Easy Day for the Dead (33 page)

Alex sat. “Perfect.”

“Your server will be with you shortly, sir.”

“Thank you.” For several minutes, he watched the shimmering sunlight fade on the ocean.

Alex sensed Cat before he saw her step out onto the veranda. She created her own breeze as she moved forward, air flowing through her blond hair. She took a seat.

“How's the hand?” Cat asked.

“Doc says if I continue the rehabilitation, I should regain full use of it.”

Cat smiled.

“I was afraid you might not come,” Alex said.

“Since when have you ever been afraid?” she teased. Her voice became serious. “I know how much this means to you.” Cat looked around the veranda and inside the building. “Where are Pancho and John?”

“Um, I didn't invite them.”

“What?” She looked stunned. “Did they piss you off or something?”

Alex smiled. “No.”

“What about the skipper? I thought the skipper was going to swear you in?”

Alex shook his head. “Skipper isn't coming, either.”

“Then who's going to swear you in?”

“I asked the skipper to let you transfer with me to Coronado, but he didn't want to let you go.”

Cat sat with a numb expression on her face.

“I like the view here,” Alex said. “Do you like the view?”

“So will you still go to Coronado?”

Alex shook his head. “No reason to go, if I can't be with you.”

“So you're going to stay here.”

Alex said nothing.

“Who's going to swear you in for your reenlistment tonight?” she asked.

“I did a lot of thinking. About the future. About the sacrifices I made for the Teams. About what Sarah would want me to do. About who I really am.” Alex spoke slowly, each word weighted with the decision that would change his life forever.

“Who you really are?”

“It's something I'd like to find out,” Alex said.

Cat shook her head and brushed back her hair. “I don't understand what all this has to do with your reenlistment ceremony.”

Alex took a deep breath. “I'm not reenlisting.”

Cat looked confused. “You can't be serious.”

“I am.”

“What will you do?”

“I have investments—stocks, bonds, and real estate. Money isn't a problem. I thought I'd go to graduate school for my MBA while I'm figuring out what to do next.”

“Sometimes you don't make a lot of sense!” She raised her voice.

Nearby patrons turned to look at them.

Alex spoke quietly. “When Sarah died, I felt so empty. Then angry. My job was a way of protecting others from having to feel what I felt. And honoring her memory. It helped channel my anger. But this job has left me feeling so lonely. After I met you, I didn't feel angry, and I didn't feel lonely. I thought maybe I'd changed, but when I thought about my childhood, I wasn't an angry or lonely kid then. After you and I spent some time apart, I realized how much I missed you.”

“You're talking in riddles. Have you gone crazy?”

“You once told me that I should think about trying something else. You gave me my life back.” Alex reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small black square box.

Cat's hands covered her mouth, muffling a gasp.

Alex opened the box so she could see the engagement ring.

“If this is some kind of sick joke, stop it now because my heart can't—”

Alex pressed on. He had never been more certain of anything in his life. “This ring is my mother's. She wants you to have it.”

“I've never even met your mother.”

“I told her all about you. She wants to meet you.”

A tear rolled down Cat's face. “You sure do know how to ambush a girl.”

“Will you marry me?”

She didn't speak.

“I'll understand if you say no,” he said.

“Don't be a dumbass,” Cat said, wiping away the tears.

Alex was fairly certain he knew her answer, but he wanted to make absolutely sure. “Is that a yes?” he asked.

Cat threw up her hands. “Of course it's a yes.”

A woman at the table next to them clapped her hands and others followed.

Alex gestured for Cat to give him her hand. She did, and he put the sparkling ring on her finger, but in that moment her eyes sparkled brighter than the ring.

Dinner was a blur after that. Alex couldn't remember what he ate, what he said, or even if he paid the check as they walked back outside. He put his left arm around Cat and held her close. She leaned her head against his shoulder.

“I love you,” Alex said, squeezing her.

“You better, mister,” Cat said, squeezing him back.

