BELONGING: Hope, Truth And Malice (Beauty 0f Life Book 3) Read online

  Dan glanced over at Lexa. “What did you say?”

  “Nothing. You ready for this so soon after taking a lethal?” Lexa asked changing the subject.

  “Yeah, nothing I haven’t done before.”

  Lexa furrowed her brows. “What?”

  Dan glanced up at the ceiling of the SUV. He couldn’t believe he said that. He glanced back a Lexa. “I just meant I’ve got experience going from one mission to another with no break in between. I’m fine to take another shot if I have to.”

  Lexa glanced at Dan quickly. Yeah, she guessed that with his time in Special Forces, taking more than one lethal shot in a day was highly likely. She began to wonder more about his time in Special Forces. What were his days really like? She wanted to know more about him. Sure, she was learning about him from their dinners, but Dan was slow to divulge anything from his past. They mostly talked about current events and the other members of the team.

  Her mind wandered to last night. She felt a hot flush as she recalled his hands on her. She wished it hadn’t been so dark—again. She wanted to look at his whole body, she wanted to drink him in. Lexa blew out a breath and stopped that line of thinking. They were on the job.

  Lexa was brought back to the present and caught only the last of what Tia was sharing about the current situation, “… and the people that got out said they looked like military types.”

  She quickly chided herself for getting so distracted that she’d missed what was said. Lexa muted her headset, looked to Dan pleadingly, and said softly, “Dan, I didn’t catch all of that. Recap for me, please,” and then turned her headset back on.

  Dan gave her a quick wink and lopsided grin then said, “So Boss, if I got all that … what we have here is three subjects, possibly military trained, armed with automatic weapons, four hostages, one is a baby, so no CS gas, only one way in and out of the bank, five people got out before the hostages were herded to the back, and no one harmed so far. Did I miss anything?” he finished just as they pulled up.

  Lexa smiled and quickly mouthed a silent ‘thank you’, then cringed a bit as Jon said, “No, Dano, didn’t miss a thing. Nice recap though for anyone that was distracted.”

  Dan winked at Lexa once more as they both exited the SUV. Lexa wanted to growl at him. It was as if Dan had read her mind and knew she was thinking about last night. Arrrggh, Dan got under her skin like no other man had ever done. This didn’t bode well for her at all. Lexa headed straight to where the five witnesses were standing, stuffed her personal feelings down, and refocused on her job.

  Outside Central Bank – Command Truck – 9:40 a.m.

  “You know what I need,” Nick stated as he entered the command truck.

  Loki grinned. “Eyes inside in two minutes, Boss. Hopefully with sound. Just gotta hack their security password unless there’s a manager that can provide it to me quicker,” Loki said as he started to make the connections to the feeds.

  “Sorry, Loki. I just checked with the five that got out, no managers, only customers,” Lexa informed him.

  Stepping part way into the command truck, Jon spoke to Nick. “I’d like Dan covering you if you go in. If these guys are military, he might be the best one to connect. Give him an opportunity for some field training with you right there to guide him.”

  Jon suggested it partly for that reason and partly because Dan had just taken a lethal shot. And no matter how quickly Dan seemed to process the emotions associated with that, Dan’s comment about his mind being all over the place still rang in Jon’s head. It was unlikely that Nick would hand off negotiations to Dan, so it was a safer place for Dan to be right now—especially if the subjects were dressed in fatigues and had green eyes. If Jon could help it, he never again wanted to put Dan in the position that he’d been in last October when Dan froze taking the shot during the Mulberry Apartments call.

  Ray glanced at Loki and saw he was nervous at Jon’s suggestion. Then he glanced over at Jon and the Boss, waiting for the Boss’ answer. Ray wasn’t so sure negotiating was the best idea for Dan—Dan needed more training time. When the Boss didn’t answer right away he chuckled, then—hiding his own nervousness— smoothly said, “Jon, you do recall in the last negotiating training session Dan called me an asshat and failed to listen to my demands.”

