Chapter 3
3
Bubbles floated up as Petty Officer Navy Diver First Class Sadie Tompkins looked closely at the blades of the USS David E. McClintock , a guided-missile destroyer her team dive locker located at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii was servicing. She was currently part of Mobile Diving Salvage Unit One or MDSU-1, pronounced “mudsue.”
“Green diver to Topside, our task is to clean the blades?” she asked, peering at the metal through the clear panel of her yellow helmet. All of her dive equipment was engineered to be as lightweight as possible, but the MK 21 helmet, constructed out of a fiberglass and carbon fiber reinforced shell, weighed the most at twenty-seven pounds. It was fitted with an umbilical cord that supplied all her gas mix, oxygen, and nitrogen, along with her voice-activated communication.
“Affirmative, Green diver. Just a spit and shine.” Divers were designated by colors. Red was the supervisor, green was a subordinate with experience, and yellow was wet-behind-the-ears newbie.
“I think we have more of a problem, Topside.” The continuous sound of her breathing sounded through her helmet. “There are cracks in the prairie air channel of one of the blades.” Prairie was an acronym for propeller air-induced emission, fitted either near to or on the ship’s propellers, allowing compressed air to pump through small holes in the edge of the propeller. The channel part was the masker portion of the system, designed to sound like softly falling rain on the surface of the sea to trick enemy ships’ sonars. On closer inspection, she could see that the blade had been cleaned so many times, it had exposed the weld. That’s where the cracks were the most severe. “We need a deeper inspection, and I would suggest removing some of the blades to make sure the ones beneath aren’t also compromised.”
As a Navy diver, she performed so many different tasks and felt pride in being part of the premier diving and salvage force, prepared to rapidly deploy combat-ready, expeditionary warfare-capable, specialized dive teams to conduct harbor and waterway clearance, underwater repairs, and salvage operations in all environments. When she completed Second Class Dive School, she went to her fleet training. She was at the tail end of her three-year assignment with MDSU-1 and was anticipating her next command transfer.
When she came up out of the water, and her tender helped her off with her helmet, her master dive supervisor, Master Chief Jeff Clayton, just shook his head. “You excel at finding problems.”
She shrugged. “Better now than when they’re out to sea. A broken or damaged propeller can be even more expensive than replacing one here.” It was clear that anything she could do as a diver to minimize downtime and the need for dry-docking fit right into their mission objective. Hearing about unexpected problems was never fun, but catching something early was much better than the alternative.
“Agreed.” He sighed. “I’m going to miss you, Tompkins.”
“I’ll miss you all as well,” Sadie said, unzipping her wetsuit and shrugging out of the neoprene, water sluicing off her in rivulets. Beneath it she wore a skin suit, all black, clinging to every curve of her body. She was going to shower and change. Time for her to hit her books for not only her next promotion but the degree she was getting in engineering.
“How’s Allison?” she asked. She adored the master chief’s young daughter. He was currently a single father, his wife having passed from cancer two years ago.
“She’s got her seventh birthday coming up, and I’m short on any ideas,” he said, giving her a hopeful look.
She was slammed, had so many things to do before her transfer, coursework she was undertaking, and thinking about her qualifications for her next promotion to first-class diver. “I can help with that,” she said, but he looked like he was about to go into a panic, and her heart went out to him for all that he did for Allison, and so it would cost her some sleep, and extra work. She could handle it. “I know exactly what she would love.”
Jeff released his breath. “Are you sure? You have a lot going on right now.”
“Of course. We can’t have Allison disappointed on her seventh birthday.” So many things filled her head, and she refused to allow them all to control her. As soon as she got home, she was going to make a list and prioritize. Sleep and PT had to take precedence over other activities. As a diver, she couldn’t skimp on either, especially her fitness.
The next day, she was back in the water to assess the needs of the propeller problem on the McClintock . Propulsion was all about Newton’s third law, which dictates that every action must have an equal and opposite reaction. It was simple physics. As the propeller blades expelled fluid mass in a backward motion, forward momentum propelled the vessel. That Newton guy was a smart one.
