Warrior Mine: A Base Branch novel Read online

  Warrior Mine

  A Base Branch novel

  Megan Mitcham

  The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is a crime punishable by law. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded to or downloaded from file sharing sites, or distributed in any other way via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000 (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/).

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real in any way. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

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  Published by MM Publishing LLC

  Edited by Lacey Thacker

  Cover Design by Deranged Doctor Designs

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  Warrior Mine

  All Rights Are Reserved. Copyright 2014 by Megan Mitcham

  First electronic publication: January 2015

  First print publication: January 2015

  Digital ISBN: 978-1-941899-06-9

  Print ISBN: 978-1-941899-07-6

  Created with Vellum

  To the warriors who defend our freedom. Soldiers. Past. Present. Future. Your sacrifices humble and will not be forgotten. Thank you for your service, your honor, and your heart.

  Prologue

  Today the universe slammed the book on Vail’s existence. Most people didn't know the day they were going to die. And perhaps that was the kindest thing. Awareness of one’s impending doom could go one of two ways.

  The most often applied method allowed just enough time to pine away until the definite end, and make everyone around him sad and miserable.

  The second approach, Vail’s personal favorite, involved seizing the time left. Living life to the fullest. Strapping on a bomb, running into the center of a terrorist cell, and sending all their asses to the fiery pits of hell.

  Many failed to realize everything ended. Death spared no one. Sure, some believe it's just the beginning, that pearly gates or hordes of virgins await them on the next plane of existence. When, in fact, to Vail’s way of thinking, a mound of dirt was as good as it got.

  People should be damn happy to receive a proper burial. So many didn't. Many met death in the sea, in the incinerating flames of a bomb, by the hands of fuckers so irreverent they left you on the sidewalk, gasping as your lungs filled with blood. Left you fighting the inevitable end, their bullet lodged deep inside your chest cavity assuring it. Left you scraping, filing your fingers to bleeding nubs to reach the vacant blue eyes staring back at you.

  Vail Tucker had died that day on the roasting Jamaican concrete. So, dying today wasn't a big deal. He just wished he’d gotten that last jewel of information Carlos Ruez held back. He knew it would be important. For him. And for others.

  His cheek lay on the gray concrete where he’d spent so many days over the last ten years bulldogging information from the earth’s most maniacal beings. Fight fled him, dripping out of the single bullet hole that split his abdomen. The puddle of red crept forward, a slowly advancing battle line. For the second time in his life, he expected to lose the war. For the first time, he didn’t much care.

  This time, pain didn’t exist. The numbness that had settled into his heart nearly twelve years ago grew tentacles. They coiled around and clung to his middle, then stretched over his shoulders, down his thighs. Only the chill of lying on the freezing floor disturbed his indifferent peace.

  He and Base Branch Agent Sloan Harris had both been called cold, arctic, even heartless. They weren't heartless. They’d just lost everything dear to them, and lived through the nightmare that time and again refused to change its ending. When you experienced your own emotional death, the stolen beat of all you loved, and then lived, it was hard to get excited about anything ever again. Especially your own end.

  1

  “We’re thin at home base,” Tucker admitted. The place normally whirred with the hustle and chatter of agents. “But I can reroute an incoming team. Consider it done in twenty-four. Then wrap it up and get back here. I have a mountain of paperwork for you to complete on this joyride of yours.” The corner of his mouth twitched with the first trace of a smile in days. The Boy Scout had finally spread his wings.

  “Yes, sir. I earned it,” Base Branch Agent Ryan Noble, a.k.a. the Boy Scout—to Vail, anyway—agreed. The boy’s backbone snapping to attention translated in his tone.

  “And then some.”

  Though Noble had gone off mission and Tucker would give him hell for it for years to come, pride for the kid’s ability to think on his feet and save lives while still completing the assignment straightened his drooping shoulders.

  “You heading back into the room?” Ryan asked.

  The ten-by-ten square of concrete had been his home for the majority of the last four days. Aside from showers, grub, and the occasional piss, he’d mapped several constellations of air bubbles in the hard surface—and in the tiny circles of blood speckling the floor from the cuts in Carlos Ruez’s face.

  “Seems I’ll be in there for the rest of my life. He’s let off a lot, copped to knowing about the cargo load you intercepted and two others at a northern site. I had to send teams there too. But he’s holding something back.”

  “If anyone can get it out of him, you can.”

  Right.

  “Quit kissing my ass, Noble.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Vail set the phone back in its cradle and wondered why this high tech, highly funded organization still had corded phones. The tangled curlicue looped round this way and kinked that. His cell wouldn’t work in these thick walls. If that wasn't enough, the Base Branch installed jammers to keep the top-secret information floating around the air classified. His gaze jumped from the twisted cord to the sashay of a feminine shadow through the frosted glass of his office door.

  It grew more imposing the closer she came, even though the frame that knocked while simultaneously opening the door and peeking in only stood a couple of inches over five feet without the added height of heels. Sandy blonde hair swung about the curve of her chin, bracketing apple-rose cheeks. Rhonda Merk, his secretary for the last six years, gnawed on the inside of her lower lip before reluctantly smiling.

