Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Noble swore to himself as he fought with the slipping clutch on the old Jeep.
Only the fucking CIA would consider this heap of junk metal a suitable vehicle for a mission.
If this was what he was relying on to get his team to an extraction point, then they might as well just throw in the towel right now.
“Useless piece of shit doesn’t even have a fucking door.”
“You are getting soft, Boss,” Saxon grunted as he slapped his hand onto the metal frame where the door should be as the Jeep lurched at speed down the track toward the ruins where they had set up tactical command. “You used to enjoy this shit.”
“It’s a fucking heap of crap, Sax, and you know it,” Noble grumbled.
The revving engine made him grit his teeth in frustration as he pushed the gear shift back into place, using the force of his hand to hold it there.
“I only have two fucking hands; what the fuck am I supposed to do if I need to use a fucking weapon? Next time someone forgets to pack the MREs, you all can fucking starve.”
He geared down to make the turn into the ruins and drove past the Black Hawk sitting in the middle of the courtyard before he pulled to a stop behind the two vehicles Max and Roman had commandeered to set up their surveillance equipment.
Jumping out of the Jeep, he considered kicking the damn thing but couldn’t justify the appearance of loss of control it would show to his team.
He completely ignored the raised eyebrows and cautious looks that the other two men exchanged.
“You bring the food,” he ordered Saxon instead.
Saxon grinned as he climbed out after him. “Yes, sir.”
“Good.” He turned his attention toward the makeshift TOC. “So, where are they?” Even after all these years of working together, it always amazed him that Max was able to set up a tactical command center anywhere, even in the trunk of a junked-out old SUV.
Laptops and screens showed maps and blinking locator lights just on a smaller scale than what they would have had on their main TOC wall in Turkey.
He refused to allow the ball of fury that rumbled in his stomach to enrage him at the thoughts of their blown home base.
Nope, if he went there, he would explode and again show a lack of control.
That wouldn’t be a good thing, as it would show he was no longer fit to command Red Squadron, and he’d be damned if he would allow someone else to decide he was fucking too old to run his team.
That Max had continued clicking through screens and was listening intently to his headset told him that they were at a critical point on the infiltration.
He knew that look, even if nobody else in Red Squadron would have noticed anything different.
Max could make calm look effortless when he was working, but Noble had spent too many years watching him to be fooled by it.
The slight tightening around his mouth, the way his fingers moved a little faster over the keyboard, and the brief pause whenever a piece of information didn’t fit what he was seeing were all tells and Noble knew every one because he had learned them long before either of them had become particularly good at pretending they didn’t know each other quite so well.
Thankfully, none of the others had mastered being able to read his mind as well as Zenko could.
Finally, he saw Max shift one of the earpieces off to one side and turn his head slightly. Noble took that as the opening to repeat his question.
“Where are they?” He stepped closer as he asked, automatically looking at the screen Max had been watching.
There was something about standing beside Max while he worked that had always settled him.
After so many years of loving this man, there was a rhythm that neither of them had to think about anymore, and Noble knew from the angle of Max’s head which screen had his attention before he even looked at it.
He knew when Max had already found the answer to a question and was waiting for him to ask it, just as Max knew when Noble was about to start checking something for the fourth or fifth time.
“The mini-sub just dropped them off in the Persian Gulf approximately five klicks from the target location,” Max told him. “Comms are good, and tracking is good.” Max gave the same casual shrug he used whenever he didn’t want the rest of the team seeing how closely he was watching something.
Noble reached over and nudged the empty coffee cup away from Max’s keyboard before he knocked it over again. “You’re doing it.”
Max glanced at him. “Doing what?”
“That thing with your mouth.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you don’t.” Noble picked up the coffee cup and tossed it toward the trash can. It hit the rim, bounced off and landed on the floor. Max looked at it, then at Noble.
“Excellent shot, Eagle.”
“Fuck you, Cupid.”
“Later.”
Noble stopped. He should have let that one go, especially with Roman working a few feet away and Saxon hauling the food in from the Jeep, but Max had already turned back to his screens like he hadn’t deliberately thrown the challenge out there.
He stepped in beside him and leaned down until his mouth was close to Max’s ear. “You making promises you intend to keep?”
Max turned his head, and the answer Noble was waiting for never came. His gaze dropped instead, settling on Noble’s mouth long enough to send a slow burn of heat through him before those dark eyes lifted again.
There it was. This many years of loving each other, and Max could still look at him like that and make him forget what he had been about to say.
Max’s hand lifted from the keyboard, disappearing into the narrow space between their bodies before his fingers caught the lower edge of Noble’s vest. He gave the material a small tug that brought Noble a fraction closer, while from anywhere else in the courtyard it would have looked as though their commander was getting an update from the man running TOC.
“Always,” Max murmured.
Noble felt the smile pulling at his mouth as Max’s gaze dropped to it again.
Fuck, he wanted to kiss him. He wanted to close that last couple of inches and take the kiss Max was very clearly thinking about too, but that had never been them in front of the team.
Instead, he lowered his head another fraction, letting Max have the closeness without giving either of them enough to forget where they were.
“Stromboli.”
Max’s fingers tightened against his vest. “Home.”
Something in his chest eased at that single word.
He let his hand drop between them, hidden by their bodies and the equipment, and brushed his fingers across the back of Max’s hand where it still rested against his vest. Max loosened his grip long enough to catch his fingers, holding them for one brief second before letting him go.
Nobody around them would have seen a damn thing, and Noble preferred it that way. This belonged to them.
He straightened, and Max turned back to the tracking screen, both of them slipping easily back into the roles the mission demanded.
The heat was still there, tucked beneath everything else, along with the promise waiting for them when this was over.
Noble gave the moving signals on the screen one last look.
“Let me know when they are within a klick of target.”
He took the slight nod of Max’s head as agreement and turned to do an unnecessary double-check on the exfil plans that he knew Drax, Reese, and Castiel had worked up.
The plans were solid, every contingency accounted for as far as any of them could account for shit once boots hit the ground, but Noble had never been particularly good at sitting on his ass while his people were out there risking theirs.
He opened the folder on the table and went back through the primary exfil route.
He had already gone through the damn thing twice and knew Drax would have his balls if he found out Noble was second-guessing work he’d spent hours putting together. That didn’t stop him from checking the alternate route before turning to the emergency extraction contingencies.
Behind him, keys clicked beneath Max’s fingers while Roman moved between the surveillance equipment, and Saxon was doing something with the food he’d hauled in from the Jeep.
Normal sounds. Normal pre-mission bullshit, yet Noble kept his eyes on the folder and listened for the one sound that mattered: Max’s voice telling him Zenko and Shaun had reached that one-klick mark.
* * *
Zenko checked the GPS location on his dive watch and signaled to Shaun. The ocean floor was close enough that even through the murky water he could make it out beneath them, and he knew he could touch it if he reached down with his hand.
Out of the corner of his eye, Zenko caught Shaun’s acknowledgment of his signal before they dropped their feet to the sea floor, remaining in a crouch to keep themselves below the surface.
They rose only far enough to peer out of the water and scan the remote beach for any hint of movement.
The water filtration unit that was their target stood a couple of yards to their three o’clock, its massive PVC piping extending from the building and disappearing beneath the water farther out to sea.
They moved out of the ocean, and once their rifles cleared the surface, Zenko partially retracted the bolt on his weapon to allow any water accumulated in the barrel to drain away.
Beside him, Shaun did the same. Some people used muzzle covers, but he had always found them to be more of a hindrance than a help.
He kept his attention on the beach as the water streamed from his gear.
“TOC, this is Ambra One, do you copy?”