Troubleshooters 01 The Unsung Hero Read online

  The Unsung Hero

  A Troubleshooters, Inc. Novel

  by

  Suzanne Brockmann

  For the brave men and women who fought for freedom during the Second World War. My most sincere and humble thanks.

  ________________________________________

  Prologue

  Spring

  WHEN BOTH THE Seahawk and its pilot took a direct hit, things went from bad to worse.

  U.S. Navy SEAL Lieutenant Tom Paoletti took over the controls and lurched the helicopter skyward as Jazz and Lopez worked to keep the pilot from bleeding to death.

  The elite, eight-member SO squad had come into this latrine of a country to see to the safe departure of a diplomat’s wife. The mission was important enough to warrant the presence of Lieutenant Paoletti, SEAL Team Sixteen’s commanding officer. In fact, the order had come down from Admiral Chip Crowley himself.

  Crowley had told Tom frankly that he hoped the CO’s appearance, along with that of his executive officer, Lieutenant Junior Grade Casper “Jazz” Jacquette, would make these fascist assholes behave like neither fascists nor assholes.

  Maybe, just maybe, if Tom was there with his easygoing, let’s-be-friends smile, countered by the take-me-very-seriously rows of ribbons on his chest and his calm air of command, maybe these bottom feeders would actually do as they’d promised, and let them walk out with Mrs. Hampton in tow.

  And maybe, if Tom had Jazz standing beside him, six feet tall and nearly as wide across, very stern, very silent, very black, and very, very dangerous looking, this mission would, indeed, turn out to be no more than an eight-man escort job.

  The local government had insisted up and down and backward and forward that Mrs. Hampton wasn’t being held against her will, so Tom and his squad had taken a commercial flight in, rented a van at the airport, and driven out to the hotel the Hamptons had been living in before Ronald Hampton had made the mistake of taking a day trip to a neighboring country without his wife. In the course of a single afternoon, without warning, the political situation in the area had changed so drastically that old Ron and his entourage weren’t allowed back in.

  Mrs. Hampton was actually at the hotel—a fact that had caused Tom to pause and reflect on the possibility that they were simply going to escort her, without incident, to the airport. He’d considered it at some length as he and his squad sat sipping iced tea in a pleasantly cool garden courtyard while Mrs. Hampton packed.

  Her arrival in the lobby was announced by the presence of six enormous suitcases.

  Mrs. Wilhemina Hampton.

  She was one of those leathery tan fifty-something women who looked as if she should be wearing tennis whites with the little panties under her skirt at all times, holding a racket in one hand, a martini and cigarette in the other.

  She didn’t look particularly glad to see her SEAL escorts, and when Tom gently suggested she ship most of her luggage home—that the local government’s habit of extensive luggage searches might cause delays—she objected with the kind of whine that made him wonder why the United States was going to so much trouble to get her out.

  He pointed out—slightly less gently—that temporary delays in this neck of the woods frequently turned into permanent delays. Although the whining didn’t stop entirely, it lessened in intensity, and three of the suitcases were grudgingly left behind.

  Tom handed her off to Petty Officer Third Class Mark Jenkins, squeaky young, complete with an earnest, angelic freckled face that belonged on a choirboy. Jenk was, in fact, a devious hell-raiser and the best professional liar Tom had ever met in all his years in the teams. Jenk gave Mrs. Hampton his most adorable smile, asked her questions about her grandchildren, and led her to a seat safe in the middle of the van even as, in Tom’s direction, he pointedly scratched the side of his face with his middle finger.

  As they pulled out of the hotel parking lot, O’Leary was in the back, riding shotgun. “A black sedan’s on our six.”

  They were being followed.

  But Tom would’ve been surprised if they’d left the hotel without a tail.

  Jenk and Lopez were oohing and aahing over pictures of Mrs. Hampton’s profoundly ugly grandchild when they heard the first of the sirens in the distance.

  Ensign Sam Starrett, who was driving, met Tom’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

  “Steady,” Tom said. Until they knew for certain those sirens were coming for them, making a run for it would be foolish. Running would blow this entire charade out of the water. And right now they were still firmly planted in pretend. The government was going to let them get on that plane. Sure they were.

