tess, Sophia, and Lindsey were in potential danger from the bad guys, too. “Why haven’t I fallen madly in love with him? The whole time we were …
together—and it wasn’t just Thursday, it was Friday night, too—I was … I don’t know. Waiting for the choir of angels to start to sing.” He laughed his disgust. “Have I mentioned that Ben’s into country music? Some of it’s not awful—I’ll admit that. Some of it’s … Okay, I’ll be generous and use the word
good
. But
some
of it …? Kill me now.”
That was probably not the right thing to say while waiting for a bomb to go off, but Alyssa either ignored it or didn’t notice.
“Okay, so he’s not perfect,” Alyssa said. “No one is. Sam’s certainly not.” She swore sharply. “If he gets himself killed tonight …”
“Sam’ll be all right,” Jules reassured her with a hug—careful, though, of her leg. “He’s probably going insane, wondering where we are. So tell me this. If Sam’s so imperfect, what would you change about him to make
him
better?”
Alyssa shook her head. “Nothing,” she admitted.
“Sometimes imperfect
is
perfect,” Jules philosophized. “It’s a personal thing. Sam, with all of his imperfections—things that would drive
me
mad—is perfect for
you
.”
“So what would you change about Ben?”
Jules didn’t have to think about that one. “His parents don’t know he’s gay,” he reminded her. “And then there’s that whole
don’t ask, don’t tell
bullshit …”
Their entire relationship would have to be secret. Jules had worked hard his entire life to be open and out about his being gay. This would be a significant step backward—right into Ben’s closet. And the man didn’t even have a walk-in.
“I think it’s a good thing then,” Alyssa decided. “A sign of maturity. You know—that you’re being cautious with him. You’re taking things slowly. You’re not just giving your heart away indiscriminately.”
The way you
usually do
. She left that part unsaid, because she knew she didn’t have to remind him.
“So … you’re advocating casual sex?” Jules needled her. “Ow!”
She’d pinched him. “Don’t be an idiot. It’s kinda obvious your thing with Ben is serious—it has been for a while—even as … sex-free as it’s been. Up to now. But there’s no law saying that you have to plan to spend the entire rest of your life with every single person that you … make the magic with.”
“I know,” Jules said. And he did know. The concept, however, was easier for him in theory. He’d been friends with Alyssa for a long time, and she was well aware of his tendency to start planning a lifetime commitment ceremony within moments of a new relationship’s first intimate encounter. He was a romantic. A hopeless one. In some circles, though, that was considered a strength, not a weakness. “I’m just … I’m tired of not being a we. And here’s Ben, who’s made a point of making sure I know he’s looking for something real, and …”
So what did Jules go and do after spending a few very
we
-ish nights with the man? He ran away to Germany to help Alyssa and Sam with a Troubleshooters Incorporated op that was probably now going to get them all killed.
All but Ben, who was back in DC. For now.
In a matter of months, his Marine unit was heading back to Iraq. And wouldn’t
that
move their relationship to an entirely new level of crapitation? Provided, of course, that Jules survived the next few seconds.…
“What are
you
looking for?” Alyssa asked him.
But before he could answer and say that he didn’t know—which wasn’t really a lie—the timer buzzed and the bomb went off.
C
HAPTER
T
WO
An hour earlier …
As far as distractions went, this was working.
Mostly.
Slogging through an ancient drainage pipe beneath a military installation made it very hard to think about anything besides the horrific smell.
At least they weren’t up to their ankles or knees in water. There were occasional puddles, but it was mostly just mud beneath their feet. At least Jules hoped it was mud.
He crept along, just in front of Alyssa, who was team leader for this little Troubleshooters Incorporated op, venturing into the bowels beneath a U.S. Army barracks that had been built here in Nachtgarten, Germany, just after World War II. The barracks had been built then, that is. This drainage system looked—and smelled—as if parts of it dated back to the days of the Roman Empire.
