SEVENTEEN
H enner ran his fingers over the smooth edge of the phone in his pocket. The urge to check the tracker and ensure the bomb was where it had been five minutes before was strong, but he wasn’t going to succumb to paranoia.
Thank god he’d taken a moment to add a tracker to May’s phone while she slept. He hated going behind her back, but he wasn’t going to argue with the woman about it anymore. He was also determined to get his way on the matter.
It wasn’t really the possibility that the bomb was moved that bothered him as much as the unrelenting prickle of unease he felt about May going into that training without him.
She sat in the passenger seat of the car, her fingers knit in her lap, staring straight ahead at the base they approached. Her profile gave nothing away about her feelings, and she wasn’t talking. That bothered him the most.
The buildings were cold and stark compared to the places they’d visited in the past few days. Hell, even the chemical weapons museum looked more welcoming than this place. Not that a military base was known for being warm. It was supposed to be formidable, intimidating and all business.
Like he felt now.
He stole another glance at May’s face. The bow of her mouth was compressed hard enough to create a line of white around the edge. She knew as well as he did what was at stake.
If she couldn’t pull off this role she was about to play… If Henner got caught sneaking around that hangar…then they were both fucked.
His status as a member of the Blackout team protected him from things like arrest or court martial, but the red tape would be hell for him and May if it came to getting caught, not to mention the bridges she’d burn.
“You sure that you don’t want to turn back?” he asked for the fifth time.
Without looking his way, she nodded. “I got it, AJ. It’s you I’m concerned about.”
He scoffed. “I take that as an insult.”
She swung her head, dark eyes fixed on his face. “You know what I mean.”
His chest tightened. He did know. The things they’d said to each other the previous night changed everything.
They pulled up to the base entrance, rolling to a stop at the checkpoint. The guard took their names, and of course they were on the list.
Simpson had cleared the way for them this time. Henner just hoped things were as simple as they looked on the surface.
They rarely were.
The guard leaned in to take their identification, his expression unreadable. He glanced at their IDs and waved them through. “Welcome back.”
Henner passed through the gates. His gut twisted. He didn’t like this, but they were in the trenches now. They had orders from Con to continue with the plan he and May had devised.
They’d sat up half the night going over and over the steps. The first step was for May to text the major general. What she proposed was the biggest risk they’d taken yet.
She suggested a training on identifying, handling and neutralizing explosives in and around aircraft, along with the safe disarming of missiles. Her request mentioned holding this training in a hangar would be ideal if there was space.
It took a while for Simpson to reply, but he finally responded with: Wonderful. I’ll fix the date and time ASAP.
As soon as May received another text stating the training would take place the next morning, Henner damn near broke a tooth from grinding them. Everything inside him screamed red alert.
But they were halfway there. Getting through this op meant they could move on with their lives…and figure out what came next between them.
In a short time, Chase relayed Con’s orders…then there was no choice but to move forward with the op.
They parked the car and climbed out. He and May met in front of the vehicle. The soft breeze teased at the fine strands of her hair. Henner folded his fingers to keep from reaching out and touching her. Now wasn’t the time nor the place.
“You good?” He pitched his voice low, even though nobody was around at this time of day, all the militia wrapped up in drills and any office personnel locked away in cubicles.
“If you don’t quit asking me questions like that, I’m going to start screaming.”
His lips tipped up at one corner. “That’s the May I know and love.”
She made a small noise in her throat and barely avoided rolling her eyes at him. They approached the entrance and were admitted into the building.
A lieutenant was assigned to show them to the hangar, and they followed him through the building and through an exit at the southwest corner. That spilled onto the field they walked before with Simpson.
As they reached the area where Simpson started getting nervous, Henner and May exchanged a look. He scanned the big hangars perched like concrete insects, gray against the backdrop of pale blue sky layered with wispy clouds.
Nothing gave off an ominous aura, but that didn’t mean darkness wasn’t lurking just beneath the surface. He darted his gaze to the hangar on the far left of the grouping. The location of the bomb.
May arched a brow at him, and he gave her a scant nod of affirmation that the tracker showed this as the location of that crate they followed all the way from a port in Virginia.
A stiff figure appeared from between the structures.
“Here comes Major General Simpson now.” The lieutenant’s voice held a note of respect and maybe a little awe too.
Simpson strode across the small plot of grass to meet them. His uniform was as crisp as ever with not an iron-gray hair out of place beneath the military cap he wore.
“You’re right on time.” He turned to the lieutenant. The man gave the major general a salute and then turned and walked off with a stiff gait that, if Henner had to guess, he was using to mirror his lieutenant’s posture.
His sharp eyes took in May and Henner. “Good to see you both.”
“Thank you for inviting me back to do this training. I hope you won’t mind if my husband sits in on it.”
Henner’s attention zeroed in on Simpson’s face, waiting for a reaction to May’s comment, but the man was composed, inscrutable.
Simpson waved a hand for them to walk with him. “Let’s go. The training begins at 1100.”
Henner’s fingers twitched toward May’s spine, then he thought better of touching her. When she went into business mode, she was totally focused on the task at hand.
He slid his hand into his pocket, running his fingertip along the edge of his phone again. The urge was strong to pull it out and check on that little pin on a map where the bomb was located.