  “Can I get you something, sir?”

  “No, thank you, Rhonda.” He nodded her dismissal, but she didn't budge. The lip chew started up again. “Is everything all right?”

  “No, not really.” Apparently tired of being a doorway sandwich, she stepped into the office. Her petite hands smoothed the starched front of her suit coat and the sides of her charcoal skirt. “I’ve never seen an interrogation take this long.” She stalled.

  “And?”

  “And…I think you might need to,” she winced, “take a break.”

  “In the real world interrogations can take weeks. This facility is conducive to prying information from people. The mystery. The sterility of the environment.” The tools and drugs did a bang-up job too. But he didn’t say it.

  She patted a perfectly ordered strand of hair. “I think you have a lot to do with it too.”

  “I have plenty of experience.”

  “Your build helps too.” Her eyes bugged wide for a split second. She curled her lips and rubbed them back and forth. “I just meant you’re imposing.”

  “You’re just short.” He smiled to set her at ease.

  She shook her head. “I mean, yes. I’m short. And no, you’re not the
biggest guy around here, but it’s in the way you carry yourself. Like nothing and no one can shake you. It’s in your eyes.” She huffed. “Anyway, I need to talk to you…when you have a minute or ten.”

  He didn’t point out that she’d already taken two with all her fidgeting. She didn’t usually squirm. No way he could have taken it, if she did that every time they talked. But when things got frantic around the office or when she had something on her mind, she wiggled and wormed all over the place.

  “I thought,” she added without giving him time to speak, “you could get me squared away now, then go back to interrogating Mr. Ruez, and eat while you listened.” Her slender shoulders shrugged and her head cocked.

  His stomach whined for food. The sound echoed in the empty cavern, doubling the sentiment. He could out-maneuver snipers on a battlefield, but somehow women always knew just what to say to outflank him. “Women. You always know when to drop the F-bomb. I’m dying for some food. Do you have any? I wiped out my stash two days ago.”

  Her head bobbed and she smiled in triumph. “Ordered pizza an hour and a half ago. I’ll be right back. Do you have sanitizer?” The question came with a hike of her brows.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good. Use it and I’ll be right back.”

  Vail sat in his chair for the first time all day. By now the sun dipped low toward the western horizon. Not that he’d seen it all day. He wrenched his arms into the sky and kicked his legs wide. A groan condensed in his throat as his muscles lengthened then cinched before elongating just a bit farther. The scars on his chest tugged like they always did and—like he usually did—he ignored them. His cuffs, still rolled over his forearms from his time with Carlos, stuck around his elbows as he sagged into the chair.

  When the clack of Rhonda’s heels rang the dinner bell he rallied. He sat forward and tugged the white fabric over the dark hair of each forearm.

  At least those hairs aren’t gray.

  The silver tones on his head appeared in his late twenties, when he was still an active duty SEAL. His brothers, the bastards, had called him grandpa. They should see him now. At forty and some years it nearly consumed his head. It didn’t really bother him, except when people assumed he was feeble because of the color of his hair. The mandatory suits he wore and the accompanying desk that came with his job as the commander of the US Base Branch, a Special Operations Division of the United Nations’ military force, added to the assumption of age and, with it, sedation. On the other hand, it gave him the advantage of surprise.

  “Here we are,” Rhonda crooned like a mother hen, which incited a pang of sympathy for the henning he’d done to Sloan Harris after she’d been stabbed in the gut. “Did you sanitize?”

  “Sure did.” The last time she’d made him.

  “Good. The way these superbugs are flying around, you never know what you’ll catch.”

  He held his tongue, not mentioning the reason superbugs were so prevalent was peoples’ overuse of sanitizer and antibiotics, and that a bullet or knife was far more likely to kill him than a case of H1N1.

  On his desk, Rhonda deposited a plate with four slices of combination pizza, a bottled water, and several napkins. He snagged one before the plate fully landed and tore off half in a bite.

  “My goodness,” she gasped. “Your knuckles are redder than a stop sign. Do you want a cold compress?”

  “Thanks for the pizza,” he said around another chunk of cheese, peppers, and meat. “No thanks, to the compress. They’re fine.”

  She plopped onto the leather seat opposite him, her mouth still ajar.

  “So, what’d you want to talk about?”

  Her mouth closed and then opened. Then it closed again. She repeated the process several times, while he polished off the first piece and two thirds of another. “I love my job,” she blurted, finally. “But I’d like…more responsibilities.” With the brunt of the difficulty out of the way, she pulled her shoulders back. “I answer the phones, take care of your calendar and files. Lieutenant Commander Slaughter won’t let me near her stuff, and I’m not complaining, but just saying—trying to say—I have a good bit of free time. I’d like to do something more meaningful. Not that my current duties are unimportant.”

