She looked away, wiping at her cheeks.
Dutch put his hands on Malin’s shoulders. “I know you’re not ready to tell me what your theory is, or how you, Ranger, and Diesel were connected to someone at DHS, but I want you to know that I’ve got your back no matter what.”
“I appreciate it, Dutch. I really do.”
“He was important to you,” he said, wiping at her tears, trying not to focus on the hurt he felt, knowing that another man meant this much to her, when she was the one in pain over someone she obviously cared deeply for.
“It’s…my…fault.”
“Whoa, whoa. Don’t go there, Malin. If anything, he was the one who put you in danger, not the other way around.”
She shook her head, crying harder now.
“Did you ask him to share the information with you?”
“No, but…”
“There isn’t any reason for you to take responsibility for his death. None.”
At least now it was obvious why she only went so far with what she was willing to tell him, and then abruptly stopped. Malin believed that the guy at DHS died in order to bring what he’d stumbled on to light.
She was protecting him, and he didn’t need her to; Dutch wanted to be the one doing the protecting.
Malin went back to looking at something on her computer, and suddenly, her head snapped up.
“Who gave the mission to Striker to go in and get Tackle and Halo out of Somalia?”
“It was an agency job—”
“Exactly. And who was assigned to go along?”
“Word was Ranger and Diesel volunteered.”
“Has that been confirmed?”
Dutch didn’t know; there wouldn’t have been any reason to doubt what Striker’s contact at the agency told him. Had they been trying to kill them all with one stone? If so, he and Mantis might very well have been collateral damage if they’d succeeded.
“Tell me about it,” Malin asked.
“Striker got the call on Thanksgiving Day,” he began. “Several of the K19 partners were at Razor and Gunner’s duplex in California.”
Dutch had been there with Alegria. Mantis had been there too, although Dutch hadn’t expected him to be, and when they arrived and Mantis saw them, it was clear he’d been kept in the dark too.
“Mantis was the only pilot there, other than Alegria, who wasn’t cleared to fly.”
“He had no choice,” murmured Malin.
“He would’ve volunteered anyway. That’s just who Mantis is.”
Malin nodded. “How did you get involved?”
“By Christmas, the news wasn’t good. Mantis and Striker had both been out of contact long enough that Doc thought it warranted sending a team in to look for them.” Dutch had been first to volunteer followed by Onyx.
“We found Striker and the other two almost right away, but he and Mantis had separated at one point. My contacts in Mogadishu said there was chatter that another group of Somalis had him.”
While Onyx piloted the other three men back to the States, Dutch went after Mantis, found him, and brought him home too.
“The whole thing had been an enormous Charlie Foxtrot, or so it appeared at the time. Now it seems as though it may have been closer to a carefully executed plan.”