On point was Lindsey Jenkins, a tiny slip of an Asian American woman with mad tracking skills and a total kickass attitude—thanks in part to her years with the LAPD. Apparently, she’d committed to memory the blueprint of the maze of tunnels, and she moved surely and silently, leading the way through the dimness, proving to the world that size didn’t matter.
Which was something of Jules’s own mantra, since he was no hulking giant himself. He still sometimes shopped in the teen boys department in order to find T-shirts that fit him snugly enough to wear clubbing—not that he’d actually
gone
to a dance club in the past few years.…
But here and now, compared to Lindsey, who could move as if she had a note from her doctor excusing her from the laws of gravity, he felt oafish and noisy.
And freaking envious.
Lindsey was the relatively recent bride of Petty Officer Mark Jenkins, an adorable Navy SEAL who’d gotten leave from Iraq in order to meet her here in Germany. Her new husband’s transport flight had been delayed, however, and he’d shown up at their hotel just as the entire Troubleshooters team had met in the lobby for breakfast.
Needless to say, Lindsey and Mark had not joined them for the meal. The SEAL had soul-kissed his spouse, right there in the lobby, thrown her over his shoulder, and carried her into the elevator—and that was the last anyone had seen of either of them until they’d all met for this op at 2300.
But no one had teased her about it. Too many of them knew what it was like to have or be a spouse in the military. Time with one’s partner was precious—and too-often infrequent.
And
that
made Jules think of Ben, which was exactly what he didn’t want to be thinking about …
Wait
, Lindsey hand-signaled now, then vanished ahead into a part of the tunnel that didn’t have dim moonlight shining in through heavy cast-iron drainage grates.
Two other Troubleshooters operatives, curly-haired computer specialist Tess Bailey and elegantly blond Sophia Ghaffari, who was clearly in training or at least a bright green rookie, hung back, obeying Lindsey’s command, while Jules and Alyssa continued to guard their six.
Even though it was unlikely that there was anything down here to guard them against.
Their mission was to prove that the Nachtgarten barracks were vulnerable to terrorist attack via these ill-protected tunnels that wound beneath the entire city. Because—as if the idea of tunnels that crisscrossed beneath
the military base wasn’t enough of a threat—there was also a no-longer-used, buried and long-forgotten massive oil tank that sat, still two-thirds full, just beneath the facility’s main housing.
With some correctly placed C4, aided by that enormous tank of oil, any terrorist with a little Internet-acquired know-how could create an explosion that would take down the multistory building and make the Khobar Towers bombing look like child’s play.
And as far as the Internet went …
Alyssa and Sam, acting as agents for the country’s most elite personal security team, Troubleshooters Incorporated, had written and submitted a detailed report on this installation months ago. They’d outlined, quite specifically, the dangers of what they believed to be a serious threat, due to that very oil tank.
But after the powers-that-be thanked them for their time, absolutely nothing was done to safeguard the lives of the thousands of servicemen and -women quartered at the base.
And
then
, a few short days ago, Jules had found out that Sam and Alyssa’s top secret report had actually circulated the White House via nonsecure email—which meant that the barracks at Nachtgarten were now even
more
vulnerable. The report, which mentioned the long-forgotten oil tank, had floated about on the Internet for a solid week before anyone noticed it contained classified information.
Jules had taken the news of the leak up the chain of command to his boss in the FBI, Max Bhagat, who’d been furious about the security breach—enough to get Admiral Chip Crowley involved.
Crowley, a Navy SEAL himself, was a man of action, and before Jules had even left Max’s office, a task force had been formed and Troubleshooters Incorporated once again had been hired. This time they were to play
the part of the “red cell” in a mock attack of the military base.
Their job was to get, covertly, into Nachtgarten and once again find said oil tank—which was supposedly “too costly to locate and remove,” and, also according to the geniuses in charge, “too difficult to locate to create any real threat to the army personnel housed therein.”