  On her breath, Vail jumped in, afraid she’d rattle on all night, and he had a load of stuff to do. When she’d first started working for him, she’d nearly shaken his ears off his head, sashaying her petite frame around his office and filling the air with flirtatious chatter. It didn’t take her long to realize those were waters he’d never wade into. There was nothing wrong with her. Him on the other hand… “That’s perfectly reasonable. I’ll start the process of upping your clearance. It will take a few days. A week at the most.”

  Instead of using the back of his hand like he would’ve were he alone, he plucked a napkin off the pile and wiped his mouth, content to leave the last piece where it lay, grease spotting the thin paper plate. Both Rhonda’s hands migrated to her mouth, half pressed together in mock prayer, half pressing her lips. He tossed the napkin into the wastebasket beside his mahogany desk. He’d moved the thing they’d called a desk out and brought his own for the space, needing a bit of warmth in the severe confines of concrete and glass—and something sturdy enough it wouldn’t shatter with one false move.

  “Thank you so much, sir.”

  “Vail or Tucker. After the first two years of trying to get you to call me something other than sir, I gave up. But if you want this promotion, can the sir.”

  “Yes, s…” She smashed her lips together. “Just yes.”

  “Great. Thanks for the food.”

  “Do you want me to take the plate?”

  “Leave it. I may need it after the next round.”

  “You’re going back?”

  “We all have our jobs. Mine isn’t complete. He’s given a lot, but there’s something he’s holding back, and I intend to push harder.”

  Rhonda nodded and left with an efficiency he’d come to appreciate.

  It gave him that many more seconds to complete a task. And in his experience those few moments tipped the scale toward success. He shoved the pizza aside and eyeballed the various piles of paperwork accumulating on his desk. Yeah, interrogating in an air-conditioned room a short walk from operational plumbing was great, but jungle interrogations didn’t have near the administrative commitment.

  Carlos Ruez’s file splayed like a yawning, food-filled mouth on one side. Two light-red sheets of paper lay atop it, covered with his soldier-straight block letters, giving a timeline and near word-for-word reciting of the Q & A for the first two days. The first page held significantly less than the second, since the bastard refused to open his mouth in response to any of his questions and Vail couldn’t get too physical until other avenues had been explored, unless it was an emergency greater than a handful of Base Branch Agents’ lives. And boy, that hacked him.

  A day without food and water loosened Carlos’s lips enough to fill a page, but not enough to satisfy Vail. Efforts ratcheted up on day three. And today, well, his knuckles ached, and that said something for a guy who worked a heavy bag for at least an hour every day. His hand hovered over a new red page, but stilled. The air shifted almost imperceptibly. Head still bowed over the stack, Vail’s gaze flew to the door. No one stood in the doorway. No shadows approached.

  He stood, hand automatically reaching for his sidearm. If he knew anything, it was the ways of the room and his instincts. The air only moved in his office when someone opened the door. But no one had.

  The Sig’s cool handle nestled home in the web of his thumb and index finger. No windows graced his dungeon. Still, he turned, surveying the placards and commendations Rhonda had commissioned and had installed on his gray rock walls. Nothing was out of place.

  Four strides had him through the door. He studied the short corridor and found all as it should be. “Rhonda?”

  “Yes, sir? I mean, Vail?” His name sounded like an ugly word on her lips. She p
oked her head out of the first door to his left.

  “Did you just come back in my office or even toward it?”

  Her bottom lip poked out while she thought quickly. “No. I’ve been at my desk. Is something wrong?” Her eyes hopped to his hand and gun.

  Vail exhaled long through his nose, and then dropped his hand. “Not that I can tell. Guess I’m just jumpy from lack of sleep and exposure to a human fungus.”

  He returned to his desk, walking with heavy footfalls to get his blood pumping. When he rounded the thing he didn’t sit, but instead shook his arms out like a boxer in the ring. Hackles rose on his nape and his breaths sped. Hand on his gun, he waited. For what, he didn't know.

  2

  The digital numbers on the sleek desk clock his mother had given him when he took the job as desk jockey marked the passing minutes. One. He hunkered down, obeying intuition that had saved him more than a dozen times. Though it was February in Washington D.C., the person operating the building’s HVAC units seemed oblivious to the fact. A moment after the low whoosh began, cool air kissed his face, carrying with it the hint of lilac. Two.

  His brow quirked. Many smells had poured out the old ventilation system over the years, but none so sweet. He turned and surveyed the exposed silver ductwork with its two-by-two square grating and thin layer of dust hugging the top curve of metal before it disappeared into the ceiling. If Rhonda were tall enough to see it, she’d have a heart attack. Next, his gaze roamed the bookshelf, its metal racks dipping slightly under the weight of thick directories, three-inch binders, and the boxes of information on each active mission.

  He pivoted back toward the door and eyed the clock. Three and a half. When the faint blue light showed he’d been on guard for five minutes without a single hint of movement, Vail shook his head. He let gravity crash him into his high-backed chair and his elbows pillowed on the mounds of paper. Silver hair tickled his fingers and his still nearly-black stubble poked his palms as he rested his head in his hands. The blank red paper stared back at him.