Her job was to do the task as quickly and efficiently as possible. There was always plenty to do during an MDSU deployment, and even though she was leaving this dive locker, she didn’t want to leave anything undone.
Removing a propeller was an arduous task, but McClintock’s variable pitch propeller, which was different from solid propellers in that they were attached to the ship by bolts, could be disassembled one component at a time. When the crane had lifted the first part of the propeller off the hub, Sadie had better access to the hub and the other propeller. Unfortunately, the hub was warped from the cracks, unbalancing the spin of the blade. The other propeller was fine, so they did the repairs on the hub, then attached the new propeller. All told, the job was done three days ahead of schedule and kept the McClintock mission ready.
That night, she was working on her first-class diving paperwork when Jeff called.
“Allison wants to invite her whole first-grade class,” he said, his voice panicked. “That’s like twenty-five kids, Sadie. What am I going to do with twenty-five kids?”
“Calm down, Master Chief. You are her dad. You can make the rules. First of all, tell her that she can only invite five kids. She will grumble but assure her that she’ll have a wonderful time and feel special, and that it’s not about the number of people invited but the quality of the experience.”
Jeff took a hard breath. “Okay, that sounds reasonable. Thank you. You’re a lifesaver.”
She had all the experience she needed with young children. She was the oldest of six, and she’d spent most of her young life handling children, especially her twin sisters, who were eleven years younger than she was. There always seemed to be babies in their household, but her mother could hardly cope with her brood. For as long as Sadie could remember, she was the one doing the majority of the work. She learned early to put her family’s needs ahead of her own, she had to give in order to get, even for a few hours off, and her parents were much more affectionate when she was compliant than not.
Sadie battled feelings of overextending herself and fatigue as she planned Allison’s party while repairing the McClintock’s propeller system. She couldn’t seem to say no to anyone. She’d decided on a unicorn theme, but when she tried to order the cake, most bakeries needed more time. So, making a unicorn cake went on her list. She hauled herself out to do all the party shopping, including the food, and delivered all of the bags to the master chief’s house. He hid everything in his closet except the food that went to his fridge in the garage to keep Allison from knowing anything about the planning.
As the day of her birthday dawned, Sadie got up early on her day off and went over to the house to get everything ready. Master Chief Clayton had taken Allison out for a birthday breakfast, so Sadie did the decorating and prepared the food.
The party was a complete success. Allison was thrilled with everything, especially the activity: painting small treasure boxes and adding gems to them. Every little girl had treasures to keep. Allison was happy, and Master Chief Clayton was relieved.
When she went to work the following day, the master chief waylaid her before she could start on her most recent job.
“The commander wants to see you.”
She immediately went to the commander’s office, expecting to be given her orders for her next billet. When she entered, he said, “At ease. Take a seat, Tompkins.” Surprised at his request, she settled into one of the chairs in front of his desk. “First off, I want to commend you for the McClintock job. The captain wanted to make sure that I offered you his thanks for catching a potentially disastrous situation.”
“It was my pleasure. I loved rebuilding the hub.”
He nodded. “I’m adding my commendation to your file.” He leaned back and sighed. “I hate like hell to lose you, and I fought tooth and nail to keep you for another tour, but your orders have come through. You’re going to MDSU-2,” he growled, frowning. It was clear he wasn’t happy.
“Virginia. That’s great. My family lives in Norfolk.”
“That’s nice.” He pitched forward and set his forearms on the desk. “There’s a catch. We are aware you’re due a month’s leave, but before you take it, we want to offer you an opportunity to go to Bali, Indonesia for a salvage job.”
That’s not exactly what she had in mind. She was exhausted and looking forward to some major downtime. “I heard it was beautiful?—”
“Not so beautiful,” he said wearily, strain showing around his mouth. “We lost one of our divers to a violent act against the salvage operation.”
