out the door, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her. Her dark curls bounced with every step, her shoulders in perfect posture. She may have sustained a flesh wound to the arm and a cut on her face, but her three weeks as a hostage hadn’t damaged her backbone.
When the outside door of the trailer clanged shut, he walked back to his office, ignoring the stares of Willie G. and Zach—Zig—McCloud.
Zig whistled low and long, elbowing his teammate in the ribs. “I guess it pays to have rank. I’d go to the academy, too, if I had pretty girls like that coming to thank me.”
“What’d she give you?”
Tristan clutched the scrap of paper in his hand, forcing down the knot in his stomach. It shouldn’t matter that they were teasing him. He’d sure teased them over the past couple years.
But Staci Hayes wasn’t a SEAL groupie. She didn’t hang around the pool hall waiting for a SEAL to show up. She hadn’t gone looking for a warrior.
He’d gone looking for her.
And she deserved better than the speculation of two of his men. “Willie G. and Zig, go clean up the training boats.”
Zig opened his mouth, about ready to argue, then realized that it wasn’t a request but an order.
“Yes, sir.”
They stalked off, leaving him some time alone with the crude map and a head full of questions. As he sank into his desk chair and leaned back until it popped, he replayed Staci’s words over and over. Had there really been an American man consorting with Lybanian terrorists? If so, where on this map were they planning to place the bomb they’d mentioned? And what did the message on the map really mean? Thousands of hours practicing languages were useless if he couldn’t read the one in front of him.
The map didn’t contain a convenient X to mark the spot or even a circle to pinpoint which part of the coast might see the explosion. But it did contain the coastline of Coronado Island. From the airport to the naval stations, Harbor Drive, and even the golf course.
It represented too many people. Too many possible victims.
And he had nowhere to start.
The best he could do was a call to a friend in the FBI’s counterterrorism unit and a former cryptology instructor for the navy.
After leaving messages with just enough information to get him a return call, he shut down his computer and grabbed his bag of workout gear, slinging it over his shoulder as he strolled out of the building and past the two SEALs hosing down a rack of RIBs—Rigid Inflatable Boats.
“Have a good weekend, boys.” He waved, not even trying to hide his smirk as he reached the parking lot. Throwing his bag into the bed of his truck, he jumped up, sliding behind the wheel.
As he pulled onto the main street that ran most of the length of the naval station, he tried to focus on the rare two-day weekend ahead of him.
He’d promised his sister, Ashley, that he’d put together the crib for his soon-to-arrive nephew. And she wanted to do some more shopping for baby clothes before Matt—her husband as well as Tristan’s senior chief—returned from demo training in Chicago.
Maybe she’d let him off the hook for the shopping trip if he put together the crib and matching dresser.
He waved a civilian pedestrian across the walkway. She was halfway to the next parking lot over before he realized she was his afternoon visitor. She was coming from the administrative offices, probably just finished with the interview training to prep her for upcoming media appearances about her ordeal. He’d already seen her picture in the papers, but she’d yet to make a morning show appearance. Lt. Commander del Rey, the PAO, was probably talking Staci through the schedule.
Staci slid into her green sedan and pulled out of her spot, winding between the thinning crowd of other vehicles. She had reached the exit of the parking lot by the time the white delivery van behind Tristan honked.
He laughed at himself for being so easily distracted and waved out the window, pulling up to one of the guardhouses at the front gate of the base.
“Carl, how you doing, man?”
The broad-shouldered Samoan snapped to attention in the door frame of the little hut. “Good. How about you, Lieutenant Sawyer? How’s your sister?”
“Oh, you know. Waterstone took off to Chicago for training, so Ashley moved back in with me in case the kid comes early.”
Carl laughed. “You know any kid of the senior chief’s is going to show up early.”
Tristan’s shoulders shook as he waved at the younger man and pulled off the base, right behind a green four-door with a rusted bumper.
He tried to catch a glimpse of her chestnut hair, just to make sure it was Staci, but from the seat in his truck, he couldn’t confirm. It didn’t stop him from following her over the bridge and into San Diego traffic.
He passed an exit for I-5, which he should have taken to pick up Ashley.
So why was he following someone he wasn’t supposed to have any individual contact with? He didn’t have a good reason, just an instinct telling him to make sure she got home safely.
A glance in his rearview mirror showed the same white van from the base still on his six. It hung back but took every turn he did. Every turn the green car did.
His gut clenched after the third turn.
There was only one way to know for sure who the van was following.
At the next cross street Tristan slowed down and put on his blinker to turn right. The green car pulled almost a block ahead as he turned onto the side street. As soon as he’d cleared the turn, the white van gunned it past Tristan’s truck.
Somehow he’d ended up literally in the middle of something, and now that he was out of the way, that van had a clear shot at the green car. At Staci.
He shoved his gear shift into Reverse and slammed on the gas, spinning the steering wheel and completing a full one-eighty before turning right back onto the main road. In one quick motion he took off after them, joined only by the smell of burning rubber.
He caught up to the van about four blocks later as it maneuvered itself to pin the sedan against the deserted sidewalk in front of the gated entrance of a convenience store.
Air caught in his throat until he schooled it into measured breaths, keeping his hands steady despite the rush of adrenaline that coursed from the top of his head to his fingertips.
Like it or not, he was part of this now. No way was he going to let a fool in a van hurt the girl he’d risked his neck to rescue on the other side of the world.
The van let up for a moment, and Tristan hoped he might be able to get between the two vehicles. But his hopes were in vain. A second later, the van crashed into the side of the green car, sending it careening into a light pole.
THREE
Staci jerked against the shoulder strap of her seat belt, which stole her breath but kept her head from
