One Tough Marine

He closed his hand around the Glock at his belt and slipped it from the holster. Falling back on years of urban combat training, he entered the door fast and low, sweeping the kitchen for any signs of occupation.

It was empty.

He almost let his guard down at that point, listening to the familiar silence of the house. But he hadn’t spent a decade in the Marine Corps just to forget the hard lessons.

He scanned the kitchen once more, looking for any signs of something out of place. The lack of disorder only amped up his tension. Because somewhere in his gut, he sensed he wasn’t alone in the house.

Which meant whoever was waiting somewhere behind a door or around the corner was damned good at his job.

There were times to fight and times to regroup. Deciding which time was which was something he’d learned over almost ten years in uniform. Suicide missions were last-ditch options. Much smarter to beat a strategic retreat, then regroup and make a plan of attack from a more advantageous position.

Especially when you had a two-year-old boy and his mother waiting in the garage to be collateral damage.

He turned quietly and edged toward the back door. He almost made it there before he heard a metallic click a few feet behind him.

“Major Luke Cooper, United States Marine Corps. Retired.” The slick voice behind him ended with a soft clucking sound. “So young for a retiree. Battle fatigue?”

Luke started to turn around.

“I’d appreciate it if you lowered your gun,” the man behind him added in what Luke guessed, from what Abby had told him, must be a Boston Brahmin accent.

“If you think I’m going to put my weapon on the floor and go down without a fight, you don’t know much about the Marines,” Luke said, his voice calmer than the roiling sensation in his gut would have suggested.

“I don’t think either of us needs to use our weapons,” the other man said, his tone slightly amused. “In fact, I think we probably want the same thing, don’t we?”

Luke lowered his Glock to his side but didn’t holster it. He turned around to find the man Abby had described from her earlier encounter—tall, muscular, dressed in black from head to toe. The ski mask fit him snugly, hiding all but a circle of pale skin around his sharp blue eyes and two thin, hard lips. He held a nasty-looking Colt M1991 in his left hand.

“I suppose we want the same thing,” Luke agreed, “but I doubt we’ll agree on what to do with it.”

The thin lips curved into a humorless smile. “Well, I guess we’ll have to deal with that when the time comes. Meanwhile, Mrs. Chandler has told you what my employer wants.”

“Actually, she doesn’t seem very certain what it is we’re looking for,” Luke countered, wondering how many other people were hiding in his house. One more? Two? Three? He’d feel a lot more confident about what he needed to do next if he had some way of knowing what he was up against.

“Captain Chandler took something from my employer. He wants it back.”

“Something? That’s a little vague.”

“You’ll know it if you find it.”

“Also vague.” Luke cocked his head. “Your employer must not think very much of you if he couldn’t even tell you what you’re threatening women and children to find.”

The other man drew a swift breath through his nose, sucking the black knit up tighter against his face. His eyes flashed with hate, but when he spoke, it was in the same slightly bemused tone he’d used all along. “You served with Captain Chandler. You were close friends.”

“Look who knows how to use Google.”

The masked man smiled again. “You served side by side with the captain in Afghanistan four years ago, and again with him in Sanselmo shortly before he died.”

“What did you do, memorize my service jacket?” Luke asked, feigning boredom, although the intruder’s breadth of knowledge about his time in the Marines suggested he had some pretty well-connected sources, probably in the government.

Which meant they were up against an even tougher enemy than he’d anticipated.

The intruder’s smile grew ugly as he saw through Luke’s mask of indifference. “You see, I wasn’t bluffing when I told Mrs. Chandler she really had no choice but to help us find what we’re looking for.”

“She didn’t think you were.”

“We were wondering who she’d run to for help.” There was a hint of innuendo in the man’s tone that made Luke’s skin crawl. “You see, we knew she’d go to the person most likely to know what her husband had been hiding from her.”

“But you didn’t know who that was?”

“We do now.” The masked man chuckled. “Isn’t technology wonderful? A phone call, a text message, and in mere moments, almost everything you need to know is at your fingertips.”

“You should be in a commercial.” Luke made a show of looking around the spotless kitchen. “Should I feel insulted that you didn’t trash my place the way you did Abby’s?”

“You haven’t seen the rest of the house.”

Luke arched one eyebrow. “Say, did you find a dark green sock anywhere? I’ve been looking for it for weeks.”

The man’s smile faded. “Seven days, Major Cooper. Mrs. Chandler clearly believes you can help her find what we’re looking for. If you can, I suggest you do.”

“Or what? You’ll hurt a two-year-old?” Luke sneered. “What a fulfilling job you have.”

The masked man took a swift step forward. Luke’s gun hand twitched upward.

A second man in a black mask stepped around the corner into the kitchen and put a restraining hand on the other man’s arm. He murmured something Luke couldn’t quite make out.

The man with the Brahmin accent visibly took himself under control. “Seven days.”

“Got it. Now get out of my house.”

The second man—African-American, Luke noted, just as Abby had described—nodded toward the back of the house. He went around the corner and out of sight.

The other man stayed where he was, staring Luke down. Luke didn’t drop his gaze, more than happy to wait him out.

“Don’t let me down,” the man said. Then he turned as well, disappearing around the corner on silent feet.

Luke stayed where he was, knowing that trying to stop them was a fool’s game that wouldn’t end well. He tightened his grip on the Glock, waiting for the sound of a window opening in the back of the house.

It came, softer than he’d expected. They’d probably greased the window first to cut down on the creaks. He didn’t hear it close at all, but after a couple of minutes, he decided it was safe to check the rest of the house.

The man in the mask hadn’t been lying. Both bedrooms, both bathrooms and the living room had been trashed in a fast but thorough search. He suspected they’d searched the kitchen as well, though they’d clearly taken more care to hide their tracks there, apparently knowing from their earlier reconnaissance that he customarily entered through the side door. Easier to get the upper hand if they didn’t leave a calling card for him to discover the second he walked through the door.

He was surprised they hadn’t tried the garage.

Or had they?

Unease squirming in his belly, he raced to the garage, unlocked the door and let himself in. The place was just as he’d left it, no sign of a struggle or anything out of place. They’d probably checked here first, he realized, and, as they had with the kitchen, left it as they’d found it in order to cover their tracks.

Inside the car, Abby had shifted to the driver’s side, her pale face staring back at him through the Mustang’s open window.