Born A Hero. Paula Riggs Detmer

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      Chapter 3

      “Get your butt in here, Dalton, and stop glaring at me.”

      A captain in the U.S. Navy when he’d resigned his commission after the Vietnam War, Richard Sutter held the highest rank of the five Noble Men. In an organization as closely knit as this one, rank was a meaningless technicality, but Sutter took gleeful delight in needling his colleagues just for the fun of it. In retaliation, Jonathan and the rest of the guys ruthlessly ragged Sutter about his expanding gut.

      A few inches shorter than Jonathan’s six-foot-one, with stubble-short salt-and-pepper hair, shrewd blue eyes and an imperious way of biting off his words, Richard had been instrumental in amassing the diverse flotilla of vessels available to their operatives all over the world at virtually a moment’s notice.

      “Hell of a lousy way to welcome a man who saved your butt more than once, Sutter,” Jonathan growled as Richard tucked his pistol into the hollow of his spine before stepping back to allow him to enter.

      In his early sixties now, the ex-captain showed few physical signs of the torturous ordeal he’d suffered after being captured during one of the missions undertaken by the group. Jonathan suspected the wounds to Richard’s psyche still troubled him on occasion, but then, all of them had scars that didn’t show.

      “Just following standard operating procedure, Major,” Sutter replied with one of his rare-as-hen’s-teeth grins as they exchanged a fond handshake. “Want a beer, old man?”

      Jonathan shot him a sardonic look. “Does a hound dog hunt?”

      “Roger that,” Sutter snapped as he headed for the wet bar built into one corner of the suite’s living room.

      At the same time, Jonathan swept his surroundings with trained eyes, memorizing exits, windows and then finally the layout of the room. More important than the spiffy furnishings, however, was the total privacy the suite offered, as well as the secure communications system.

      “Fetch me another brewski while you’re at it, Cap’n,” Edward Ramsey called as he rose from one of the silver-and-blue sofas flanking a large chrome-and-glass coffee table. A solid brick of a man of medium height—and an air force major before he’d left the service—Eddie had been a top gun before that particular term had become public property. In his early sixties now, he reminded Jonathan of a feisty bulldog who still had more fight in him that most men had in their prime.

      “Good to see you, Johnny,” Eddie said as they shook hands.

      Jonathan grunted. “Heard your son’s making a name for himself in the skies over the Mediterranean. Flying the F-18 now, isn’t he?”

      “He’s getting the job done, yeah.” Despite the unassuming words, pride glinted in Ramsey’s gray eyes, the same pride Jonathan suspected showed in his own whenever someone mentioned his own son, Jack. Not that Jack would believe that, however.

      “Ah, c’mon, Eddie, we’re all friends here,” Dr. Gordon Hunter exclaimed as he, too, got to his feet in order to greet the most recent arrival. “If you can’t brag about your kids here, where else can you?” Though Gordo’s pride in his own son, Elliot, had always been obvious to all, Jonathan knew that Doc had lost a lot of sleep lately, worrying about his firstborn.

      “How’s it going, Gordo?” Jonathan asked as they shook hands.

      An inch or so under six feet, with intelligent gray-green eyes behind studious-looking glasses, Doc Hunter had served his country as a field surgeon in Vietnam. Leaner than most, Doc had a wiry strength that had surprised more than one opponent during past operations.

      “I tell you, J.D., if I was any better, I’d be perfect,” he said with that slow mischievous grin that both charmed and disarmed—the same grin Jonathan remembered seeing on Elliot in the days before the boy’s life had been blown apart.

      “Modest as always, I see, Doc,” Richard interjected as Eddie handed him a long-necked bottle of the murky Ecuadorian beer he’d discovered during a mission to that country in the late eighties.

      “What’d you do, J.D., ride one of your precious cutting horses up here from Texas?” The question came from behind, triggering an instant jolt of adrenaline. In the field, Jonathan would have already dropped and rolled, his weapon drawn and ready. Fortunately, he recognized the deep voice with its distinctive Southwestern twang and allowed himself a grin.

      “Nope, took that little bitty Gulfstream I picked up a few months back for weekend trips.”

      “Damn, and here I was thinkin’ you’d slowed down some.”

      At fifty-four, Caleb Stone was the baby of the group. An even six feet tall and incredibly fit, Cal had the kind of brooding dark looks and remarkable leaf-green eyes that women found irresistible. At least, that’s what Gordo’s wife, Helena, had told Jonathan once during one of their rare social get-togethers.

      Never married, Cal had been drafted right out of high school in the Four Corners area of Arizona. Before leaving for Vietnam, he had sired a son with a young Navajo woman who’d died while he was trying to get his bearings after rotating home. He and his boy had a rocky relationship that Cal regretted deeply, though, like the rest of them, he rarely spoke of his feelings.

      “So what’s going down in Montebello this time, Johnny?” Cal asked as he ambled toward the group with a loose-jointed athletic stride Jonathan envied.

      “King Marcus is worried the feud with Tamir is heating up again. He wants to talk strategy before he takes action.”

      It was a damned Romeo and Juliet mess, this thing between the royal families of Montebello and Tamir. For over one hundred twenty years the rulers of these two small, but prosperous, island kingdoms located within spitting distance of one another in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea had been at sword’s point, wrangling over a chunk of land on the western end of Montebello.

      It seemed anachronistic now, raging a blood feud over what had originally been set aside as dowry for a princess. An extremely valuable dowry, Jonathan had to admit, given the considerable oil reserves and mineral deposits that currently existed on the land. Marcus had told him the story years ago when the then crown prince had asked their fledgling organization for help to stop rebel factions on the Arabian peninsula from taking over Montebello.

      In the way of aristocratic families in the nineteenth century, King Augustus Sebastiani of Montebello and Sheik Mukhtar Kamal had arranged a marriage between Delia Sebastiani and Sheik Omar in order to form a political and economic alliance between traditionally warring neighbors. However, the land promised as dowry remained in Sebastiani hands when Sheik Omar had been mysteriously killed before the wedding could take place. Mired in grief, Delia had taken her own life.

      More than a century later, the tragic drama continued. Just last fall the king had announced his intention to give the disputed land to his son, Crown Prince Lucas, in the hope that it would spur the bachelor prince to think more seriously about marrying and producing an heir. Then late in January, during a blinding snowstorm, Lucas had gone down in a private plane over the Colorado Rockies. Though the wreckage had been found a month later, the prince’s body was missing despite an all-out search.

      Cal’s mouth thinned. “Is Sheik Ahmed Kamal rattling his scimitar again?”

      Jonathan nodded. “Seems he’s revising that old claim that Montebello rightfully belongs to Tamir.”

СКАЧАТЬ