tomorrow morning and I get myself some real pants...? I’m keeping ’em. You’re not getting ’em back. They are now mine, forever.”
She laughed at that. Exactly as he knew she would.
And her laughter was exactly what they both needed to push their pace just a little bit harder.
Coronado was on lockdown.
Rio had never seen the kind of security that was buzzing around every entrance to the base.
Well, he’d seen it. He’d just never seen it here, in CONUS—the continental United States—before.
Generators were running, so there was power. But just a few blocks away from the base, the traffic lights were out.
There wasn’t a special lane for military personnel—anyone going onto the base was going through the full check, which included both explosive-sniffing dogs and a mirrored device that allowed the guards to confirm there wasn’t a bomb in Gertie’s elderly undercarriage.
It seemed to take forever, but Rio was finally cleared and through the gate, and heading toward the SpecWar building where Team Ten lived.
Senior Chief Harvard Becker was out in the parking lot—his truck had been just a few vehicles in front of Gert. Mike Lee—one of Rio’s besties from BUD/S, now a lieutenant junior grade—and Dave Patterson had just arrived, too, coming in from another gate.
“You know what’s going on, Lieutenant?” Harvard asked Mike before Rio could ask the senior chief—usually all-knowing—the very same question.
“Not a clue.” Mike shook his head, looking from Rio to Dave. “Cell service is down—I can’t even text. Anyone get onto social media?”
Rio shook his head, and it was a big fat no from Dave, too.
Whatever this was, it was definitely bad—that much was clear.
There was a crowd in front of the elevators, so they took the stairs, double-time, up toward Team Ten’s CO’s office.
Captain Joe Catalanotto was already out in the hall, decked out in camo instead of his usual summer whites. He was on the move toward the command center.
“Good, Senior, you’re here,” the CO barked as he saw Harvard emerging from the door to the stairwell. “I need two SEALs to report to Admiral Francisco, on the double. Tasha and Lieutenant King never arrived at the Ustanzian compound and—”
“I’ll go.” Rio and Mike spoke at the same time. If Thomas King was in trouble...
But the Captain shook his head. “No, I need my officers, the entire world’s on fire,” he said. “Lieutenant Lee, you’re with me. Senior, catch up ASAP.”
Rio realized in that moment that the CO’s no didn’t apply to him, so he quickly turned to the senior to plead his case. “If Thomas King is missing,” he started.
But Harvard didn’t need to hear it. “You and Mike know him better than anyone,” he said, already on board. “You’re it. Dave, you’re with Rio. See what the admiral needs.”
Chapter Seven
“I’m trying not to think about ticks,” Tasha admitted. “Or spiders.”
“That’s smart,” Thomas’s voice was quiet in the darkness.
“You weren’t kidding when you said it would get dark fast out here.”
“Yeah, I’m just dressed like a clown.” His voice floated back to her from where he was tending the smoldering remains of the small pit fire he’d lit—easily, thanks to Tasha—or rather thanks to the lighter she carried in her jacket pocket. He’d put the flames out when the daylight first started to fade, telling her that he didn’t want whoever might be following them to see the glow in the darkness.
But that fire had crackled merrily away for a while, and had done the trick both to dry their damp clothes and to warm the hide—which was what Thomas called the little lean-to of branches and forest debris that they’d half-dug, half-built into the hillside.
As Tash had helped him as best she could, considering her hands were still cuffed, he’d explained that the only reason he was building a fire was because of the smoke that was already hanging heavily in the air.
The current low-hanging cloud cover was keeping the smoke from escaping, Thomas had continued in his narrate-a-nature-video tone. Normally, in clear conditions, smoke from even a small fire like this one would be the equivalent of a neon sign announcing We are here! and Come and get us! But with the amount of smoke both from the exploded SUV and whatever else was burning already hanging in the air, their smoke wouldn’t stand out.
The sun hadn’t seemed close to setting when Thomas had first announced that there was no way they’d be able to hike all the way to the Ustanzian compound tonight, and that they’d need to