Alex fished in his pockets for his keys, not quite sure this wasn't a dream. He was quitting the Teams, and he was engaged!

He heard the
click-click
of stilettos on pavement and looked up. He recognized her immediately: it was the blonde from the supermarket.
She was walking through the parking lot toward them. She wore a shimmering blue dress that was every bit as stunning as the red dress she'd had on the first time they had met.
Talk about long odds
. It seemed ages ago when he'd first caught sight of her.

“Friend of yours?” Cat asked.

Alex shook his head. “Nope, don't even know her,” he said, which was true. He didn't want to start his life with Cat with a lie.

“She's staring at you. I don't like it,” Cat said.

Alex was about to say it was nothing, but when he caught the blonde's eye he paused. She wasn't smiling. This wasn't the flirty dream woman he remembered. She looked angry. His running out of Whole Foods couldn't have been that traumatic for her.

Movement off to the left drew Alex's eyes away from the blonde. Two men were stepping out of the shadows by a large hedge. Alex's mind cleared in an instance.
Shit, I'm not carrying!

“Cat, get ready to run. Head between those two parked cars over there, then work your way back to the restaurant,” Alex said.

“What?” Cat asked. She lifted her head from his shoulder. “What is—she's got a gun!”

Alex looked away from the men to the blonde. She was now thirty feet away and walking with obvious purpose. She had a pistol in her hand and was aiming it at him.

“Mohammed says hello,” she said, her voice harsh, and tinged with a Middle Eastern accent now.

Alex's mind reeled.
Mohammed?
Which one? Then he remembered: the teenage son of the terrorist he'd killed on their last mission, the one terrorist who got away.

“I don't know any Mohammeds,” Alex said, stepping in front of Cat to shield her with his body. “I think you have me mistaken for someone else.” He knew it was useless, but every second she didn't shoot was one more second he might think of something.

“He knows exactly who you are. Allahu akbar!” she shouted,
bringing her left hand up to steady her right hand as she squeezed the trigger.

“No!” Alex shouted. Three shots rang out. Alex gritted his teeth, bracing himself as the steel tore through his flesh. The blonde crumpled to the ground, the pistol clattering from her hand. Alex didn't understand. He looked down at his chest. She'd missed. He spun to look at Cat; her eyes were wide with fear.

“Alex, are you okay?”

Alex turned and saw Pancho and John running out of the shadows of the hedge.

“How?” he asked.

John ran over to the woman and kicked the pistol away from her while keeping his own pointed at her. Pancho met John and punched his shoulder before saying to Alex, “We knew what you were up to tonight. We figured we'd wait until after you proposed and surprise you.”

Alex clapped Pancho on the shoulder. “I owe you.”

“You can name your first kid after me,” Pancho said.

The wail of police sirens sounded in the distance. People were crowding around the entrance of the restaurant, too afraid to come any closer.

“Who was she?” John asked, coming over to stand with them. “I don't remember her being on any target list when we went after those terrorists on our last mission.”

“Mohammed's been recruiting,” Cat said, glaring at the body of the blonde. “Looks like the son is taking after the father.”

“Not exactly the way I imagined tonight going,” Alex said. A shootout
and
a marriage proposal; well, maybe he should have expected it.

“So she said yes?” John asked.

Pancho laughed. “I sure hope she said yes, because if she didn't I might just ask her myself,” he said.

Over the blare of the approaching sirens, Cat held out her left
hand to show Pancho and John her engagement ring. She rotated her hand, using the diamond to catch and refract the red and blue lights of the first police car pulling into the parking lot.

“I haven't had time to register for gifts yet,” Cat said, “but I'm thinking Heckler and Koch.”

The Activity:
See ISA.

