Nothing Special V (Nothing Special 5)

Steele turned away from the window, looking at the only man who’d managed to get his hands on more than generic personal information about his life prior to joining the Oakland Police Department. The guy wasn’t rattling off the obvious; he was giving his bosses what they asked for… something they didn’t already know. Tech had a binder-clipped stack of about hundred pieces of paper in his hand and stood boldly in front of him reading his rap sheet. Was this the guy’s way of getting back at him for embarrassing him? If so, it was rather cute and flattering that the sexy detective had done a little hacking on his behalf. Steele widened his stance and shrugged. So they’d know a tad more about him than he usually divulged but, que sera. They’d never get what they were actually after… what they really wanted to know.

Tech continued when he found what he was looking for. His dark pupils moving rapidly over the text he read. “Last living relative – in the States, anyway – is Rasmus Steele. Atlanta Councilman Rasmus Steele.”

“Well, at least we know who pulled the strings now,” God growled. “You’re Councilman Steele’s son?”

Steele slowly shook his head back and forth. “Vennapoeg. Nephew. Rasmus was my father’s twin. He asked me to come here after my partner was killed.”

They waited a second for him to keep going, but when they realized he wasn’t offering up anything else, Tech went back to reading. Finding out his uncle was a councilman should’ve been a piece of cake.

“Did a ton of black ops missions. Fourteen of them he headed up, until…” Tech stopped and Steele assumed he was stopped by all the black Sharpie that had to be all over those documents, but he kept reading. “There’re a lot of initials and codes I don’t understand, but it was a mission to recover a General Robert Belle. Led by Col. Steele, the Fifth Marine Regiment, nicknamed the Fearless Five, was ambushed—”

“How the fuck did you get that?” Steele’s smile fell like a deflated balloon. The cocky smirk long gone. No one, absolutely no one, should have that name. The general’s or his battalion’s. That was a black ops mission ordered directly by the Secretary of Defense. A general with top-level clearance and infinite knowledge of a new US base being built in Baghran had been captured and taken to be tortured for the information. The Fearless Five was a myth to most. His team were ghosts… he was the ghost. This wasn’t possible. The hacker shit was no longer cute, right now he felt like Tech was a terrorist with classified information and Steele’s hands began to clench at his sides as his pulse raced. Who the fuck was this man? Who sent him?

“Steele,” he heard someone say, but he wasn’t sure who.

Tech kept reading off the details of the worst days of his life. For thirty-six hours, they’d held those fuckers off. Took out as many as they could before… Steele’s head jerked as he tried to forcefully yank his mind back from that night.

“Steele.”

Tech’s head was down in the document – oblivious to Steele’s reaction – like he was reading the most interesting manuscript of his life. But this wasn’t the next Stephen King thriller… this was war. “There’s a lot of terminology I don’t know, but there’s mention of a suicide bomber and a regiment of sixty or more rebel insurgents.”

Steele just barely held in the growl that wanted to burst from his chest. He flicked his eyes up at the detective. He needed to stop immediately. Needed to stop talking.

“Tech, that’s enough.”

Steele cut his eyes over to Syn, to his sergeant. Stop him. He tried to convey with his eyes, because if he opened his mouth at the moment he was going to roar his rage and react. This man had broken the law, didn’t matter if he was a cop or not. He tried to keep a lid on his anger. Focused to remember where he was.

“Oh,” the young man blurted. “Here’s why he got the Medal. He killed over thirty of them and pulled the general and two of his men to safety. But… oh… but three members of his team were killed. Marks… Ramiraz….”

“Tech, no,” God hissed, but it was too late.

“And Ackerm—”

A jolt hit Steele’s chest at the first syllable of Ackerman’s name. No one in that room could move fast enough to keep him away from Tech. Before the smaller detective could finish the last syllable of his best friend’s name, Steele snapped his hand out and grabbed the documents, slinging them into the air at the same time he moved into Tech’s body and wrapped both his arms up in a clutch that was not only impossible to get out of but exceptionally painful. The man yelled out, his brown eyes blown and shining with fear. Both his narrow arms were hyperextended at the elbow, with one upward thrust Steele could snap both ulna bones at the same time.