  Nick glanced at Ray. He was a bit miffed that Ray brought that up, Dan surely heard that and it could shake his confidence. Nick decided he needed to show Dan that he believed in his ability. “Sounds, like a good plan to me. Dan knows how to speak military. I might need some help with that.”

  Ray realized now what his words would’ve done to Dan. Damn, he didn’t mean to undermine Dan’s confidence—he was just worried about throwing Dan into negotiating when he wasn’t ready. Ray hoped the Boss would be able to negotiate. He’d hate for Dan to go into this unsure of himself and fail. That wouldn’t do any of them any good. Still chastising himself, Ray turned his attention back to the monitors, captured a screen image of each of the subjects, and began a facial recognition search.

  Outside Central Bank

  Dan blushed at Ray’s words as he and Bram grabbed the shields and trotted over to a position near the front of the bank. He really did suck at negotiating. It scared him a bit to actually do it in the field, but if the Boss told him to take over he would do his best. Dan just hoped his best would be good enough and wouldn’t get anyone killed. The only thing that comforted him a bit was the fact that the Boss would be right with him, and help him if he faltered.

  Bram patted Dan on the shoulder. “Don’t listen to Ray, he’s just joking. You’ll do fine if need be. Just relax.”

  As Jon exited the command truck he scanned the area for Zulu positions, then ordered, “Ray, Loki can run the facial recognition on the subjects. I need you to take over gathering information from the witnesses from Lexa. Lexa, get your Remi—with Dan inside I need you for Zulu Two. We’ve got a baby in there, so we need to have someone cover each of the three subjects.”

  Ray and Lexa responded, “Copy that,” then executed Jon’s commands.

  Inside Central Bank

  Three men nervously paced with their weapons randomly pointing at the hostages they took. One stopped and looked at their leader. Due to his damaged larynx, his voice came out in an eerie, wraithlike whisper, “This will work, right?”

  “Yes, Marty, this will work,” Jason reassured.

  The third man’s hands shook nearly uncontrollably. Garth’s voice shook like his hands as he said, “This had better work. I’ll make it work. I can’t take it anymore.” He headed for the mother with a baby in her arms.

  A young mother cradled her infant closer, trying desperately to protect her baby from the terror of this situation as the shaking man approached her. She was just in here to deposit the gift from her mother of a nice tidy sum to be added to her daughter’s college fund. Tears flowed as she wondered if her daughter would ever get to grow up or if today was their last day on this earth. The men seemed jumpy and she assumed they were here for drug money.

  The bank manager, a slightly portly man with a receding hairline, four kids, and a loving wife, put himself between the young mother with the baby and the shaking gunman. He quietly said, “Please, please don’t hurt us.”

  Jason turned to the manager and shouted, “Just be quiet!” He waved his gun near all of his hostages. “No speaking, just be quiet and this will be over soon.” He felt bad at the fear on their faces, but they really didn’t know fear—not like he did. Jason had to do this—he had no choice.

  Marty’s hands shook as he reached for a woman that reminded him of his own mother. He had to do this. “Over here. On your knees,” he rasped out. It still hurt to speak. Every word was an effort. Marty rubbed his throat. His voice would never be the same. Never. But that wouldn’t matter soon.

  Garth left the woman with the baby where they were and took a position behind them. His eyes darted in every direction. Nowhere was safe, they could be anywhere—anywhere. They could
get him again. He couldn’t do it again. No this was a better option. Garth wiped the beads of sweat off his forehead. At least this way he’d know for sure. He breathed out a shaky breath. He was so tired—so very tired. But it would be over soon. Garth could see no other way out of the hell his life had become.

  Jason looked at the bank manager. What an easy life he had lived. Fat and happy, while he—they—paid the price for the easy lives of others. The ever-present anger surged in him. The ringing of the phone was the signal that the TRF was here. It was time to make this happen.

  Outside Central Bank

  Nick engaged with the subjects. The list of their demands sounded like something out of a movie. They were so unrealistic as to be laughable, but Nick wasn’t laughing.

