Cover Me (Elite Force 1)

“Call sign?” She settled into her seat, realizing this was the first time in nearly a week when she’d actually had the luxury—the security—of doing nothing. She could indulge herself in simply getting to know Wade.

“Nicknames,” he said. “Like aviators have. Did you ever see the movie Top Gun?”

“Of course.” Hadn’t everyone? “I’m not that cut off from the world.”

“Call signs are used by military members other than aviators, like say, in a special ops unit.”

“And the PJs, pararescuemen like you, are special ops?”

“Yes, we are, about four hundred of us scattered around the globe at last count.” He nodded simply. “And when we’re in the field on a mission, call signs level the field. They keep ranks from getting in the way in a life-and-death decision moment.”

She’d shut out her memories of her brother’s time in the military so carefully in the need to make his new cover story a reality for her brain. But now, talking to Wade, a few old stories drifted up through that carefully constructed barrier. She hadn’t remembered anything about call signs from Phoenix. He’d spoken more about the loss of control over his day-to-day life. “I thought what the officer said was always the bottom line.”

“In essence that’s correct. But different career fields have different dynamics. In those extreme situations that are a part of a special ops duty, I need to feel free to give my input without stumbling over a multitude of protocols and chains of command. There just isn’t time when you’re tiptoeing through a minefield.”

“Tiptoeing through a minefield?” His words reminded her of the story he’d shared in the cave about his friend Franco parachuting in to save a downed airman as a part of his everyday job. A part of Wade’s everyday job. “You’re freaking me out a little.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Then I guess I’d better hold back on the story about my buddy Walker pulling a NASA astronaut out of a school of sharks after landing.”

She hadn’t thought about the rescue-swimmer aspect of the PJ profession. The frigid waters of the Bering Sea below them took on new dimensions as she envisioned Wade plunging into those depths to save someone he didn’t even know. For the first time, she considered that she’d gotten a fairly skewed view of the military from Phoenix.

Angling closer to Wade, she soaked up details of his job with fascination, with admiration—and with a little envy. What would life had been like if she’d been the one to enlist rather than her brother? Maybe she would be traveling the globe by now, pulling downed astronauts out of the open sea. Plucking stranded climbers from mountains.

Even saving wounded soldiers in the middle of a battlefield.

Wade stretched his booted feet in front of him, linking his hands over his stomach. “There are also more practical reasons for the call signs. We speak over the radio to each other and to towers and command centers. Call signs help disguise our identity, our unit, even our mission.”

She thought back over exchanges she’d heard between him and his friends as they transferred Chewie into McCabe’s care. “And you’re called Brick.”

“As in brick or rock, for Rocha.”

“And?” She leaned forward, sensing a bit more than he was sharing. “Isn’t there usually a story to go with a call sign?”

“Top Gun has given you a wealth of knowledge about our world, I see.” He tapped his temple. “I’m a rock head, thickheaded as a brick, immovable once I’ve set my mind to something.”

“I would say that sums you up about right.”

While some might find stubbornness a negative trait, she saw how he’d channeled that into a determination that saved lives. A loyalty to his team and his uniform. Admirable.

And a serious problem once he learned about her brother, because she just couldn’t see Wade understanding the choices her brother had made. Would he consider her whole family guilty as well because of their silence?

Her own sense of honor demanded she tell Wade the truth. The whole truth. She owed him the chance to turn back if he chose, because as much as she needed his help, she couldn’t trick him.

She would have to trust her gut to know when the time was right to tell him everything. But she also knew that time would have to come soon. “What about your friends?”

“Hugh Franco, the big lug of a guy who sewed me up on the helicopter. We call him Slow Hand, because he plays the guitar and he’s a bit of a player in other arenas as well.”

“And why is Major McCabe called Walker?”

“He used to be an army ranger before he became a PJ. So we called him Walker, Texas Ranger, like the old television show, and it became shortened to Walker. He also does a great Chuck Norris impression. But please, don’t ask him about his jokes or you’ll get the whole stand-up routine.”

“A guy with a sense of humor.” Especially after a day spent working in a school of sharks. She reached for his hand. “I’ll bet that comes in handy sometimes.”

He linked fingers with her, but the walls stayed up in his eyes. “Insightful comment. Yes.”

“What about the other guys?” She strengthened her grip. Such a simple pleasure to hold hands. Yet somehow this felt more intimate than anything they’d shared. Her stomach lurched again even though the plane continued to power smoothly through the darkening sky.

“You want to know about them all? We could be here a while.”