Page 15 of Building Courage

After a moment of thought, Tucker said, “He may have targeted someone else, and Book was just unlucky enough to get the wrong chute.”

“And Beck wouldn’t have had anything to do with it. He wasn’t even with us back then,” Swan said.

Beckham’s expression turned grim. “I was in team one, Alpha platoon. I knew Ryan Singer. He was killed six months after Ashe’s accident and five months after I transferred to this team.”

“What are the odds all of them would’ve crossed paths with the same psycho?” Denotti mulled.

Their speculation was ramping up the guys, and Tucker felt the need to insert some calm. “It might just be random accidents, and NCIS is reading more into them than is really there. In any given week, there are hundreds of jumps carried out. Just because NCIS is running the odds doesn’t mean there’s a poison pill sneaking around trying to assassinate SEALs.”

“Tucker’s right,” Harding said, nodding. “We all have connections with other team members. The community is small, and we’ve worked with other teams off and on every deployment. Doing what we do, we can’t allow NCIS’s suspicions to plant even the smallest seed of doubt between us. We need to stick together as a team.”

Harding’s words reined in the group, and Tucker’s tension level eased.

“You can do more good by taking the time to think about the days leading up to Book’s accident. Anything you can remember…anything out of the ordinary that might have happened during that week…the week before and the week after.”

“Jesus, LT, it’s been almost two years,” Swan said.

“Yeah, for me, too, but I’m still going to go through as much of it as I can recall. And I want you all to do the same. If you think of anything, document it and bring it to me.”

After Harding dismissed the group, Tucker fell into step with him as they walked to the parking lot. “Problem, Gilly?” Harding asked.

“No, sir. Just an observation.”

“What’s that?”

“There’s been more movement of personnel, more transfers in the last few years than I can recall. Lieutenant Weaver moved out, and you took over as team leader. Beckham moved in, Morgan transferred in just a year ago, then back out. Rosenburg transferred out, then back in again. Depending on how long these accidents have been happening, it might be interesting to see what transfers occurred before or after them?”

“What are you getting at?”

“If you’d set up an accident for a teammate, wouldn’t you want to distance yourself from the fallout once it happened?”

“Transfers don’t happen that quickly, Gilly.”

“They would if they were already in the works. Something happens to piss the guy off; he puts in for training or a transfer, then as the time approaches for him to leave, he sets up the accident. It happens, and he’s gone.”

Harding stopped, and his eyes narrowed as he thought.

“NCIS has people who know how to set up an algorithm to sort those movements,” Tucker said.

“I’ll bring it up with Commander Yazzie. What made you think of this?”

“Swan mentioned transfers, and if these accidents have been happening in the last five years, there has to be a trail of that poison pill moving in and out or sharing training or other things with each team or platoon he’s hit.”

Sam looked thoughtful and said, “But he might not be hitting a specific team. Remember that male nurse who put insulin in the saline bags, and the patients died? It wasn’t just the patients he cared for that he killed. This guy could be setting up all of us, and it’s the luck of the draw.”

“Yeah, he could,” Tucker conceded. “But it wouldn’t hurt to see if there might be some kind of pattern.”

“Roger that, Gilly.” Harding nodded. “I’ll pass it along.”

As Harding strode away from him in the parking lot, Tucker turned toward his own vehicle. He needed to put this aside for now. Brynn was going to be at the house at ten. He needed to get his head straight and focus on her. He’d agreed to introduce her to scuba and help her get as proficient at it as possible before her trip.

He probably wouldn’t have taken her on, but Natalie had turned him on to Brynn’s podcast. The message behind every episode was to embrace life with passion and respect but always to be safe.

As he turned his vehicle toward home, he thought about how they all had to live in the moment just to have lives outside of their work.

How hard was it for Harding, the only married member of the team, to find time for Moira, his wife? How hard was it for him to shove things he could never speak of to the back of his mind and not share them with her?

Tucker drew a frustrated breath and then blew it out. He hadn’t had a steady girlfriend in two years. He’d had dates aplenty. Some good, some bad.

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