  WildCard, also known as Petty Officer First Class Kenny Karmody, was riding up front, monitoring the radio, fine-tuning the signal for the benefit of Ensign John Nilsson, the team’s language expert.

  “Four cars and one army transport, L.T., carrying a full platoon, heading out from the airport, ready to intercept—ordered to use force if necessary,” Nilsson reported.

  WildCard turned back to look at Tom with glee. But then again, there wasn’t much WildCard didn’t do with glee. “Plan B, your holiness?”

  Admiral Crowley had stressed the importance of using diplomacy over force in carrying out this mission. Tom knew if his squad fired the first shot, there’d be a hell of a lot of explaining to do. But he’d far prefer an uncomfortable few hours in front of Crowley’s desk explaining that than having his entire squad and the delightful Mrs. Hampton spend the next six years of their lives in some shithole prison cell, the subjects of an Amnesty International letter-writing campaign.

  Plan Bravo was looking like a damn good choice.

  “Let’s do it.” The words had barely left Tom’s lips before O’Leary neatly shot out the front tire of the black sedan.

  Starrett took a hard right on two wheels, leaving both the main road and the swerving black sedan in the dust.

  Mrs. Hampton started screaming as they narrowly missed a head-on with a vegetable truck. “What are you doing? What are you doing?”

  Jenk raised his boyish tenor to be heard over her. “Mrs. Hampton, ma’am. Even though we were assured you’d be able to leave freely on a commercial airline flight, we made backup provisions for an alternative means of departure. We’ve got a Seahawk helicopter meeting us just outside of town. Lieutenant Paoletti believes our wisest course of action is to head for that alternative means of departure at this time.”

  “L.T., my foot’s on the floor,” Starrett shouted. “This piece of shit’s maxing out at forty-five.”

  They were bouncing through the narrow, potholed side streets at a speed that seemed alarmingly fast. But Tom knew that if they were being actively pursued, it very quickly wouldn’t seem fast enough.

  It wasn’t any wonder Starrett couldn’t get this thing moving, though. They’d filled the beat-up passenger van with eight large men, a woman who wasn’t exactly a lightweight, and three very heavy suitcases.

  There was only one thing they could lose to try to lighten the load. Or rather, there were three things.

  Tom met Jazz’s gaze. His XO knew exactly what he was thinking, which was good, because he didn’t have to say the words aloud. Mrs. H. was already upset enough. But O’Leary, who was sitting in the back with the suitcases, wasn’t on the same wavelength.

  “O’Leary, help me jettison the ballast,” Jazz ordered the sniper in his sub-bass, Darth Vader voice.

  Mrs. H. had stopped screaming, but she was still clearly unhappy at the thought of flying out via helo. Thankfully she wasn’t familiar with the nautical terms jettison or ballast. At least the protests wouldn’t begin until it was too late to make a difference.

&n
bsp; “I get airsick on anything smaller than a 737,” she complained.

  Tom leaned over the back of his seat, turning to face her, hoping that what he was about to say would make her realize the gravity of their situation.

  “We just heard a radio message that ordered four secret-police vehicles and a transport carrying thirty soldiers to stop us by any and all means,” he told her, getting right in her face, making it impossible for her to look anywhere but directly into his eyes. “I don’t imagine you had the opportunity to tour the central prison while you were visiting this country, ma’am, but picture, if you will, someplace dark and cold, filled with rats and the stink of unwashed bodies. If that sounds like a place you’d like to spend a few years, say the word, and we’ll let you out at the curb.”

  Mrs. H. was quite silent. In fact, she didn’t let out more than a strangled squeak as she noticed the draft from the opened back door and saw the last of her suitcases cartwheeling down the street like that old American Tourister commercial. Tom doubted anyone, including her very important husband, had ever spoken so bluntly to her in her entire life.

  “I need you to stay close to Petty Officer Jenkins,” Tom continued. “If he, or I, or anyone in this squad for that matter, gives you an order, you must follow that order without question, without hesitation. Am I making myself clear?”