“Oh, no. Who?”
“Dylan Mercer.”
Sadie’s heart rolled over. “He was in my graduating class. What happened?” Dylan wasn’t exactly a close friend, even though Sadie had dated him during that time. Her eyes stung. She was sorry for his death, but it had nothing to do with mourning him.
“We don’t know yet. The CIA is doing their thing. I think you’ll be an excellent asset to this operation. You’re the best qualified we have. It’s going to be not only dangerous diving, but now we have this threat.”
“I understand, sir.” Could she really turn him down? She felt a weird resistance to that action. They sounded like they needed her and that filled a hollow well in her. Yet she was so darn tired.
“I had no doubt you’d be willing to go.”
She hated like hell to turn him down. Stalling, she asked, “What’s the job?”
“A World War II sub was lost in that area at the tail end of the war.”
“The USS Kittiwake ?” Her heart pounded and she worked at not reacting to this stunning news.
“You know your history. You have six hours before your flight leaves.”
“I’ll be ready,” she said. Her boss wouldn’t want to send her if he knew that her great-grandfather had gone down with that submarine. Her family had never gotten closure, especially her great-grandmother, who was still alive at ninety-seven. The thought of diving for her great-grandfather’s remains to give closure to her great-grandmother was nothing short of miraculous.
Danger or no danger, she was staying until that job was complete.
There was no time for anything, as the sub took them immediately to their extraction point. The USS Sean Hannigan , a destroyer, where they picked up a chopper to the Balabac Island military base in Palawan, Philippines, catching a C-130 back to the US. After the last forty-eight hours, Twister wouldn’t have minded a cushier plane, and he didn’t say that lightly.
The C-130 Hercules, a large, four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft owned and operated by the US Air Force, was basically a stripped-down cargo plane, large enough to fit whatever the military required. The beauty of this aircraft was it could be configured for many different missions, making it a versatile asset and able to perform a diverse number of operational missions in both peace and wartime situations, including airlift support, Antarctic ice resupply, aeromedical missions, weather reconnaissance, aerial spray missions, firefighting duties, and natural disaster relief.
But Twister and his buddies relied on it to get them back and forth to their missions and home again, often dropping them and their equipment into hostile areas. It could land on rough runways, allowing for deployment in remote areas, and was fitted with specialized equipment to aid SEAL missions, including troop doors, rappelling points, and internal rigging for carrying boats and other specialized gear. It fit right into the SEAL mission for maritime operations, allowing them to deploy from the aircraft directly into the water.
So, this was no 747, no first class, no business class, and no economy seats, just a bare-bones bench structure running the length on either side of the cabin. The seats faced the center of the plane and were made out of a tightly stretched orange cargo netting supported by metal tubing, straight backs, and no armrests, which meant there was nothing to brace against and passengers often got tossed sideways during acceleration and deceleration.
The forward part of the plane was reserved for special operators only. The back was the noisier, draftier part of the plane where everyone else sat—called strap hangers, a reference to the people who couldn’t get seats on a bus or subway. Their support guy, Jason Baldrick, made sure no one crossed that invisible line.
The team was recovering from their last mission, and Twister from his devastating loss of control in the torpedo tube. He couldn’t blame his panic on the damaged rebreather because he knew the truth. Yet the whole incident was covered up by him passing out and having to be revived. They’d traversed thirty-two miles of ocean, some of it in choppy seas, and Twister hadn’t slept since they’d rendezvoused with the Montana . So, before the plane took off, he grabbed one of the uncomfortable seats with its orange webbing, and leaned back, closing his eyes. He didn’t want to think right now. It was counterproductive when he was fatigued.
Dissociation was a trick he had learned as a marathon runner. Running was the only activity solitary enough for it to have a real effect, but he could do this trick anywhere. He let his cheeks slacken, relaxed his hands, and let his breathing flow naturally. His vision blurred slightly as he shifted his attention inward, retreating to the shelter of his mental fortress. Overcoming adversity was stamped in his DNA and had been drilled into him by his father, BUD/S, SEAL Training, and operating. He would beat this thing that seemed to be getting the upper hand.
