His swim buddy's forearm slammed down against his throat. "Don't make me knock you out. Listen to the Major."
Sweat trickled along the streaked face above, dripped down. Splatted on him.
"No matter who that is," Korba continued, "there's not a damned thing you can do. You're too far out. You'll just get yourself killed. Your buddy, too. Do you hear me? And if it's not her, you'll have killed her by going in. If it is her, there's nothing you can do. The other hostages will die and no one will pay because with advance warning, they'll scatter before we can get there. We gotta make them pay and keep them from doing this to anyone else."
Slowly, reason trickled through his rage one drop at a time like the sweat streaming off Carlos's face. Blake forced his tensed muscles to ease. Even as his breathing regulated, his vision narrowed, returning him to the caves of Afghanistan. The bowels of Baghdad. No light at the end of the tunnel. Just cobwebs and a goal.
Make them pay. His rules. His game. Quitting was not an option.
Time to quit for the day, except Monica couldn't shake nerves enough to sleep.
Walking the halls likely wouldn't help, but at least she might eventually exhaust herself. She would rather talk to Jack, sink into one of his foot rubs while she tried to figure out what set him so on edge. They hadn't shared a moment alone since his flight last night, and now he was finishing up his shift in the command center.
Her feet carried her down the stairs to the first floor. Given the low hum of music swelling from the end of the corridor, apparently someone else couldn't sleep, either. Their schedules were all turned around with the time change compounded by night flights.
She followed the music, rock songs, tunes about fifteen years younger than her thirty-four years, but a welcome slice of America so far from home. Maybe that was the reason portable CD players seemed to be standard issue for soldiers these days with more time spent overseas on cots than in their own beds.
Rounding a corner, she moved closer to the luggage return terminal housing the Rangers. The music increased until it boomed to party level.
What should have seemed incongruous with the gravity of their mission somehow felt right. Life asserting itself as the boys let off steam. Like with Crusty's calls home to his family.
Sydney of all people would approve. No matter how down things got at home growing up, Sydney always smiled, danced through mud puddles, insisted everything would work out so why waste life worrying. Please God, don't let this place have crushed that out of her.
In honor of her sister, Monica walked forward as if being a little like Sydney tonight might bolster her sister somewhere else.
The open archway revealed the high-ceilinged room pulsing with noise. Santuci perched on the luggage return belt, using it like a disc jockey dais. A small boom box rigged into the ancient, crackling P.A. system blasted Foo Fighters. Stripped down to only his BDU pants and a concert T-shirt, Santuci was jotting requests on a notepad.
Others danced, some stretched out and read. A few even slept, the reverberation of music nothing compared to the concussion of combat.
Leaning against the archway, she watched, listened, losing track of time until a shadow stretched past her. Jack. She smiled over her shoulder.
He didn't smile back, simply moved across from her to lean against the opposing side of the archway. "I told you when we left Nevada I wanted you to stick close whenever we can. This place isn't safe."
She frowned, studied him, the stress lines fanning from the corners of his dark eyes. His "shitty mood" after the night flight had increased to something darker, intense and so unlike the easygoing lover she'd come to know the past months.
Scowling, he reached down to check the BlackBerry—wireless handheld e-mailer—attached to his web belt.
"Jack? Everything okay?"
He dropped the handheld back in place, then twisted open a water bottle. "Just finishing up my shift in the command center."
"And everything went all right?" she repeated. Was he dodging her question? "Is there any news I should know about?"
"No messages. Nothing to tell you. Everything's on schedule." He braced a boot behind him, tilting back his bottle, effectively ending conversation for a few seconds at least.
"I thought for sure you'd be over there with Santuci ordering some Elvis tunes."
He grunted, drank again. A hungry glint overlaid the edginess with a new intent she recognized well. Sultry tension pulsed from him much like after a dangerous flight when he needed the ultimate physical release. Sex.
Her mouth dried right up as too many memories bombarded her. She snatched the water bottle from him and moistened her lips, the rim still warm from him.
Uh-oh. She rolled the bottle between her palms and searched for safer ground. "Sydney would like this. She always loved music, even as a kid. Music played and her feet would start moving. She never cared who was watching." Monica passed back his water. "You have that same comfortable-in-your-skin air. I envy you both that."
"You do okay. It's tough to hold your own in a squadron of crew dogs, but you fit. Hell, they even gave you your own call sign. Not all flight docs get 'em."
The heat in his eyes combined with his compliment warmed her insides into soft chocolate. "You've never told me how you got your call sign."
He drank again, studying her over the bottle, visibly reining himself in. What churned in his head? And could she handle this darker Jack, anyway, when they barely survived in his easygoing days?