a deal.”
“I’ll try for four,” he countered. “But—”
She shook her head. “Five.”
He looked at her crossed arms, at the angle of her tough-kid chin and assumed the same pose. “Four. But I don’t get every evening off, you know, so some weeks it might be only three. But if I get weekend liberty, I’ll drop by, okay? In return, you’ve got to promise me you don’t go anywhere alone until this bad guy is caught.”
She gave in, nodding her acceptance, gazing up at him as if she were memorizing his face.
“Say it,” he insisted.
“I promise.”
“I promise, too,” he said then glanced at his watch. “Damn, I gotta go.”
He turned, focusing on Luke and Syd as if for the first time. “Hey, Uncle Lucky. Drive Tasha home.”
It was, without a doubt, a direct order. Luke saluted. “Yes, sir, Ensign King, sir.”
Thomas’s harshly featured face relaxed into a smile that made him look his age. “Sorry, Lieutenant,” he said. “I meant, please drive Tasha home, sir. It’s not safe right now for a young woman to ride all that distance alone.”
Luke nodded. “Consider it done.”
“Thank you, sir.” The young man pointed his finger at Tasha. “I don’t want to see you here again. At least not without Mia or Frisco.”
And he was gone, lifting his hand in a farewell as he ran back to the rest of his class.
Luke cleared his throat. “Tash, you mind hanging for a minute? I’ve got—”
The girl had already moved down the beach, out of earshot. She sat in the sand, arms around her knees, watching the SEAL candidates. Watching Thomas.
“I’ve got to finish this really important discussion I was having with my girlfriend,” Luke finished, purely for Syd’s benefit.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Not funny.”
“Damn,” he said with a smile. “I was hoping I could get you to squawk again. ‘I’m not his girlfriend,’” he imitated her badly.
“Also not funny.”
His smile widened. “Yes, it is.”
“No, it’s—”
“Let’s call it a healthy difference of opinions and let it go at that.”
Syd closed her mouth and nodded. Fair enough.
He looked out over the glistening ocean, squinting slightly against the glare. “The reason I wanted you to see this, you know, BUD/S, was to give you a look at the teamwork that takes place in the SEAL units.”
“I know you think I’m going to get in your way over the next few days or weeks,” Syd started. “But—”
Luke cut her off. “I know you’ll get in my way,” he countered. “When was the last time you ran a seven-and-a-half minute mile?”
“Never, but—”
“The way I see it, we can make this work by utilizing your strengths and being completely honest about your weaknesses.”
“But—” This time Syd cut her own self off. Did he say make this work?
“Here’s what I think we should do,” Luke said. He was completely serious. “I think we should put you to work doing what you do best. Investigative reporting. Research. I want you to be in charge of finding a pattern, finding something among the facts we know that will bring us closer to the rapist.”
“But the police are already doing that.”
“We need to do it, too.” The breeze off the ocean stirred his already tousled hair. “There’s got to be something they’ve missed, and I’m counting on you to find it. I know you will, because I know how badly you want to catch this guy.” He gazed back at the ocean. “You, uh, kind of gave that away in Lana Quinn’s office.”
“Oh,” Syd said. “God.” What else had she said or done? She couldn’t bring herself to ask.
“We’re both on the same page, Syd,” Luke said quietly, intensely. “I really want to catch this guy, too. And I’m willing to have you on my team, but only if you’re willing to be a team player. That means you contribute by using your strengths—your brain and your ability to research. And you contribute equally by sitting back and letting the rest of us handle the physical stuff. You stay out of danger. We get a lead, you stay back at the base or in the equipment van. No arguments. You haven’t trained for combat, you haven’t done enough PT to keep up, and I won’t have you endanger the rest of the team or yourself.”
“I’m not that out of shape,” she protested.
“You want to prove it?” he countered. “If you can run four miles in thirty minutes while wearing boots, and complete the BUD/S obstacle course in ten minutes—”
“Okay,” she said. “Good point. Not in this lifetime. I’ll stay in the van.”
“Last but not least,” he said, still earnestly, “I’m in command. If you’re part of this team, you need to remember that I’m the CO. When I give an order you say ‘yes, sir.’”
“Yes, sir.”
He smiled. “So are we in agreement?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You obviously need to learn the difference between a question and an order.”
Syd shook her head. “No,” she said, “I don’t.”
“OKAY,” SYD ASKED, “it’s ten against one. Do you fight or flee?”
“Fight. Definitely fight.” Petty Officer Rio Rosetti’s Brooklyn accent came and went depending on who he was talking to, and right now it was one hundred percent there. When he was with Syd, he was one hundred percent tough guy.
Lucky stood outside his temporary office, eavesdropping as Lieutenant Michael Lee added his quiet opinion.
“Depends on who the ten are,” Lee mused. “And what they’re carrying. Ten of Japan’s elite commandos—I might choose the old ‘live to fight another day’ rule and run.”
“What I want to know,” Ensign Thomas King’s rich voice chimed in, “is what I’m doing in a ten-to-one situation without the rest of my SEAL team.”
Syd fit right in. For the past two days, she and Lucky and Bobby had been working around the clock, trying to find something that the police might’ve missed. Syd worked with the information they had on the victims, and Bobby and Lucky went through file after file of personnel records, looking for anything that connected any of the officers and enlisted men currently
