Bert (Lighthouse Security Investigations Montana #7)

Chapter 1

Five years ago

The oppressive heat in Mogadishu was relentless, settling over everything like a wet blanket and making it hard to breathe.

Bert Tomlinson crouched behind the crumbling wall of what had once been a school, his rifle steady despite the sweat running down his back and soaking through his tactical vest. Twenty meters ahead, their target building sat silent in the pre-dawn darkness.

“South entrance clear,” he murmured into his comm, his voice barely above a whisper. Even after six years as a SEAL, he still felt that spike of adrenaline before an op, that hyperawareness that made every sound sharp and every shadow potentially deadly.

“Copy that,” Logan Bishop said, steady and calm. “Sisco, status?”

“North entrance secured. Two hostiles down.”

“Devlin?”

“West side’s clear. We’re good to move.”

Bert shifted his weight, his eyes scanning the windows above for any sign of movement.

This was what he was good at… the patient observation and the quiet competency that didn’t require flash or drama.

While Devlin drew attention with his easy charm and Sisco commanded respect with his presence, Bert operated in the spaces between.

Watching. Waiting. Making sure everyone came home alive.

“Bert, you’re with me,” Logan said. “Sisco, Devlin, hold position.” He gave orders to the others on their team. Orders that every man would follow no matter what, but Bert knew it was Logan Bishop, known as Preacher, who held the team to a higher standard. “We move in two minutes.”

They moved like shadows through the pre-dawn darkness, years of training making their movements synchronized and silent.

Bert took point, his rifle up, his breathing controlled, every sense attuned to potential threats.

The target building was a suspected weapons cache.

Their intel suggested a local warlord was using it to supply insurgents throughout the region.

The mission went smoothly. Almost too smoothly.

They cleared the building room by room, secured the weapons, and extracted without incident.

By the time the sun was climbing over the horizon, they were in the helicopter, heading back to the rest of the team waiting in a local town.

Another successful operation was logged in the books.

“Nice work out there,” Logan said as they stripped off their gear in the ready room. “Clean, efficient, no casualties.”

“That’s how we like it,” Sisco declared with a grin, his deep voice carrying the satisfaction of a job well done.

Devlin stretched, rolling his shoulders. “Anyone else starving? I could eat a whole goat right now.”

“Can’t beat the place in town,” Bert offered quietly. “The one with the good tagine.”

“Perfect,” Logan said. “Let’s go celebrate not getting shot at for once.”

The small restaurant was tucked away on a side street, the kind of place locals frequented and tourists rarely found.

The owner recognized them since they’d been there enough times over the past few weeks and greeted them with warm enthusiasm.

They soon claimed a table near the back where they could sit against the wall with a view of the entrance.

Old habits died hard.

The food was decent, the conversation easy, and for a while, Bert let himself relax into the camaraderie of his team. This was what made the hard parts worth it… the moments of brotherhood, shared purpose, and knowing you’d trust these men with your life, and they’d trust you with theirs.

They were laughing at one of Devlin’s stories involving a bar in Thailand and a case of mistaken identity.

Bert’s attention wandered when he noticed the woman at the next table.

She was local, probably in her mid-thirties, with two young children playing with scraps of paper while she ate.

The kids were young, their faces bright with imagination as they played.

Something about the scene tugged at Bert’s chest. The normalcy of it. A mother and her children, trying to live their lives in a city torn apart by violence and instability. Trying to find moments of peace in the chaos.

He turned back to hear the end of Devlin’s story when an explosion shattered the afternoon like a hammer through glass.

One second, Bert was reaching for his beer, and the next, the world was noise and heat and flying rubble as the building flew apart. His training kicked in before conscious thought… he dove toward the woman and her children, his body covering theirs as the ceiling collapsed.

The impact drove the air from his lungs.

Something heavy slammed onto the left side of his head, shooting white-hot pain through him.

The instant the building stopped tumbling around them, he looked up to scan the area for his team.

His gaze quickly found them all standing.

