Mantis (K19 Security Solutions 4)

Equally painful was the way she and Dutch had parted ways before he left for Somalia. There hadn’t been enough time for her to tell him how sorry she was, or to assure him that she did love him.

He’d parked the car in the Annapolis driveway of his teammate’s mother’s house, where the K19 partners were gathering for the holiday. He walked around the car and opened her door, but when she’d walked toward the house, he didn’t follow.

“Aren’t you coming inside?” she’d asked.

“Just to bring your bag in.”

She’d walked back to him and rested her hand on his heart, wishing things could be different. “Be safe,” she’d murmured, brushing his lips with hers.

“Is that for me or him?” he’d asked, the edge in his voice startling he

r.

“Both of you,” she’d told him.

“I love you so much,” he’d said, holding her close.

As much as she wanted to say the words back to him, she hadn’t been able to.

Now, all she wanted to do was hear his voice. Whether he told her he loved her or only that he was safe, didn’t matter.

“Still nothing?” she asked Onyx, who shook his head.

Alegria had a bad feeling about what should have been a routine extraction for the team Dutch led. Instead of hearing that the op was complete, they weren’t hearing anything.

Chapter 3

Dutch

Something wasn’t right with Mantis. Dutch had felt the shift when his friend first got back from Afghanistan, but then all hell broke loose for the entire K19 team, and there was no time for anyone to think beyond the mission at hand.

That op had ended with Alegria getting shot, and then the incident in the hospital between the three of them. After that, Mantis had closed himself off to Dutch completely.

At first his friend’s anger made sense, but the more Dutch thought about it, the more he realized there was something far worse wrong.

Beneath the bravado of his being pissed about Dutch and Alegria, sat an apathy that Dutch had never seen in Mantis before. Since they met on In-Processing Day at the Air Force Academy, Mantis had had a fire in him like Dutch had never seen.

His drive to serve his country, to combat terrorism and other evil in the world, was unwavering. He was intransigently steadfast in what he believed was right and wrong. There had never been gray with Mantis; everything had always been black or white.

Thinking back on it, Dutch hadn’t seen anything remotely close to conviction in Mantis since he returned from an op that should’ve been the crowning achievement of his life’s work.

Few knew or ever would that Mantis had singlehandedly taken out Bagish Safi. While many believed Dadvar Safi was the mastermind behind the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, most in the intelligence community agreed that Dadvar’s brother Bagish was the one truly responsible for taking the idea to Osama bin Laden in the first place.

Dutch knew an opportunity like this, being alone with his friend for an entire three-hour drive, would likely never present itself again.

Mantis’ kidnapping by the Somali pirates had left him vulnerable, which Dutch knew he shouldn’t exploit, but he had to. If he didn’t try to get Mantis to talk to him now, he never would.

Chapter 4

Mantis and Alegria

Mantis woke when he felt the SUV come to a stop. He sat up, looked around, and saw they were still in the middle of nowhere.

“What’s up?” he asked Dutch, who was looking out the driver’s side window.

“We need to talk.”

Mantis turned his head away. “No, we don’t.”