  She nodded grimly, her mouth tight. “Abundantly, Lieutenant. Although you can be assured I’ll be writing a letter directly to your commanding officer about this. Those suitcases were filled with designer clothing, all expensive, some irreplaceable.”

  “Keep your head down and your mouth closed, ma’am,” Tom told her. “We will get you out of here so you can write that letter. I promise you that.”

  Mrs. Hampton couldn’t resist one last question. “What’s to keep them from shooting down your helicopter?”

  “We’ve got full support from the U.S. Air Force standing by, and an agreement that acts as a permission slip from NATO for our fighters to use force if necessary—a fact we’ll start broadcasting across all channels as soon as we get into the air. They’d have to be crazy to fire on us knowing that. My best estimate—” He glanced at his watch. “—has us landing on a U.S.-friendly airfield in just under an hour. I’ll see to it you get stationery and a pen when we arrive.”

  “And if something goes wrong,” Mrs. Hampton said acidly, “is there a Plan C?”

  “There’s always a Plan C, ma’am.” C stood for creative solutions on the fly. It was one of the things Tom’s special operations squad did best.

  But Plan Bravo went like clockwork. With Nilsson monitoring the radio, Starrett keeping his foot to the floor, and WildCard navigating their way through the twisting streets, they made it to the extraction point right on schedule.

  The Seahawk approached on schedule, too, dust swirling as the pilot touched all the way down so they would be able to toss Mrs. H. on board.

  The snafu came from a jeep full of patrolling enemy soldiers. It was one of those stupid-ass coincidences that set Tom’s teeth on edge. The patrol had been in the exact wrong place at the exact wrong time. Obviously, they had seen the helo and come to check it out. If they’d been ninety seconds later, the helo would’ve been off the ground. Ninety seconds later, and the SEALs would have been moving quickly out of the soldiers’ weapon range.

  Instead, the patrol came around the corner, weapons locked and loaded. But Lopez had been watching for exactly that, and he reacted first, lobbing a grenade in the soldiers’ direction as Tom and Jazz lobbed Mrs. Hampton onto the helo.

  The soldiers scattered, but one of them managed to get off a few wild shots.

  It was sheer misfortune that one of those bullets went through the open door and directly into the shoulder of the pilot.

  But Tom got them up and he got them away. It had been a few years since he’d flown one of these birds. If it wasn’t quite smooth sailing, it was close enough.

  “Christ, skipper,” Jenks shouted over the relentless din Mrs. H. was still making, “we’re smoking!”

  Shit, they were. The engine was sending out a plume of smoke like a signal flare. A bullet must’ve hit one of the two engines. Talk about a lucky shot. Son of a bitch.

  They were already well outside of the city and moving fast toward the border, but they weren’t going to make it over. Not with one engine gone. And, Christ, the fuel gauge was going crazy. They’d been hit in the fuel tank, too. A smoking engine and a leaking fuel tank didn’t make for a good combination, unless, of course, you wanted an explosion. He had to bring this puppy down and he had to do it now.

  The landscape below was barren and dry, a desert filled with unfriendly-looking rocks and not much more than a whole lot of dust. It looked more like the moon than the lush New England countryside where Tom had grown up.

  “Brace!” Tom shouted as he wrestled the helo down to the ground. The landing was bumpy—hell, it was just short of a crash. Anything not strapped down went flying. “Jazz, get Mrs. H. outta here! Move!”

  His men were already in motion. Jazz and Jenks each had Mrs. Hampton by an arm. As they lifted her out of the Seahawk and across the bone-dry ground to shelter behind an outcropping of rocks, she was shouting and struggling, her voice nearly hoarse.

  Lopez and WildCard took the pilot, and Nilsson, Starrett, and O’Leary had already filled their arms with as much gear and water as they could carry away.

  Tom was the last one out the door, and he hit the ground running, thinking, shit, that speech he’d given hadn’t done a whole hell of a lot to shut Mrs. Hampton’s flapping mouth.