He drifted off to the roar of the engines and the smell of jet fuel in the air.
Twister awoke sharply from a dream that he couldn’t shake. He’d been digging, digging, knowing that someone was below all that rock and debris. His fingers were bloody from the effort, his heart laboring as he felt…crushed, as if his bones were crumbling and he was falling into dust. He knew he had to hurry and that time was running out. As he cleared the rest of the rocks, he revealed himself beneath all that rumble he’d so feverishly cleared, bruised, battered, and bleeding to death. Shooting pain jerked him into panting consciousness.
He turned his head. She smelled unmistakenly female, and his body, battered and exhausted as he was, reacted instantly to that.
“Bad dream?” a breathy female voice said. “I hate it when the gremlins get to me.”
He liked her voice. Husky and soft, it made him think of comfort and sex. He languished in a gray place between sleeping and waking up, his body protesting against the need for more sleep. He got pulled under again.
The aircraft banked sharply left, leveled out, and throttled back still more. He blinked several times. They couldn’t possibly have made it to the US, could they?
There was no mistaking the feel of deceleration of the aircraft. He knew it by heart; it was stamped in his bones from so much flying. They were definitely landing.
As his surroundings came into sharp focus, he realized he was leaning his head against something unbearably soft.
He opened his eyes, and her face came into focus. She had big brown eyes, fringed with long lashes, that seemed innocent and as old as time. In that exquisite oval face with those apple cheeks, she charmed the hell out of him in an instant. Her hair was pulled back, the ponytail long enough to fall over her shoulder in different hues of brown, from ash to honey. Her sweet mouth parted slightly. She managed to smile without smiling, her face warm with pleasure—real pleasure, which was something he recognized only because he’d never seen it before, not on any of the many women who had used their mouths as weapons to coyly entice him.
Feeling unexpectedly awkward, he had to close his eyes. She was beautiful, but strangely, that made him uneasy. She was gorgeous in a way that transcended skin-deep beauty, and he couldn’t put his finger on it. She was something different. Something that touched him in guarded and armored places. Fuck him. Was he still dreaming? How was this beauty on the plane with them? Where did she come from?”
“Damn those basic fears,” she whispered. “Fear of the dark, fear of the unknown, and fear of monsters under the bed or hiding in the closets.”
He cleared his throat and pushed away from her, well aware that he was touching this woman, this stranger, in one of the most vulnerable moments of his life. He was reeling with his inability to understand not only that damn dream but why everything about tight spaces was causing him so much panic and dread.
“I’ve outgrown that stuff,” he said, getting annoyed that he was responding so viscerally to her.
“Have you? Gremlins still get in, hiding in places we least suspect. They lurk in the dark, but light is a good weapon against them, making them part of the darkness itself.”
“Just came off a dive, and sometimes it makes me feel—” He stopped speaking, realizing that he was revealing way too much here.
She took a hard breath, leaned in, keeping her voice hushed. “Crushed.” She said it like she knew exactly what he was feeling, the emotion of it in her effervescent eyes grabbing him by the throat and balls until that terrible remembered feeling passed. Intuitively, as if she sensed his pain, she set her hand against his forearm. It was warm and calloused, and he hadn’t expected to like it so much. He shrugged away from her, his gut tightening and his chest constricting. What the hell? How did she know this weakness he didn’t want to share? Glancing around at his teammates, he saw most of them were still asleep, but Dagger was awake, and he was watching them.
When he met Dagger’s eyes, his brows lifted, and he tilted his head as if to say Those are some nice pillows, buddy.
Which made him immediately aware of her body, and damn Dagger for that. He was aware enough of her, he didn’t need to take in all that glorious flesh. She wasn’t demure but big-boned, dressed in navy-blue leggings that came down to about mid-calf, hugging her well-formed, muscular thighs, sporty navy-blue slip-ons on her feet. Over those wonderful full pillows was a light blue cropped hoodie, the hem notching her trim waist and flat stomach, showing a soft gray loose shirt beneath the buttery merino wool fabric.
