Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
By the time Zenko walked into the tactical operations command center the following morning, he had already been awake for hours.
Sleep had been harder to find than it should have been, and having Shaun curled against him had done nothing to settle his mind.
He had showered, dressed, checked the overnight reports, and made his way across the compound before finally admitting that pacing the corridors wasn’t going to get him any answers.
Max was already at his station, Noble stood near the main display with his arms folded across his chest, and neither man looked particularly pleased to see him.
Zenko stopped just inside the room, took one look at Noble’s expression and knew whatever they had found overnight wasn’t going to be good.
“You don’t have a plan, do you?” Zenko asked.
Sitting still wasn’t an option when he was this damn pissed.
Thank Christ the tactical operations command center was big enough to give him room to pace, because every time he stopped moving, the questions started crowding back in.
He knew this kind of investigation took time, but patience had never been his strong suit, especially now, when Shaun was at the center of it.
He wanted answers, and he wanted them yesterday.
“I’m not worried about a plan right now,” Noble answered.
Zenko stopped pacing and looked at him. Something in Noble’s expression tightened the knot already sitting in his gut, and Zenko knew there was more coming. “What?”
“We can’t find any evidence that Shaun was taken from that fuel run he was on.” Noble ran his hands over his shorn head and linked them at the back of his neck. “Zen, we have scoured every bit of footage we can find. His truck made it all the way back to Al Asad Air Base from Baghdad.”
“There has to be something somewhere, because if he was taken before that truck returned, someone else drove it onto the base.” Zenko stopped pacing.
“People don’t pull shit like that on a US military installation without leaving something behind.
A witness, footage, or some kind of fucking mistake. There has to be something.”
“We can’t find it.” Max spun his chair around to face him. “I’ve pulled every camera feed and all the drone footage we have from the route Shaun took. His truck returned to the base, Zen. Every piece of footage we’ve found makes it look like he returned with it.”
“Makes it look like,” Zenko repeated. That was a hell of a lot different from proving Shaun had been behind the wheel. “If Shaun says he was taken before that truck returned to the base, then he was.”
“Well, I need more than ‘because he said so’ to take to JSOC,” Noble told them.
“Keep looking is all we can do.” He sighed.
“We can’t find any evidence of it. There is nothing in the MP logs and no record of him ever requesting to speak to base command.
My hands are tied, Zen. I don’t like this any more than you do. ”
“FUCK.” Zenko spun away, every muscle in his body wound so fucking tight he needed to hit something before he lost his shit completely.
Shaun had told the MPs what he’d overheard.
He’d spoken to base command. If there was no record of either conversation, then someone had made damn sure those records disappeared.
A hand landed on his back, and Zenko swung around on instinct, already reaching for the throat of whoever had touched him. Noble caught his wrists before his hands made contact.
“Jesus, Zen.” Noble pushed his wrists away and took a step back. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this fucking worked up. You’re usually the asshole with ice water flowing through his veins no matter how pissed you get.”
He studied Zenko for another second.
“You and I are going to the training room.” Noble held up a hand before Zenko could argue. “That’s an order. Max will keep looking.”
“I’m checking whether someone duplicated footage from another day or spliced different feeds together,” Max told them. “But, Zen, if they did, whoever put this together is good. Very fucking good.”
Some of the pressure in Zenko’s chest eased.
That made a hell of a lot more sense than Shaun lying to them.
Someone had already managed to wipe his conversations with the MPs and base command out of existence.
Faking the footage would mean the problem went deeper than any of them had realized, but at least it gave them somewhere to fucking look.
“Thanks, Max.”
Zenko turned toward the door, only for Noble to catch him by the back of the collar before he made it more than two steps.
“Ten minutes in the sparring ring, Zen.” Noble gave his collar a tug before releasing him. “Don’t make me come looking for you.”
“Whatever.” Zenko shrugged his shirt back into place and pushed through the doors into the blazing heat of the Turkish sun. It was too damn hot to be sparring with that asshole, but Noble clearly thought beating the shit out of each other might stop him from doing it to someone else.
Fine. Like the good former Chief Petty Officer he was, he’d follow orders and get his ass to the sparring ring.