Yeah, maybe it had been too difficult to locate
until some bureaucrat wrote an email about it, attached Sam and Alyssa’s report, and then freaking sent it to all their friends …
God. Nothing pissed Jules off more than stupidity.
Hopefully, after tonight’s exercise—complete with weapons that fired only rubber bullets, and
Hey, Nachtgarten security teams, you think that might be a hint that some war-gaming might be going on tonight?
—the stupidity would finally end.
There was, of course, no guarantee of that.
But the Troubleshooters red cell had been ordered to plant a “bomb” atop that oil tank—which would hopefully help wake people up. They weren’t going to use real explosives, of course. Instead, they would affix to the tank an electronic device that was the equivalent weight of the C4 needed in an attempt to take down the building. With this device and a nifty computer program that would receive and read the box’s signal, analysts would be able to accurately measure the amount of oil that remained in the tank, as well as the effect of an explosion on the barracks above.
Jules had seen this particular computer program in action before. It would create a simulation of the size and strength of the fictional blast, as well as estimate damage and predict body count. It would also—nifty little thing—translate it all into an outrageously huge dollar amount for those bottomline thinkers who believed
that removing an obsolete oil tank was a tad too costly.
But all of that was going to happen
after
the team found the tank and slogged their way back to the much fresher air of the decaying riverfront warehouse, where they’d accessed this gross-as-shit drainage system.
Yes, this was
so
much fun.
Lindsey must’ve returned from her scouting trip, because Tess signaled them forward and they began to move into a part of the tunnel that was pitch-black. It seemed endless, but finally, ahead of them, was another stretch where the moonlight shone in.
And okay, yeah, actually? If he could ignore the malodorous stench? This
was
kind of fun in a twisted way. Jules wasn’t quite sure if the idea was Alyssa’s or that of the Troubleshooters CO, Tom Paoletti, but one thing he certainly
was
enjoying was the fact that this particular red cell was manned only by women.
Well, except for Jules, who was really only there as an observer.
Still, it felt very
Charlie’s Angels
, which appealed to his inner 1970s-era pop-culture-loving child.
As for his role of observer, he was here because Alyssa had insisted. She’d known how
completely
freaked out he’d been by his mother’s weekend visit. Lys had wanted both to hold his hand and to distract him from the craziness that had gone down last Saturday and Sunday.
The funny part of
that
was that Jules hadn’t yet told her about last Thursday’s and Friday’s drama. God, had that all really been just a few short days ago? He glanced at his watch. It was currently early
A.M.
Wednesday. Which meant it was now only two days until Friday—which was when he and Ben had planned to hook up again.
Yikes.
And wasn’t
that
just peachy keen?
Jules should have been feeling anticipation. He was a fan of anticipation when it came to things like food. And sex.
Instead, what he felt, felt an awful lot like dread. And guilt. Yup, the guilt sure was a nice touch, swirling around on the top of his mix of emotions about the entire fiasco—last weekend included.
Jules had actually taken the weekend-in-question off because his mother had called to say she was coming to DC to see him. She and her second husband, Phil, lived in Hawaii in a house overlooking the ocean, and Jules usually went there to visit. That was a no-brainer. In the vacation boxing ring, Hawaii could take out DC with one solid uppercut, every single time.
And yet his mother had flown all the way to the East Coast, nearly out of the blue and completely Phil-less, which made the trip seem all the more odd. But when everything was said and done,
odd
wasn’t even close to describing the weekend.
Jules’s mom had completely caught him off-guard with her news that she and Phil were getting divorced.
And—although
she
didn’t put it into such glaringly harsh plain-speak—their split was because of Jules. Phil had finally admitted to feeling that their relationship was strained due to his discomfort with Jules’s sexual orientation. He’d actually sent away for literature on a variety of ex-gay ministries—programs that Jules could enter to be “fixed” and turned straight.
Linda Cassidy—she’d kept Jules’s father’s name, even after remarrying—had immediately “fixed” her ailing marriage by lancing the two-hundred-pound boil that was Phil.