Rogenna Brewer - The SEAL's Special Mission

That distinctive New York boroughs accent had set him apart more than his mixed heritage. She remembered him as being street tough and smart—an irresistible combination for most teenage girls. She’d been younger than Cara by almost four years and halfway in love with “Kenny” Nash herself by the time she was twelve.

Her unrequited crush had evolved into something much less painful over the years and they’d become fast friends, family.

He’d lost that accent somewhere along the way. But not that edge.

Though she hated to admit it, even he would have a hard time pulling off a mission of this magnitude. Yet somehow she knew he would.

Fluent in half a dozen Semitic languages, including Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic and Tigrinya, Nash had carried a double major in political science and theology while at Harvard. He’d graduated from the prestigious university with honors, and a B.S.D.—Bull Shit Degree, as he liked to call it—before joining the navy.

The navy had seemed like such an odd career choice for him at the time. And her sister had been less than thrilled to have her fiancé and future husband join the military.

Mal distinctly remembered their father saying the military was a good choice for a young man with political aspirations, although Mal just couldn’t see Nash as a politician. She thought his enlistment had more to do with the fact that his father had been a marine—either that or a restless desire to see the world. Nash had an insatiable curiosity with world religions and religious artifacts. He even went on to earn his master’s in education while in the service.

For a long time she’d held on to the romantic notion that he was more Indiana Jones than Navy SEAL.

Part scholar, part mystery. Passionate in his thinking.

She also knew better than most not to argue politics or religion with him.

Christian, Muslim, Jew. As far as she was concerned, a person’s religious beliefs and practices were his own business. But in some parts of the world, the distinction could get a person killed. This was why his mother’s family had fled Syria for Israel, and then later America, when his mother was a young girl.

Nash’s dark brown eyes remained sharp and focused on her. The chains rattled one last time as he settled against the wall.

Benji swiveled toward the sound. Resting his small head against her shoulder, he shoved a sloppy fist into his mouth as he stared without recognition at the man who’d brought him into the world.

Nash stood with his head high and met Mallory’s hate-filled glare before shifting his attention toward the son he’d delivered by cutting open his wife’s womb. Cara had died before help arrived. But was she dead before he’d slaughtered her?

That question haunted Mallory to this day.

The autopsy had been inconclusive at best. Medical experts testified to both scenarios, depending on their allegiance to the prosecution or the defense.

There were those who’d called Nash’s extreme measures heroic. He was a Navy SEAL, trained to assess and react in critical situations without hesitation. Then there was the fact that his actions were criminal.

He might have been EMT trained, but he was not a surgeon.

Hero or killer? He’d saved his son’s life either way.

A traumatized fetus couldn’t survive more than four minutes without oxygen from its mother. So if Nash’s story was to be believed, less than four minutes separated him from the real murderer. But his account of those two hundred and forty seconds was as muddy as his defense.

Regardless of how Cara wound up on the floor fighting for her life, Mal believed Nash sealed her sister’s fate with his knife.

Why didn’t he just continue CPR? Especially after she arrived and could have helped. Only Nash knew his real motive for sending her outside for a phone he knew she wouldn’t be able to find because he’d had it on him all along.

Records indicated he’d actually dialed 911 before she did. So there was no reason to even send her outside, except...

To save his son’s life? Or to cover up his even more heinous crime?

Or both.

The pinch near the corner of his mouth might have gone unnoticed if Mallory hadn’t been searching for a reaction from him.

“Take a good look,” she spat. “Because it’s your last.”

Until that moment, there’d been some niggling doubt that maybe she was wrong. Maybe he was innocent. She wanted to believe with her whole heart he’d fought off a one-armed man like Dr. Richard Kimble in The Fugitive. Because for as long as she could remember, Nash had been her real-life action hero.

But maybe there was no one-armed man. What there was, though, were telltale scratches on Nash’s face, his skin cells under Cara’s nails, and his partial prints on the phone cord that had been ripped out of the wall and then wrapped around Cara’s neck.

No forced entry, nothing missing.

Cara had trusted her killer.

Mallory wouldn’t trust Nash again if her life depended on it. If there was still such a thing as a firing squad, she’d volunteer to be the one and only shooter. She’d riddle his body with bullets just to watch him bleed. She wanted revenge, vengeance. Not freedom for her sister’s murderer.

The Uniform Code of Military Justice provided the death penalty as possible punishment for fifteen offenses, most of which had to occur during wartime. All nine men at present on death row had been convicted of premeditated murder or felony murder. The president had the power to commute a death sentence to life, and no service member could be executed without the personally signed order from the Commander in Chief.

Eisenhower was the last president under whom a military execution had been upheld. In fifty years, only George W. Bush had signed a single death writ, and that order was still under appeal.

Nash had plenty of time to plead his case.

The man she’d known wouldn’t have gone down without throwing at least one punch. If he was innocent, he would have—should have—fought harder to prove it.

He wouldn’t do the unthinkable.

Mallory took an involuntary step backward and plopped into her chair as Nash moved to sit across the table from her. Galena set some papers in front of him and then handed him a pen. His hand shook as he signed at the flagged lines without reading. When he finished, he set the pen aside and pushed the papers across the table toward Mallory.

Her lower lip threatened to tremble. The man didn’t deserve her pity. Strengthening her resolve, she raised her chin to look into Nash’s eyes.

“You just sold your son for your freedom.”

CHAPTER TWO

Midtown Precinct, Manhattan

New York City, New York

Seven years later

“COFFEE?” A PAPER cup appeared within easy reach of his cuffed wrists, chained to the table. Nash ignored the cup while the man who’d offered it scooted around the table to sit across from him. It was Good Cop’s turn to have a crack at him while Bad Cop scowled from the corner. Actually they were both Feds. But he wouldn’t hold that against them. “Sayyid,” Good Cop said as if confiding in his new best friend. “We know you’re his number-two....”

They didn’t know shit about him, but he wouldn’t hold that against them, either.

The man flipped through a file full of misleading information. Sayyid Naveed, born in Syria, educated in the U.S. as a devout Muslim. Detained at Gitmo for suspected ties to terrorism. Escaped from Gitmo—which was true. Though the actual account was classified and well above this guy’s pay grade, he probably had some version of that truth in front of him. As well as Nash’s mug shot on an FBIs Most Wanted bulletin. He was somewhere in the top one hundred, not high enough to attract any real attention, but high enough that anyone coming into contact with him would know they had someone important on their hands.