Suzanne Brockmann - The Admiral's Bride

KIA. Killed in action. It was one of Jake’s least favorite acronyms. Along with POW and MIA. But he didn’t let his aversion show on his face. He never let anything like that show. His men didn’t need to know when he was shaken. And this one had shaken him, hard. The commanders-in-chief knew those men were there. U.S. Marines. Good men. Brave men. And those commanders had given the order to proceed with the bombing regardless.

He met Ham’s eyes and read the skepticism there.

“We’ve pulled off some tough missions before,” Jake said. His words were as much to convince himself.

Ham shook his head. “Nine wounded men and seven SEALs,” he said. “Against thirty-five hundred Vietcong? Come on, Lieutenant.” The chief didn’t need to say what he was thinking. This wasn’t just a tough mission, it was insanity.

And the chief had called Jake by his true rank, a sign of his disapproval. It was funny how accustomed he’d become to the nickname this team of SEALs had given him—Admiral. It was the ultimate expression of respect from this motley crew, particularly since he’d gone through BUD/S cursed with the label Pretty Boy, PB for short. Yeah, he liked Admiral much better.

Fred and Chuck were watching him. So were Scooter and the Preacher and Ricky. Waiting for his command. At age twenty-two, Jake was one of the two old men of the team—a full lieutenant having served three back-to-back tours of duty in this hell on earth. Ham, his chief, had been there with him for the last two. Steady as a rock and, at twenty-seven years of age, as gnarled and ancient as the hills. But he’d never questioned Jake’s authority.

Until now.

Jake smiled. “Nine wounded men, seven SEALs and one priest,” he pointed out lightly. “Don’t forget the priest, Ham. Always good to have one of them on our side.”

Fred snickered, but Ham’s expression didn’t change.

“I wouldn’t leave you to die,” Jake quietly told the man who was the closest thing to a friend he had in this armpit of a jungle. “I will not leave those men out there.”

Jake didn’t wait for Ham’s response, because frankly, Ham’s response didn’t matter. He didn’t need his chief’s approval. This wasn’t a democracy. Jake and Jake alone was in command.

He met Fred’s eyes, then Scooter’s and Preacher’s and Ricky’s and Chuck’s, infusing them all with his confidence, letting them see his complete faith in their ability as a SEAL team to pull off this impossible task.

Leaving those poor bastards to die was not an option. Jake couldn’t do it. Jake wouldn’t do it.

He turned to Ham. “Get on the radio, Chief, and find Crazy Ruben. If anyone’ll fly a chopper in this deep, it’ll be him. Pull in all those favors he owes me, promise him air support, and then get on the wire and get it for him.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jake turned to Fred. “Go back there and get their hopes up. Get them ready to move, then get your ass back here on the double.” He smiled again, his best picnic-in-the-park smile. The one that made men under command believe they’d live to see another sunrise. “The rest of you gentlemen get ready to cut some very long fuses. Because I’ve got one hell of a plan.”

“They musta parachuted in!” Jimmy had real excitement in his voice. “Listen to that, Sarge! How many of ’em do you think are out there?”

Matt painfully pulled himself up, trying to see something, anything in the darkness of the jungle. But all he could see were the flashes in the sky from an enormous battle just off to the west. Deep in VC territory. “God, there must be hundreds.”

Even as he said the words he couldn’t believe it. Hundreds of American soldiers, appearing out of nowhere?

“They had to’ve dropped ’em in,” Jimmy said again.

It seemed impossible, but it must have been true—because there came the air support, then, big planes screaming overhead, dropping all kinds of nasty surprises on Charlie.

Two hours ago a big, dark-skinned man had appeared, rising out of the jungle like an apparition, his face savagely painted with green and brown, a cammy-print bandanna tied neatly around the top of his head. He’d ID’d himself as Seaman Fred Baxter of the U.S. Navy SEALs.

Matt had highest rank among the men left behind, and had asked what the hell a sailor was doing this far inland?

Apparently there was a whole group of sailors out there in the jungle. A team, Baxter had said. Jake’s team, he’d called them, as if that meant something—whoever the hell Jake was. And they were going to get Matt and Jimmy and the rest of ’em out of there. Stand ready for extraction, Baxter had said, and he’d disappeared.

Matt had been left wondering if the entire conversation hadn’t been some weird morphine hallucination. Seals. Who would name a special forces group after a circus animal? And how the hell was an entire team of them going to get out of the jungle with nine wounded men?

“I’ve heard of the SEALs,” Jimmy said, as if he’d somehow been able to follow Matt’s drug-hazed thoughts. “They’re some kind of demolitions experts. Even underwater, if you can believe that. And they’re kinda like ninjas—they can move right past Charlie—within feet of Charlie—without being seen. They go miles behind the line in teams of six or seven men and blow stuff up. And I don’t know what kind of voodoo they use, but they always come back alive. Always.”

Six or seven men. Matt looked up at the flashes of explosions lighting the sky. Demolitions experts…No. Couldn’t be.

Could it?

“Chopper!” Father O’Brien shouted. “Praise our Lord God Almighty!”

The roar was unmistakable. The hurricane-force wind from the blades felt like a miracle. Holy Jesus, they actually had a chance.

Tears were running down the padre’s round face as he helped the medics lift the wounded men up and into the chopper. Matt couldn’t hear him over the roar, over the sound of weapons discharging as the men with green faces suddenly appeared, keeping Charlie back, away from the clearing. Matt didn’t need to hear O’Brien to know that his mouth was moving in a continuous prayer of thanks.

But Matt wasn’t Catholic, and they hadn’t made it out yet.

Someone lifted him up and the sudden knifelike pain in his leg made him scream.

“Sorry, Sergeant.” The voice held the quiet confidence of a seasoned officer. “No time to ask where it hurts.”

And then the pain was worth it, because he was inside, his cheek pressed against the olive-drab U.S.-made riveted metal of the chopper floor. And then they were lifting up and away, on an express flight out of hell.

But fear cut through his waves of relief. Dear God, don’t let them have left anyone behind!

He forced himself over, onto his back, and the pain nearly made him retch. “Head count!” he somehow managed to shout.

“We got all of you, Sarge.” It was the steady voice of the man who’d carried him aboard. He was crouched by the open doorway, a grenade launcher in his arms, aiming and firing even as he spoke. He was younger than Matt had imagined from his voice. He wore no insignia, no rank, no markings on his camouflage gear at all. Like the other SEALs, his face was streaked with green and brown, but as he turned to glance over his shoulder at the wounded men, Matt could see his eyes. They were an almost startling shade of blue. And as he met Matt’s gaze, he smiled.

It wasn’t a tense, tight grimace laced with fear. And it wasn’t a wolfish expression of adrenaline-induced high. It was a calm, relaxed, “let’s get together and play softball sometime” kind of smile.

“We got everyone,” he shouted again, no room for doubt in his voice. “Hold on, Sergeant, it’s going to be a bumpy ride, but we will get you out, and we will get you home.”