AK-47:
The name is a contraction of Russian:
Avtomat Kalashnikova obraztsa 1947 goda
(Kalashnikov's automatic rifle model of year 1947). This assault rifle fires a 7.62x39mm (.308) round up to an effective range of 300 meters (330 yards) and holds thirty rounds. It was developed in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Kalashnikov in two versions: the fixed-stock AK-47 and the AKS-47 (S:
Skladnoy priklad
) variant equipped with an underfolding metal shoulder stock. The modern version is the AKM (M:
Modernizirovanniy
).

AKM:
Modern version of AK-47.

AKMS:
Modern version of AKS-47.

AKS-47:
See AK-47.

AT-4 CS:
An 84mm, one-shot, light antitank rocket designed to operate within closed spaces. Salt water absorbs much of the back blast, so it doesn't fry teammates.

Basij:
Paramilitary militia in Iran who police morals and stop
opposition to the government or Ayatollah. Individual members are called
basiji
. Regular members are unpaid. Active members are volunteers with additional training who are paid. Special members are paid as members of both the Basij and the IRGC army.

Blowout kit:
First-aid kit.

Bouncing Betty:
See M16 mine.

BUD/S:
Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training.

Burqa:
Traditional clothing worn by a number of Muslim women to cover themselves from head to toe.

Civvies:
Civilian clothes.

Claymore mine:
Anti-personnel mine that is sometimes used against unarmored vehicles. Can be fired by remote control or rigged as a booby trap. Mostly used for ambushes and defense of a stationary position. Fired forward like a shotgun, blasting nearly seven hundred steel balls in a sixty-degree arc out to about one hundred meters.

CO:
Commanding Officer.

C-130:
Lockheed C-130 Hercules. Large military plane often used to transport troops.

HAHO:
High altitude, high opening. Parachutist jumps from 25,000 to 35,000 feet and deploys parachute within seconds, then glides miles to the target. Useful tactic for avoiding enemy detection such as radar.

Helo:
Helicopter.

Hezbollah:
Terrorists trained by Iran's Revolutionary Guard. Hezbollah's headquarters is in Lebanon, where they recruit mostly from Shiite Muslims. Hezbollah mainly serves Iranian and Syrian interests to control the region and has received recognition as a political party in Lebanon.

IRGC:
See Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

ISA:
Intelligence Support Activity, nicknamed the Activity. Tier 1 unit that provides intelligence mainly for SEAL Team Six
and Delta. Same as Team Six and Delta, ISA is commanded by JSOC.

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps:
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) serves as Iran's military and squashes internal opposition to the Iranian government or the Ayatollah. Their army, navy, and air force are made up of about 125,000 troops. In addition, they command approximately 90,000 Basij militia.

JSOC:
Joint Special Operations Command, located at Pope Air Force Base and Fort Bragg in North Carolina. After the 1980 failed attempt to rescue fifty-three American hostages at the American Embassy in Iran, it became clear that the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines couldn't work together effectively on Special Operations missions. In 1987, the Department of Defense grafted all the military branches' Special Operations onto one tree—including Tier 1 units like SEAL Team Six and Delta. SEALs, Rangers, and Green Berets are truly special, but only the best make it to the top tier: Team Six and Delta. JSOC is Team Six's boss.

Kit:
Team Six word meaning gear.

Klick:
Military slang for kilometer.

KLS-7.62:
Iranian copy of the Russian AKMS.

Knot:
One knot equals roughly 1.15 miles per hour.

Maghnaeh:
A scarf that conceals the hair and neck.

MBD21:
Madagascar Black Death 21. An advanced strain of Black Death crossbred with pneumonic plague that can be transmitted by fleas, human coughing, or sneezing. MBD21 is immune to antibiotics.

MPT-9KPDW:
The Iranian copy of the German MP5K-PDW short submachine gun.

M16 Mine:
Nicknamed the Bouncing Betty. When an enemy trips the trigger, there is a delay for the enemy to step past the mine before the mine launches into the air about three feet and
explodes, showering shrapnel 360 degrees. After the M16 has been tripped, troops have dived to the ground and avoided the blast of shrapnel.

Niqab:
Veil to cover the face.