Logan’s mouth was moving, but all Bert could hear was the ringing…

a high-pitched whine that drowned out everything else.

Dust filled his mouth and his nose, making it hard to breathe.

But beneath him, the woman was moving. The children were wiggling. They were alive.

Hands grabbed at him, and he turned to see Sisco hauling him up and off the family he’d shielded.

The restaurant was gone, just rubble and smoke and the screams of the injured.

He knew others might be hurt and quickly looked down to see if he had a wound he might not feel under the adrenaline.

But all seemed intact… except that goddamn ringing in his ears.

“Bert!” Logan’s mouth was moving, but the words sounded distant, underwater. “Can you hear me?”

Bert nodded, though the truth was that everything sounded wrong. Muffled. Like someone had stuffed cotton in his ears, then wrapped his whole head in a blanket. Logan was staring at Bert’s head, and he lifted his hand to feel the wet. Withdrawing his fingers, he realized he was bleeding.

“We need to move,” Sisco was saying, or at least Bert thought that was what he was saying. He could hear words but not clearly. Refusing to slow them down, he stared at Sisco’s mouth to pick up the cues.

“Backup’s coming. We need to get to the extraction point.”

The next hour passed in a blur of pain and confusion. Sisco managed to get Bert to slow down enough to wrap gauze around his head to stop the bleeding.

The team ushered the locals away from the buildings that might fall at any moment, and he was surprised when the little boy he’d saved raced over to throw his arms around Bert’s legs.

Looking over the boy’s head, he spied the woman and the little girl staring up at him, tears shining in the mother’s eyes and gratitude written on her face.

He simply patted the boy’s back and offered a chin dip to the woman as someone shepherded them out. His team reached the extraction point, where a helicopter waited, its rotors already spinning. And through it all, that roaring in Bert’s left ear never stopped.

On the flight back to base, a medic rewrapped his head, but Bert barely noticed. He kept pressing his palm against his left ear, trying to make the roaring stop, trying to understand why everything sounded so distant and wrong.

“Ruptured eardrum, probably,” the medic said when Bert finally asked. “You need to see a specialist when we get back stateside.”

But Bert already knew it was worse than that. He’d seen enough combat injuries to recognize the difference between temporary and permanent. The explosion had been close… maybe fifteen feet from where he’d been sitting. The blast wave had hit him full force.

And something fundamental had changed. He instinctively knew nothing would be the same.

Three weeks later, Bert sat in a naval hospital in Virginia and listened to the doctor deliver the verdict he’d been dreading.

“The blast wave ruptured your left eardrum and caused significant damage to the cochlea.” The doctor pointed to scans showing the delicate structures of Bert’s inner ear. “Fitting you with a hearing aid will help, but the hearing loss is permanent. Probably 60 to 70 percent loss in that ear.”

Bert nodded, his jaw tight. “What does this mean for my status with the teams?”

The doctor’s expression was sympathetic but firm.

“You won’t pass the physical requirements for active duty with the SEALs.

The hearing loss affects your directional hearing, your ability to distinguish sounds in chaotic environments.

In combat situations, that’s not just a liability for you… it’s a danger to your entire team.”

There it was. The words Bert had been expecting but didn’t want to hear. His career as a SEAL, everything he’d worked for, trained for, and bled for, was over.

“There are other positions,” the doctor continued. “Intelligence analysis, mission planning, coordination. Your tactical expertise is still valuable, Petty Officer Tomlinson. It just won’t be in the field anymore.”

Valuable. The word felt hollow. Bert didn’t want to be valuable from behind a desk. He wanted to be out there with his team, doing the work that mattered.

But that choice had been taken from him by fifteen feet and a blast wave and a decision to shield a woman and her children instead of himself.

He’d make the same choice again. He knew that. But knowing it didn’t make the loss hurt any less.

Six months later, Bert sat in a bar near the naval base, a beer growing warm in his hand, and watched his former teammates celebrate another successful mission.

They’d come back that afternoon dirty and exhausted but alive.

And Bert had been there to greet them, just as he’d been there for every mission since his reassignment to support operations.