He didn’t like the way she seemed to absorb his pain into those expressive and compassionate eyes. He especially didn’t need someone reading him right now when he was teetering on a cliff, windmilling his arms to keep himself balanced.
She reached out her hand. “Petty Officer Sadie Tompkins.”
His shoulders tightened. She was in the Navy. What was going on? “What the hell are you doing on this plane?” he growled more harshly than he meant to, that loudness he tried so hard to contain coming to the fore with the need to shield himself from that enticing look in her eyes.
She dropped her hand and blinked a couple of times, clearly embarrassed, those apple cheeks flushing red, and that anger in him turned inward for what a callous bastard he was making of himself. But he wanted nothing to do with her charm, warmth, or extrasensory perception.
Her chin lifted slightly in indignation. “I have orders that are none of your business,” she said in a snippy tone that only made him want to annoy her further—against his will. He liked her spunk.
Then, to his dismay, she turned away from him and folded her arms across her ample chest. Great, he’d hurt her feelings when she was trying to be nothing but nice to him. But he was suddenly relieved that she didn’t have those soft brown eyes focused on him, ferreting out his secrets.
He rose, walked over to the cooler, and pulled out a bottle of water. He was parched as hell, tired to his bones, and starving, which didn’t help his disposition at all. Instead of going back to the engulfing warmth of her body, he crossed over to Dagger and sat down.
“You making new friends or enemies?” Dagger asked, not looking at Sadie.
Geezus, that was a stripper name. He gritted his teeth, then consciously relaxed his jaw. “Petty Officer Sadie Tompkins, no less.” He took a long drink of the bottle. “Where the hell are we?”
“Yeah, you were asleep. We’ve been rerouted to Bali. A Navy diver was murdered by student activists calling themselves Tujuh Tuntutan , or in English Seven Demands.”
“Was the diver on vacation?”
“No, he was diving a submarine wreck, a World War II sunken boat.” The USS Kittiwake , named after a small gull with a light body, dark wingtips, and a yellow bill. Notable for nesting on sheer cliffs.
“They went missing in 1945, right at the tail end of the war. Never recovered. They had a small earthquake here, and oceanographers found a life ring with the USS Kittiwake stamped on it, badly faded, but clear enough. That got relayed to Washington, and after negotiations with Indonesia’s government, they were granted permission to salvage the boat. They had just gotten underway when the attack happened. We’re here for security to protect the divers.”
“And she’s a diver?” He barely held in the moan. Just his fucking luck.
“Yep. She’s our mission.”
Goddamnit, Twister thought. That meant they would be in close proximity, and the thought of dealing with Sadie on a daily basis made that tight-chest feeling return. She was too observant, too beautiful, too sweet, and too perceptive by half. His only course of action was surliness and avoidance. He didn’t want her as a friend. No goddamn way.
But as his eyes drifted over her against his will, he felt an odd rush, a surge of protectiveness and resentment. His eyes went over every curve and swell of her body. Oh, no. You’re not going down that road. He had to stay away from her if he wanted to avoid torturing himself. He would make everything unpleasant to hide the dangerous state he was in—between anger, terror, and, now, lust.
There was a new kind of fear in him, a kind of fear that ached, longed for understanding, answers, unburdening himself. Maybe if she hadn’t been in the Navy, he would have been more civil, even tried to be friendly, but she was dangerous in more ways than one. He didn’t know her or trust her. How could he trust anyone with this torment? Even his teammates would try to help, and he had no freaking answers or solutions, and that rankled the most.
He’d been independent his whole life and liked it that way. He was the healer in this group, and he was the one who needed healing. It added to that burning anger that he thought he had conquered a long time ago.