  When no additional information could be gleaned from the witnesses outside, Ray rejoined Loki in the command truck. They identified the subjects as Corporal Jason York, Private Garth Summers, and Private Marty Green. Jason appeared to be the leader of the trio and was the one talking with Nick.

  Dan, Bram, and Nick walked cautiously towards the doors of the bank when Jason agreed to let them in. Nick’s mind was working a mile a minute. Something didn’t seem right about this situation. He was waiting for more information from Ray and Loki before he went in with Bram and Dan.

  “They all came home from Afghanistan within the past three weeks, but no additional information on their service records is immediately available. We need authorization to access their records,” Ray stated then continued, “Tia, can you work on that please?”

  “Will do, but it might take some time,” Tia responded.

  “Tia, forward the info to Loki when it comes. Ray, I need you to get another shield and slowly make your way into the bank closer to the hostages if possible. Be ready to cover them if necessary.” Jon continued to give orders, “Dan and Bram, your primary subject will be Jason. I’ve got Marty. Lexa, you stay on Garth. Bram, if Nick hands negotiations over to Dan I want you concentrated on Jason.”

  “Copy,” responded the team. Ray rushed out of the command truck and grabbed a shield. He met the Boss, Bram, and Dan at the entrance and then they slowly made their way into the bank.

  Chapter Nine

  July 15

  Inside Central Bank

  Nick continued to talk to Jason, trying any angle he could think of to connect with the angry man waving the gun around. He noticed the other two were nervous and shaking. Something definitely wasn’t what it seemed. He wondered for a moment if these men were being forced to rob the bank.

  But then Jason escalated again and waved the gun around as he yelled, “You don’t get it. You’ve never been there. The things that they do to you over there. You’ll never understand.”

  It clicked in his head. They were dealing with something else—PTSD. These men had only arrived back home three weeks ago. Nick spoke calmly, “No, I’ve never been in the military. But if you just put the guns down, we can find someone you can talk to that understands what it’s like. Can you put the gun down, Jason?”

  Jason was desperate and his voice vacillated between shouting and a normal level. “No, no I can’t, Nick. You don’t understand. You can’t understand. You were never in the military. You just don’t know what it’s like over there. You sit in your cushy homes and leave us to deal with all the shit on our own. You’ll never understand!”

  Jason knew they just didn’t understand. All they wanted to do was talk and he needed them to take action. Why weren’t they taking action? What could he do to get them to take action?

  Nick looked over at Dan and with a tilt of his head he softly asked, “Do you think you could connect?”

  Shit, he didn’t want to do this, was Dan’s first thought. But with a slight nod, he answered in the affirmative. Dan drew a deep steadying breath, slowly letting it out to settle his nerves and slow his racing heart.

  Nick inched over to Dan and they switched positions with Nick taking the shield and raising his weapon while Dan lowered his. Bram instantly took over aiming at Jason. It was a seamless transition of roles. The team was good.

  Feeling his anxiety increasing, Jason rapidly tapped his fingers on his thigh How to get them to take action? When Jason looked back at the officers, he recognized something had changed. The older man was now behind the shield pointing a gun at him and a young blond officer was now inching his way out from behind the shield with his hands out. He had put his weapon down. Shit! Jason started to raise his gun at him. Jason needed them to take action. Marty and Garth were counting on him to make this happen.

  “Jason, my name is Dan Broderick with the TRF. I’d like to talk with you to see if we can resolve this so no one is harmed.” Dan took a slow breath in and out to calm the adrenaline coursing through him and glanced to the Boss who gave him an encouraging smile. “Can you tell me what you need?”

  “Like I told the other guy, you can’t understand. You just don’t know what it’s like over there. You’ll never understand!” Jason repeated.

  Garth’s eyes darted to Jason. He wasn’t making this happen. He swallowed his fear. He was going to have to do this. Garth had no other choice.

  Marty painfully whispered, “Jason, do it.”

  Jason started shaking as his memories overwhelmed him. This was too much, too much. His voice was shaking with raw pain, anguish, and a good deal of anger as he blurted out, “We were prisoners … they did things that aren’t human. You think the only issues we have to deal with are dying buddies, being blown up, or shot. But there are things much worse than that—you don’t know—so you can’t help. No one can help.”

