Lauren’s gut was a mass of writhing snakes by the time Gage had finished his briefing with them. She could barely think through it all, typing in pertinent intel almost by muscle memory. Alex Kazak had asked a lot of good, in-depth questions, things she should have been asking, but she had not been focused. At all. It was an hour before Gage ended the details of the briefing. Alex gave her a worried look once, but said nothing, and left the office, heading for the lockers located in the basement. He had to get his weapons ready for transit.
Lauren watched Gage’s oval face. The ex-Marine Recon sniper had dark green eyes with large black pupils. He always spoke quietly and had laser-like eye contact who whomever it was he was speaking to. And, typical of any sniper, he had a game face on. Lauren knew she had to get her own shit together enough in order to convince him that she wasn’t the right sniper for this op.
“Gage?”
“Yes?” He looked up after putting photos into a file on his desk.
“I’m requesting to be taken off this op with Alex Kazak.”
His brows fell. “Why?”
Lauren compressed her lips, took a deep breath, and said, “I just don’t feel I’m the best qualified sniper to go on it. I have NO experience down in South America. I don’t know Spanish, much less Quechua.” She tried to appear relaxed, but her heart was pounding in her chest and she wondered if Hunter could hear it. Opening her hands, she added helpfully, “Surely one of the other women snipers has field experience down there? Speaks Spanish? Wouldn’t that be a better fit with Kazak?” Her throat was dry. She was desperate for a drink of water. And Hunter’s face was utterly unreadable. Lauren would never want to come up against this operator in a fight.
Gage folded his hands, evaluating her reasons. “You’ve been working here a long time, Lauren, and never ONCE have you asked to be taken off an op.”
Grimacing, Lauren said, “I know. But this one is different.”
“Different how?” Hunter demanded. “You’ve gone on ops in areas you’ve never been in before. Nor did you speak their language. You never cried foul.”
Edgy, Lauren felt the focus of his eyes on hers. As if he could feel what she was really thinking: Wanting to bail on the op, wanting nothing to do with Alex. “Who among the other snipers speaks Spanish?” she challenged quietly, holding his unblinking stare.
“Two. So what?”
“Well,” she stumbled, “why not one of them and not me?”
“Because Alex speaks Spanish and Quechua. Besides, those two snipers are both out on other missions, otherwise I’d have chosen one of them for this assignment. He’s the total package. He’ll translate for you,” Gage replied smoothly, unruffled.
Desperation raced through her. Lauren cast about for a reason; one Gage would accept. “Look,” she growled, “I don’t feel comfortable around Kazak. Okay?”
“So,” Gage said, “that’s the truth?”
Anger flared in Lauren. “Yes,” she snapped.
Gage folded his hands on his desk, head down in thought for a moment. When he finally raised his head and studied her, he said, “Is this a personality clash? A mismatch?”
“It is.” She saw Hunter give a bare shake of his head. His black hair was military short. He pushed his fingers through it, sitting back in his chair, rocking it ever so gently.
“From your end? You’re the one asking to bail.”
“Yes, it’s from my end,” she growled back. Gage didn’t scare her at all. No man did. Except Alex. “I won’t be able to concentrate or focus like I have to.”
“Only one person can handle that rifle at a time,” he drawled. “You dial it in like you always do. Kazak isn’t going to be sitting there, chatting idly away with you when you’re in the zone. He’s a trained sniper himself. He’ll be your spotter on this mission, helping you by feeding you the information that you need to dial in.”
Frustrated, Lauren said, “I know that.”
“Then what the hell is this really all about?” he demanded, sitting up in his chair, his voice tight.
Chin jutting out, Lauren glared at him. “I don’t trust him!” Well, that WAS the truth.
“In what way?”
Nostrils flaring, her hands clenching on each side of her laptop, Lauren snarled, “In EVERY way. He was a damned mafia goon for two years in Peru. How the hell do you think I feel about working with someone like that?”
“Because he was a mafia convert?”
“Hell yes! He ran with common criminals.”
Hunter snorted and glared back at her. “Never mind that he saved Cal and Sky’s life? Never mind that he turned on his own group of ex-Spetsnaz soldiers? Do you even know he took a bullet for Cal and Sky? To get them safely out of that Indian village?”
Her eyes widened. “What are you talking about? All I heard is that he rescued them.”
Gage smiled a little, his voice turning deadly quiet. “It was Kazak’s idea for Cal to shoot him with a through-and-through in his lower leg, the calf area. That way, he’d told Cal, once his friends in the group found him, he could convince them he’d been unable to stop Sky from escaping. And,” Gage went on, nothing casual about him now, “Alex misled the group and sent them in the opposite direction of where Cal and Sky had gone to escape. As it turned out, the leader, Vlad Alexandrov, couldn’t find them, and he turned his rage on Kazak. He nearly beat him to death, Lauren. When the Special Forces team found Alex, he had a broken nose, cracked ribs, not to mention the fact that his mafia friends had left him to slowly bleed out from that leg wound. They left him to die and never gave him any medical help whatsoever. They could have, but didn’t.”
Lauren looked down, processing the information. “I didn’t know that,” she muttered lamely.
“Alex turned against them to save two lives,” Gage went on, rolling his shoulders to rid them of accumulated tension. “He was a bad guy who did the right thing. So now, he’s a good guy. I have no doubt where his loyalties lie, Lauren. The only family he has left is his sister, Kira. The State Department granted them political asylum in our country, and both are on their way to earning their green cards to become citizens probably about six-to-eight years down the road. I vetted Kazak personally because I wanted to make damn SURE he wouldn’t turn on us. And I’m confident he’s one of us.”
She gave him a narrow-eyed look. “Just how sure?”
“He can have my back any time he wants. Is that good enough for you?”
Stinging beneath his warning growl, Lauren knew when an operator said the person could have their back, it implied trust. Total trust. That the operator was good and wouldn’t screw up in the midst of a hot firefight. “Yeah, it’s good enough.”
“I’ve got a dirty suspicion you’re not really coming clean with me regarding this op,” Hunter said, holding her stare. “And I think what it comes down to, is your attitude. You’ve been in the Corps and have gotten saddled before with people you didn’t like, but you damn well worked with them anyway. And you successfully carried off those ops without a hitch.”
Anger riffled through her. She stiffened. “I have told you the truth!”
Gage shook his head. “No… no, I sense something more is behind this, Lauren. And frankly, I could give a shit less what that is.” He jabbed his finger toward her. “You’ve got your orders. YOU make this mission work, whatever your issues. I need my very best sniper on this op, and that’s you. So, if you want to get pissed, get pissed at yourself because you’re so fucking good at what you do. Dismissed.”