“Wait.” Noble’s voice stopped him before the door closed completely behind him. “Give us a second, Zen.”
Zenko caught the door before it shut and looked back into the command center. Noble had moved closer to Max’s station and lowered his voice, apparently forgetting Zenko was still standing close enough to hear every fucking word.
“Do a more intensive search into Shaun, Max.” Noble braced one hand against the edge of Max’s station. “Everything we haven’t already looked at.”
“Into Shaun?” Max looked up from the screens, his eyes widening. “You think Zenko’s wrong about him?”
“I don’t know, and that’s why I need you to check.” Noble glanced toward the open door before looking back at Max. “Right now, Zenko’s so twisted up over this guy that he wouldn’t be able to find anything but his dick with his left hand, and only then if we gave him a fucking map.”
“Fuck you too, Boss.” Zenko leaned against the doorframe and folded his arms across his chest.
Noble flipped him off without looking around. “You know I’m right.”
The annoying bastard was right about one thing.
Zenko was too close to Shaun to be objective anymore, and Noble would check every fucking angle until he knew exactly what they were dealing with.
If their positions were reversed, Zenko would do the same damn thing.
He still didn’t like the idea of Max digging through Shaun’s life looking for something that would prove he was lying, but Noble wasn’t accusing Shaun of anything yet.
He was doing his job, and Zenko trusted him to do it.
That didn’t mean he had to fucking like it.
“I’ll dig deeper.” Max looked directly at Zenko. “Everything. If Shaun has something hiding in the shadows, I’ll find it.”
“He doesn’t.” Zenko didn’t have to think about the answer.
“Then I won’t find anything.” Max turned back to his screens. “Either way, we’ll know.”
“And if there is something hinky hiding in there, I want to know about it before it blows up in our faces.” Noble jerked his chin toward the door. “Now get your ass to the training room before I decide a twenty-mile run sounds better.”
Zenko muttered several suggestions about what Noble could do with his twenty-mile run idea as he finally let the door close behind him.
He understood why Noble had ordered the deeper search, and standing there arguing about it wasn’t going to change a damn thing.
Noble was responsible for every man on Red Squadron, and Zenko had already made it perfectly fucking clear that Shaun wasn’t some random guy they could walk away from when this was over.
Whatever Max found, they would deal with it. Zenko already knew where he stood.
By the time Noble joined him, Zenko had taped his hands and managed to work himself right back into the same shitty mood he’d been in when he left the command center.
He watched Noble step through the ropes and drop a towel in one corner.
They rarely sparred anymore because they were too evenly matched, but sometimes there was nothing more satisfying than punching your boss in the nose and calling it sparring.
He had known Noble long enough to be fairly certain the asshole felt exactly the same way.
Right now, though, he was pissed enough that he needed to get his temper under control before Noble handed him his ass in the next five minutes.
Zenko held out one taped hand and crooked his fingers, inviting Noble to bring it. “Let’s get this show on the road, Boss. You wanted to spar, so what are you waiting for?”
“You to quit acting like a whiny-ass girl.” Noble brought his taped hands up and tested him with a couple of quick feints. “Let’s see if that temper has made you fucking stupid as well as irrational.”
“Come find out.” Zenko raised his hands and settled his weight, ready for Noble to make the first move.
Noble pivoted, his roundhouse catching Zenko hard enough to send him stumbling backward into the ropes.
Zenko bounced forward off the ropes, rolled his shoulders, and began circling again, with Noble mirroring his movements from the other side of the ring.
The growing noise beyond the ropes finally registered, and he caught enough of the comments to realize a crowd had gathered and the assholes were placing bets on the outcome.
He ignored them and kept his attention fixed on Noble, waiting for the bastard to give him an opening.
When Noble shifted his weight, Zenko lashed out with a foot and caught him behind the knee, following the kick with a punch to the kidneys that sent the bigger man down with a solid thump and made the entire ring shake.
“Fucker.” Noble caught Zenko by the ankle and yanked. Zenko hit the mat beside him hard enough to make the ring shudder again, and before he could wrench his leg free, Noble had an arm around his neck and was hauling him upward, trying to lock him into a hold.