The hangar was massive, a beast of metal and steel. In the front, folding chairs had been arranged in three rows.
“Looks like we’re expecting a good amount of people,” May said conversationally.
Simpson grunted. “Yes, and they’re going to be late if they don’t hurry up.”
May moved into the space, looking around in awe at the industrial interior. He cast another glance at her before following.
Their boots clicked against the concrete and fluorescent overhead lights buzzed. May wandered to the front of the space and faced the empty seats. Henner slid into a chair at the end of the back row.
May and Simpson spoke quietly. She was amazing, pulling off her part without a hitch. The ease with which she spoke to the major general disarmed him enough to make his shoulders relax.
For long minutes, the pair talked…but nobody entered.
“What on earth is keeping my trainees? I know I sent that memo out. They should be filling these seats by now.” Simpson stood at the front, arms folded and legs braced apart. His stance exuded command but his words sounded heavy with an undertone of irritation.
The training was about to begin, and there was no scrape of metal chairs on the concrete mixed or the occasional bark of laughter from one of the recruits.
May continued to chat with the major general.
Henner’s focus was anywhere but on May, though. His phone in his pocket felt like a live wire, zapping with high voltage. As much as he adored May, he couldn’t sit through a training without going crazy with distraction.
His entire reason for coming was to sneak off and find that bomb.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and held it in a concealed way so anyone entering wouldn’t see the map.
The pin was still there, in the same spot.
He needed to check out the hangar, and he needed to do it now.
Shifting in his seat, he finally stood and walked up to the front. May and Simpson turned their attention to him. “Gonna hit the head before we start.”
May barely nodded to acknowledge what he said, keeping a high level of enthusiasm for the topic she was about to teach.
Henner took off in slow strides to the back of the hangar.
He hoped it was his imagination playing tricks on him when he swore he felt a heavy stare on his back. Blackout relied heavily on skill, but an ounce or two of luck didn’t hurt. In this case, he needed some luck to pull this off.
When he reached the back, he caught sight of someone moving toward the restroom from the outside entrance.
Someone familiar.
He’d know that swagger anywhere. He saw it every day of his damn life on the Blackout base and on every mission.
Cobra strolled into the restroom. The door closed quietly behind him before Henner could reach it. When he tugged it open and entered the space, Cobra turned, his lips twisting in greeting.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Con thought it was a good idea to send a couple of us.”
Henner looked around. “Who else is with you?”
“Mason.”
He glanced over Cobra’s attire of cammies—the same everyday dress of every soldier in Fort Leonard Wood.
He quickly sidled up to the urinal. Cobra walked into a stall.
“I hope you’re not actually going to use the restroom.”
His friend snorted. “Just providing some cover so we can form a plan to find the explosive. Flush if someone comes in.”
He fixed his attention on the tile wall in front of him, but he didn’t see anything but that pin on the map.
“Where is Mason anyway?”
“Waiting outside. Is your girlfriend going to be okay in there without you?”
He didn’t bother denying what May was to him. Besides, now wasn’t the time anyway. He was confident that even though Simpson wasn’t who they thought he was, he wouldn’t harm May.
“I didn’t notice you guys when we walked in.”
“You were pretty fixated on the expert of the day.” His amused tone echoed off the walls.
Turning his head, he spoke into the air but addressed his teammate. “Let’s get this out of the way now, man. You’re not giving me shit about May. What’s between us is between us .”
Low laughter projected from behind the stall door. Henner threw out his hearing, listening for any footsteps coming toward the restroom. He heard nothing, not even May’s voice as she spoke to Simpson.
“I’m going to walk out of here and head straight to the hangar,” he told Chase.
“I’ll catch up with you in a minute.” He heard the rolling noise of the toilet paper dispenser and inwardly groaned.
He turned away from the urinal and walked out of the restroom. As he exited, he cast a glance at the training area. From this angle, he couldn’t see the rows of seating, but May’s back was to him.
Her spine was straight but not stiffened with tension. She was okay. He needed to make this quick.
He rushed outside in purposeful strides, headed straight for the crate that had the tracker. When he walked in, he swung his head right and left, ensuring that the place was empty.
Pulling out his phone, he used the map to lead him directly to the location of the crate.
Only once he reached the space, nothing was there. In fact, there wasn’t any cargo at all in the vicinity.
Mason and Cobra appeared out of thin air. “What do you got?” Cobra asked.
“Nothing. It’s not here. Spread out. Look for a wood crate with markings on the side.” He named the approximate dimensions.
“A crate that big can’t be hidden easily. Where the hell could it be?” Cobra was on high alert, and Mason was locked in, with his full focus on the op at hand.
They combed the hangar. When they came up empty-handed, Henner returned to the spot where the tracker showed on his map.
“It has to be—” He cut off. His heart shot into a wild beat. He bent down and swiped the tracker off the floor, close to the wall…exactly where the tracker app showed it to be.
“Fuck! This is bad.” He held up the tag.
Dread struck him square in the chest with a blow that threatened to rock him. He steeled his thighs. “May.”
Cobra and Mason stared back at him. Henner didn’t wait around to get their take on what might be going on. He took off in a dead run back to the hangar where he left May and the major general.
His pulse roared in his ears.
No bomb.
No Major General Simpson.
No May. They were gone.