“Better stop that before they come looking for you. Take as long with them as you need. When it’s safe to come out, stick your head in the door and ask when the coffee will be ready or if I need help carrying it out. Meanwhile, take the extra muffins for them to munch on.”
He kissed her one last time. “Yes, ma’am, will do. And thanks for being so understanding.”
When he joined Mike and Doc on the porch, they both gave him the evil eye. Leave it to Doc to be the one to start the interrogation. “So how long have you and the lovely lady of the law been, um, friends?”
“Since right after I moved up here to the mountain.”
No use in telling them how that meeting came about. If they found out he’d charged to her rescue armed with nothing but a broadsword, they’d never let him hear the end of it. “I asked her if she could check into how Grandpa Martin died, although I told her he was a distant relative. She got a copy of the report from the county sheriff’s office for me.”
Mike reached for one of the muffins. “So was she curious about why a distant relative had moved into Martin’s cabin instead of his grandson?”
“I told her about the helicopter crash. If she did any checking into my story, the facts would confirm Eli Yates was part of the crew that died that day.”
Damn, he hated lying to his friends, even in a small way. At least they seemed to buy what he was selling. “So what happened that brought you both up here today? I thought we were going to keep in-person contact to a minimum.”
Doc gave the door a pointed look. “Do we have time to talk before Safara rejoins us?”
“Yeah, she needed to call her father, who’s the chief of police in town. He’s at the hospital with her grandfather.”
Mike frowned. “About the old man. Do you think he was attacked by the guys who might be hunting you?”
Eli couldn’t tell them the truth about who was behind the attack, but he could reassure them that it had nothing to do with him. “No way. Whoever attacked Halder did a sloppy job of it. The men you saw at the crash site have no reason to go after Halder, but regardless it would have been a clean kill.”
“That’s good. Well, not that he got attacked, but that it was someone else.” Mike drew a deep breath and launched into his explanation. “I got a call from an army buddy who works in personnel back east. He wanted to know what I’d done to garner the attention of some super-secret group whose headquarters is located in a distant corner of the base. They came in asking about me and one of my men who’d gone missing recently. He said these guys are black ops for sure, the kind where no one knows who they report to or who holds their leashes. They must have a helluva operating budget, because they have all the cool toys.”
Mike’s eyebrows rode low over his eyes. “When he pushed back, he got told pretty damn quickly that smart people pretended the bastards were invisible, but he didn’t much like the idea of my name being bandied about without me knowing about it.”
Eli cut loose with a string of curses that had Jamison grinning in appreciation of his creativity. “Damn, Sarge, you must have been practicing.”
“Screw you, Doc,” he said with no real heat. All of his anger was aimed at the men who might prove to be a threat to all of his friends. Turning his attention back to Mike, he reiterated what he’d told him the first time he’d come up to the cabin. “Throw me under the bus if something like this happens again.”
Mike had obviously honed his own ability to string together colorful expressions. Jamison almost choked on his muffin. Laughing, he sputtered, “God, Major, I don’t think some of that is physically possible.”
Eli could only agree. “And even it if were possible, it would be damn painful.”
“Can the crap, both of you.” Mike gave them both a disgusted look before zeroing in on Eli. “Do not presume to insult me or my honor like that again, Sergeant. I wouldn’t turn you over to those bastards even if it means I spend the rest of my military career behind bars.”
“So what do you suggest I do? I don’t want to live constantly having to look over my shoulder.”
In fact, what he really wanted was his life back, but that wasn’t going to happen. It was also time to share a little of what he’d learned from Safara with his friends, but without outing her or her people.
“I may have some idea why they’re suspicious about what happened that day. It could be something as simple as them not finding enough physical evidence to verify I died in the explosion. But I think it’s something more than that.”
He held up the hand he’d slashed open to remind Mike how quickly his body could repair itself. “I’ve been doing some research, and I suspect I’m not the only one who has this ability to heal. So far I’ve only found vague hints, but no hard data. I will keep digging until I do. These guys could be hunting not just me, but others like me.”
Mike looked doubtful. “But how would they know? Granted, you’re a total badass, especially when under fire, but Special Forces is chock-full of men like that. There’s nothing about you that stands out in a crowd. And it’s not like you have a tattoo on your forehead announcing your ability to the world.”
Jamison gave Eli a considering look. “You could carry some kind of marker in your blood. Maybe a particular gene sequence. If your DNA is otherwise close to normal, the sequence wouldn’t stand out unless someone was specifically looking for it.”
Mike stalked to the far end of the porch to stare at the snow-peaked mountains in the distance. “No one is supposed to have access to the military DNA records unless that’s the only way to determine someone’s identity.”
Eli joined him at the railing. “Yeah, that’s true, but these guys don’t play by normal rules. If someone figured out there were people out there who could come back from otherwise lethal wounds, it would only make sense that they’d want to recruit them for the worst missions.”
Jamison followed them, his slight limp more evident than usual. “They’d also want to find out how it all works. You know, in case it’s something they could use to create some kind of super soldier.”
He clapped Eli on the shoulder. “I hope I’m wrong about that, but I wouldn’t count on it.”
“Don’t sweat it, Doc. It’s nothing I haven’t thought about myself. Even when my head was still ringing from the explosion, I knew there was no way I could explain surviving when no one else did. I did toss pieces of my bloody BDUs into the fire, hoping they’d find enough of my DNA in the fabric to assume I’d been killed. Maybe that was a mistake.”
