“Fine, then I’ll make sure one of Lasky’s agents escorts you on the boat over to the lodge where we’ll be staying—”
“I am not leaving. Get that through your head. I have a stake in this today.”
“You’re here to protect your friends.”
“I’m here to protect the ones who aren’t involved. The home I love is about to have the foundation crumble under it. I can’t just drink cocoa by the fire at some lodge and pretend it has no effect on me.”
He clammed up with the stone face and stubborn thrust of his jaw that had earned him his Brick call sign.
“I get that you’re a superhero, macho guy, but that doesn’t mean you can steamroll over me or that you need to protect me.” She rested a hand on his chest, hoping he would reach back and meet her halfway. “It may have escaped your notice, but I’ve done a fine job of taking care of myself this past week.”
“Tell that to the snow machine floating around somewhere in pieces,” he said starkly.
Her anger lost some steam, her heart softening a little as she remembered how freaked-out he’d been then.
“You saved my butt that time, and I’m grateful. But I’ve also carried my own weight. I’m not a wilting flower, and I thought that was something you liked about me.”
“There’s a power plant about to be blown up by some wacko ecoterrorists who lived right under your nose for the whole planning of their crime. Excuse me if I’m not so certain of your objectivity in sifting through the evidence.”
His accusation slapped at her as coldly and harshly as the wind rolling in off the bay.
“I can’t believe you would say that about me. How can you think I would ever let anyone get away with something like this, even subconsciously?”>Her gut knotted. All embarrassment evaporated. The helicopter banked left, swooping downward. In a blink of time they’d traveled what would have taken her days to accomplish on her own. Had her brother been gone long enough to make it here? If he was tangled up in such huge and horrible dealings, would he have access to faster modes of transportation now as well?
The chopper steadied into a hover, descent slowing until… Poof. The military aircraft settled with smooth precision. They had arrived at the Alaska Peninsula Power Plant.
And when she stepped from the military aircraft, she prayed she wouldn’t find her brother waiting.
***
Binoculars in hand, Wade crouched on the rooftop of the outbuilding skirting the power plant. The sun just peeked along the horizon, sparking off the silver structure humming obliviously about fifty yards away.
The SWAT unit had already sealed the place off, bomb-sniffing dogs scouring every inch of the facility. The FBI had arrived minutes ago and the predictable territorial tussles for control had already started.
At least roof duty kept him out of the fray.
He and his team had spread out on top of various outbuildings to watch for suspicious activity and be on call for emergency medical treatment, if needed. They’d been this route hundreds of times, working training exercises and ops with SWAT and the FBI as standby combat medics.
Sunny, Misty, and Flynn were in a nearby trailer with Special Agent Lasky, studying security footage and suspect photos to see if any faces looked familiar. Hopefully by the time they hooked up again, this would all be over and Sunny’s temper would have cooled. Given her brother’s probable involvement, she had to be on edge.
It wasn’t sitting all that well for him either, and he’d never even met the guy.
Major McCabe shifted from boot to boot as he crouched beside him, joints cracking.
Wind whistling fast and colder up high, Wade shot a quick glance sideways, ice pellets stinging his face. “Knees aching, old man?”
“Always.” McCabe tweaked his binoculars, sweeping the side lot while Hugh Franco lay flat on his stomach with a rifle. “I know I’m too damn old to still be jumping out of airplanes, but, well, I’ll keep on until the day they haul me off on a litter.”
Franco kept his eye lined up on the scope. “If your knees hurt so bad from your ranger days, why didn’t you choose something else after OCS, fly a plane or even a desk?”
“I said it hurts,” McCabe answered fast. “I never said I could give it up.”
Below them, SWAT team members darted around the building, the front gates sealed closed. The power plant and grounds around it had been evacuated. Beyond the gate, however, the world carried on like normal, blessedly oblivious. At a harbor dock, a small fishing festival was under way. The FBI had decided the event was far enough away from the plant to continue safely, and too large to stop without creating a stampede.
Wade tweaked the focus on a news crew setting up cameras outside the main gate. “Then why aren’t you still a ranger? Why bother with the swimming and mountain climbing?”
“I guess that’s my story to tell.”
“Fair enough.” Wade scanned past the grid of scaffolding and wires surrounded by chain link fences. A K-9 cop jogged with his German shepherd toward a side entrance, but not with enough speed to cause alarm. The dog probably smelled the moose sausages and fish roasting at the bayside festival. How odd that just seeing the shaggy canine made him think of Sunny’s big mutt. Seemed as if his every thought these days rounded back to her. “Aren’t you going to ask me if I care about her?”