Page 3 of Lucky Charm
Doogie said what he was thinking. His face was locked in a ‘don’t mess with me’ scowl. “Seriously? You know how they treat women out in the rural areas. They will not respect her. She’s a commodity to them. That’s a bigger risk. She’ll be a target.”
“We told them. They know anyway. She’s the best according to them. Has the humanitarian missions, the in-depth experience here and abroad, the skill and the guts to handle anything, they say. Not our decision.”
Stocker inserted himself back in the conversation. “Our current mission is the same as yours – to find those weapons, stop the distribution, make friends with Haquiri, and nail IQS. The Doc is secondary.” Stocker shifted his body to full height.
Hunt didn’t care for the attempt to intimidate, and nobody dismissed the doctor’s safety. “Nobody makes friends with Haquiri, and IQS has been elusive, as you well know. The doctorismy primary concern.”
“You can’t manage both?” The antagonism in the man’s tone had Doogie dropping his feet and Hernandez shifting in his seat.
Hunt waved them back. “If we come face-to-face with IQS, we’ll shoot him and hand him off to you, dead or alive. If the action endangers the doctor, I’ll jump in front of the bullet, and your agenda will be secondary. We can manage dual purposes, but our top priority here is protecting the doc unless I misunderstood the instructions.” He looked at Scott who shook his head.
Hunt swallowed a whole bunch of overprotective protests. “You want to send another spec ops team with the doc, we’ll help you with your problem.” Even as he said it, he knew he wouldn’t let Doc out of his sight.
He studied both men. He could do hard and dark objectives. He lived to blow things up and come out on top in a firefight. He could do challenging, ethical, and moral situations in a snap. He could even handle complex missions with lots of moving parts. He’d been at this for close to ten years. Occasionally, though, he was forced to handle stupid. He hated stupid. Hopefully, this wouldn’t be one of those times.
Stocker looked ready to settle in for a good argument, but Scott interrupted. “That’s per our orders from our command. We’re out of our assigned lane, but we’re being tasked to help you because of the overlap with our primary mission. The hospital is taking a risk sending the doctor toHaquiri. But joint operations requested the medical courtesy. Was that at the request of the CIA?”
Stocker shrugged. “Not my department.”
Scott turned away. Only Hunt saw his eyes roll. “We’ll get you in, but it’s up to you to achieve your objectives.”
“If we find weapons there, Daniels may need support.” Stocker apparently couldn’t help pushing. “And wedohave unconfirmed reports that IQS is in the area.”
Quaid Daniels finally spoke. “Unconfirmed is a crap shoot. We have no guarantee we’ll find anything, and I don’t need all of us looking around like we know we’ll find something. Too conspicuous. Let’s be discreet, shall we? Not trying to get Reid killed.”
“We aren’t going to execute a full take-down then and there no matter what you find,” Scott added. “It’ll be tracking purposes only. We’ve tried your placement of an operative. We’ve tried pushing Special Forces their way. We’re getting nowhere. We need tendrils planted and reliable intelligence. Unless you find your man and he’s hurt, your mission objective and the doctor’s mission are two separate actions. The few rumors we’ve heard and the sightings of IQS we’ve had aren’t enough to justify more than that. Use the time wisely.”
Hunt sometimes didn’t see eye-to-eye with Scott, but this was one time where he could live with those parameters. The only way to make things better was for Doc not to go at all. There was no way he’d let her be compromised.
Daniels stood. “We’ll take it. It’ll get us started.”
Stocker growled a low “Quaid,” but Daniels ignored him. “Where do I stow my gear?”
“I’ll show you,” Tommy muttered, taking his time to get out of the chair.
“I’ll get that squared away now.” Daniels eyed Scott and Stocker and gave Reynolds a two-finger salute then judiciously left the room.
Hunt wanted no part of any conversation between Scott and Stocker either. Reynolds could referee or fend for himself. He pivoted to Scott as the door snapped closed. “We’ll get to mission planning, sir.”
“Go.”
“Sutter, Pratt, join us,” Hunt ordered, and they filed out of the building. Outside, he stopped where they gathered. “Let Tommy get Daniels settled, and we’ll work this through. Get some food.”
The men broke up, their grumbling tense.
Hunt turned in the opposite direction and ran into the brick wall of Doogie. Fuck. He’d confessed his feelings for Cait Michaels in a weak moment back in Coronado right before the deployment. Doogie now knew as much as he was willing to say about his quick tryst with the beautiful doctor a year ago.
“You going to handle this okay?” Doogie had lowered his normally robust voice to a field whisper that wouldn’t attract the enemy.
“I need a minute.”
Doogie’s dark eyes drilled into him with a whole boatload of serious attached. “That didn’t answer my question.”
“I didn’t know she was here, Doog. I promise. I haven’t had a chance to look for her or talk to her. Give me a minute to absorb that, will you?” Anticipation, guilt, regrets sat edgy in his gut.
Doogie crossed his arms. “This has all the markings of a clusterfuck, and you don’t want her to go.”
“Do you?” He hated his defensive tone. Putting the screw to all his feelings, he restated. “Do you? Really?”