  Dan was listening—he heard loud and clear. But how to help them? That was the question. Jason wasn’t thinking clearly, none of the three were. They all had a desperate, haunted look to their eyes that Dan knew all too well. Those same eyes had stared back at him from a mirror for months. Dan had an inkling that they were here to die, to force the team to shoot them—to commit suicide by cop. How could he stop that from happening?

  He realized that he was the only one on the team that had even a snowball’s chance in hell of truly connecting with these guys. Crap, he knew what he had to do. It wasn’t gonna be pretty and he’d pay for it emotionally for a while. Though it was the only way he could see to get these men out of here alive.

  Dan mentally fortified himself before answering. “That’s where you’re wrong, I do understand.”

  Nick instantly hissed in his ear, “Dan, first rule, don’t lie.”

  Dan shook his head slightly in answer to Nick, but continued talking to Jason, “I’m with the TRF now, but before, I was Master Corporal Daniel Broderick, with Special Forces in Kandahar. Served six years over there. I know there are worse things to see and deal with than bombs and death. Talk to me, buddy, I’d like to help.”

  Jason was silent for a moment then turned and stared directly at Dan and then slowly started to say, “You were over there? Really? You look too damned young and innocent to have been over there, but even if you were, you never saw or endured what we did.”

  His hands shook violently as the memories of what the terrorists had done to him flooded his mind. Jason motioned to Marty and Garth. “We were from different units, but all ended up in the same hellhole. My unit was slaughtered in front of me then the bastards decided to keep me alive and torture me. Fed me only a handful of maggoty gruel and two glasses of water each day. They beat the shit out of me daily. Punches and kicks—so many there wasn’t a place on me left unbruised.”

  He shifted his gun then continued, “Then Marty showed up and three days later Garth. The bastards were vicious and inhumane. They didn’t believe us when we said we had no useful information. We didn’t, we’re just grunts. They didn’t care, they just laughed, then beat the crap out of us. After four weeks, we were rescued.”

  Pain and anger flared in Jason’s face as he sneered, “Ha, rescued. That’s a screwed-up word. I wasn’t rescued—part of me is still there. I can’t sle
ep. I keep remembering every hit, every debasing thing they did to me. You can’t understand what it’s like to live like that, wondering if today is the day they would finally kill you and praying that they would, just to end the pain.” Then he paced back and forth three steps, agitated again.

  Jason stopped then looked directly at Dan as he yelled, “You can’t understand.”

  Dan said almost too softly, “Yes, yes, I can.”

  Still looking directly at Dan, Jason raged, yelling at the top of his lungs, “How? How can you? You never had to deal with that.” Gesturing at Dan with his free hand, Jason’s voice fluctuated high and low, “Look at your pretty face—not a mark on it!” His hand went to his own scared face. “See my face—mine bears the marks—they cut me just for fun—laughed at my screams.” Jason’s hand wildly swung toward Marty, “And Marty—they choked him so hard they crushed his larynx. And the things they did to Garth—I can’t even begin to describe the inhumanity of what the sick bastard did to him with needles. There’s too much light in your eyes for you to have experienced anything like what we went though. How dare you say you understand!”

  Dan’s eyes shifted to Garth for a brief second as images of the face of the bastard who had plunged red-hot needles into his stomach assaulted him. The sadistic bastard had laughed as he’d screamed bloody murder. God, he understood—more than anyone could imagine. He understood the animalistic fear in Garth’s eyes—it was so like his had been for months.

  He struggled to calm himself and push thoughts of his torture away as he turned his gaze back to Jason. Again, softly and calmly, but now with a slight tremble, Dan replied, “I do understand.”

  Dan allowed his mask to fall completely away. The intense pain that he kept deeply buried rose to the surface and resonated in his eyes as he ripped off the scabs covering his psychological wounds—hoping Jason would recognize that he truly understood and allow him to help them. Dan looked directly at Jason and waited until Jason’s eyes had locked onto his.