But he’d been wrong. It had been dormant but still alive, simmering, just waiting for a moment to ignite. He couldn’t afford that. Operating, being a SEAL, was everything to him. He would protect himself from all enemies, especially ones with big, beautiful brown eyes, an enticing body that was just as dangerous, and all the means to get him to show any weakness.
Sadie sat in her seat, suddenly feeling shivery. She pulled up her hood, not understanding why that only made her feel too hot. Had to be the embarrassment of that man’s rejection. She had no idea who these people were. Most of them had been asleep, and she was directed to a seat when she boarded the plane and told that she was a strap hanger and the rest of the compartment was off-limits.
She was okay with that. Her trip had been arduous. The flight from Hawaii landed somewhere, and she went where she was told to go, so tired she wasn’t sure about the other stops and takeoffs. She finally found herself in Seoul, Korea hours and hours later on the same uncomfortable vehicle, only to be placed on another one exactly like it. Then on to Bali with all these fit, handsome men who were dressed in military camo. She’d slept very little, so when the guy who was sitting next to her, apparently on the other side of the strap-hanging territory, slipped his head onto her shoulder, she’d found it very difficult to drop off.
It was no wonder. He was…magnificent. And he wanted nothing to do with her. She had watched him sleep. She couldn’t help herself with his body heavy against hers. She could have tried to shrug him off, but he was so tired, she didn’t want to wake him, even when her shoulder started going numb.
She’d wanted to touch him, and she didn’t know why. She wasn’t really a sexual person and didn’t really swoon over men. They were so abundant in the military, and open to just about anything, but they also gossiped, and she had no intention of living up to her provocative name. She was too focused on her job, especially after that relationship with Dylan.
He sat ramrod straight in his seat, and she felt him watching her. She made herself look at him. He appeared distant and unapproachable. And solitary. Very, very solitary. His absolute stillness, his steady, level gaze, his unsmiling expression, did funny things to her insides…things that didn’t make sense—and she looked away, nerves making her heart race. She wondered what lay hidden beneath that inscrutable exterior.
He continued to stare at her for an instant longer, something controlled and menacing in him, and something else she couldn’t quite figure out.
But her fascination with him was all-consuming, and she flushed again at the thought. His skin was dark and gold and smooth and mysterious. His biceps were roped with muscle even at rest. It was enough to get even her juices flowing, if she was exceedingly foolish, which she’d learned the hard way not to be.
He was in good shape, that was all. Incredibly good shape, just like what she would expect of operators. Now that she was aware, she realized all these guys were special forces…most likely SEALs. And of course, he would look like that, the kind of men whose lives depended on them always being smarter, faster, stronger all the time. Ripped muscle, raw strength, and merciless disposition. She’d felt it in him each time he moved against her, the sleek power, and when he woke up, the intensity in that brown oh-so-burnished gaze pulsated.
SEALs, yeah. It kind of hit her when he’d gotten up to get away from her. There was an efficient grace to his movement, a swagger and balance that seemed to effortlessly gauge the ground beneath him, to interpret and exploit terrain instead of merely traversing it.
Her throat got tight, and she pushed back the feeling of being rejected for her kindness.
He was out of her league.
His face was boyish, despite the hardened edges of his features, and the biker-inspired cropped beard and mustache as black as his short, buzzed-on-the-sides hair, but no one would ever mistake him for a boy, not in any sense. She found it beyond her ability to look only at his attractive face, her glances skipping downward, to his shoulders, his chest, the base of his throat, and all those muscles. It almost hurt, and apparently, like the off-limits compartment, he was absolutely untouchable. Then, as a tingle went through her, she realized that’s what was causing the shivering…him.
He was staring at her. That intense, bronze-hued gaze zapped her with electricity, bored into her, searing her with that burning look.
Her face flamed again, and she looked down, closing her eyes. She was relieved when the plane finally touched down.
She needed to remain cool, firmly in control, and that was exactly the way she needed to keep things. She was here to do a job, a job she was damn good at. That was all.