  And then he heard what Mrs. Hampton was shouting about. Her purse. She’d left her frigging purse behind.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he heard Jazz say, “you’ll have to do without it. That thing’s a time bomb, it’s going to—”

  “My heart pills are in my purse!” Mrs. Hampton’s raspy voice seemed to echo against the rocks, slapping up among the walls of the gently sloping hills.

  Heart pills.

  Shit.

  The world went into slow-mo. Tom saw Jazz step out from behind the rocks, heading back toward him, toward the helo. But Tom was at least thirty yards closer. He tried to execute a half-court pivot, but skidded in the dust, scrambling to keep his speed up as he raced now back toward the helicopter.

  Ten steps, and he was inside, searching for the goddamned thing. It was invisible, like most women’s handbags when you really wanted to find them fast. He dropped to the metal floor, searching under the seats and . . .

  Jackpot. It was beige leather and it must’ve slid forward when he’d landed. He grabbed it and was out the door in a matter of heartbeats, running as hard and as fast as he possibly could.

  Tom was at least twenty yards from the shelter of the rocks when he heard the Seahawk blow behind him, felt the force of the explosion send him hurtling through the air. The ground came up to meet him far too quickly.

  Damn, he thought as he tucked Mrs. H.’s handbag against him, protecting it with his body, this was going to hurt.

  And then he stopped thinking as his world went black.

  ________________________________________

  One

  8 August

  TOM SWUNG HIS duffle bag down from the overhead rack and shuffled slowly with the other passengers off the commercial flight and out into Boston’s Logan Airport.

  Moving slowly was good, especially since—like right now—he still had bouts of dizziness from that head injury that had nearly taken him out of action permanently.

  Outside the terminal, the city skyline was muted by the hazy morning sky. Welcome to summer in New England.

  The humidity would lift, Tom knew, as he headed toward the tiny North Shore community of Baldwin’s Bridge. The stiff ocean breezes kept the temperature down and the skies blue in the picture-perfect tourist town.

  Tom was staying only until Sunday.

  He had thirty days of convalescent leave to fill, which pissed hi
m off. He didn’t want thirty days, dammit. He’d just spent far too much time in the hospital, too much time away from his command. Of course, thanks to Rear Admiral Larry Tucker, at this point he wasn’t sure he even had much of a command to return to.

  Was it any wonder he’d lost his temper when he’d found out that while he was in a frigging coma, Tucker had tried to make SEAL Team Sixteen a line item to be deleted on the upcoming fiscal year’s budget? And when Tom had found out that Tucker had taken Sixteen’s SO squad, the elite group of men that Tom had taken years to handpick—nicknamed “The Troubleshooters” by some and “The Troublemakers” by the non-SEAL brass like Tucker—and scattered them to the ends of the earth . . .

  But Tom had only lost his temper with the rear admiral. He hadn’t thrown the man through the fourth-story window of his D.C. office. He hadn’t even slapped the self-satisfied smirk off the bastard’s face.

  All he’d done was list his objections perhaps a little more strenuously than he normally might have.

  And for that, he’d lost another week of his life undergoing psych evaluations, as teams of medical doctors and psychiatrists tried to decide whether or not his outburst was directly related to his recent severe head injury.

  Tom had tried to assure them that, indeed, his loss of temper was merely a side effect of dealing with Tucker.

  But his doctor was a captain—Howard Eckert—who was up for promotion and eager to please Rear Admiral Tucker, and Tom’s excuses didn’t fly. Eckert gave him thirty days’ convalescent leave in an attempt to recover further from the head injury. The doctor and the shrinks warned Tom that with such an injury it wasn’t unusual to experience some temporary and slight changes in personality. Aggressive behavior. Feelings of persecution and paranoia. And of course there was the dizziness and headaches. He should try to stay calm and relaxed. Because after thirty days, when he returned to the naval base in Virginia, he would undergo a similar set of psychiatric tests, after which his fate would be decided.

  Would he be given a medical discharge and cut adrift, or would he be allowed to continue his career in the U.S. Navy?