Troubleshooters 03 Over The Edge Read online

  Over The Edge

  A Troubleshooters, Inc. Novel

  by

  Suzanne Brockmann

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  acknowledgments

  A million thanks from the bottom of my heart to Mike Freeman, for expert advice and countless hours spent reading notes and drafts. Thanks, also, to Frances Stepp for introducing me to Mike!

  Thanks to my grandmother, Edna Schriever, whose ever-present smile, generous kindness, and sharp intellect were a vital part of my childhood. The warmth of her spirit is with me still.

  Thanks to the men and women who took the time to record their accounts of the Holocaust in Denmark. That is a story we must never forget.

  Thanks to all my readers, friends, and fans, who’ve shared with me the experiences of their mothers, fathers, and grandfathers during World War II. The matter-of-fact heroism and sacrifices continue to awe me.

  Thanks as always to Deede Bergeron, Lee Brockmann, and Patricia McMahon—my personal support staff and early draft readers.

  And thanks, of course, to Ed.

  Any mistakes I’ve made or liberties I’ve taken are completely my own.

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

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  Prologue

  Four Months Ago

  The moon was hanging insolent and full in the sky just to the left of a billboard for a bankruptcy lawyer, and Stan knew.

  It was the full moon’s fault.

  It had to be the goddamn full moon.

  Senior Chief Petty Officer Stanley Wolchonok steadied himself, holding on to the side of a pickup truck in the parking lot of the Ladybug Lounge and praying to whatever god was listening that he wouldn’t throw up.

  His fever was spiking. He could feel his entire body break out in a sweat as a flash of intense heat gripped him. God damn, of all the times to get the flu . . . Of course, there was never a good time to get sick. This just happened to be a worse time than any other, coming back to the States after two relentless months away.

  “Senior! Thank God you’re here!”

  Stan wasn’t ready to thank anyone for anything—particularly not for his command performance tonight at this cheap-shit, lowlife bar where he hadn’t come by choice in well over two years.

  Which didn’t mean he hadn’t been here plenty of times in the past two years.

  Cleaning up after whichever dumbass in the team had gone ballistic.

  The average dumbass didn’t get more than two strikes before he was out of the SEAL Teams—or at least out of the elite Team Sixteen Troubleshooters Squad.

  Truth was, the average dumbass who was smart enough to become a SEAL learned rather quickly to be neither dumb nor an ass most of the time. But everyone had to blow off steam, particularly after two months away from loved ones, two months filled with high stress and not a hell of a lot of down time.

  The married men—and the men whose relationships with their girlfriends had survived these past two very cold and lonely months of separation—were all home in their honeys’sweet arms tonight. The single guys were in bars like the Ladybug—an alcohol-doused location where it was extremely easy for the average dumbass to get into some serious trouble.

  Tonight’s dumbass was newly promoted Chief Petty Officer Ken Karmody, more affectionately known by his extremely accurate nickname WildCard. Unfortunately, there was nothing even remotely average about him.

  This was, without a doubt, the seventeenth strike against him. Another man would’ve been out on his ear a long time ago. Problem was, another man couldn’t do half the things to and with computers that WildCard Karmody could.

  And Lieutenant Tom Paoletti, CO of SEAL Team Sixteen, honestly liked the little butthead. Truth was, Stan liked him, too.

  But not tonight. He didn’t like him at all right now.

  And the million-dollar question was, what had WildCard done to live up to his nickname this time?

  Chief Frank O’Leary had made the SOS call that had pulled Stan out of bed. A man of few words, O’Leary’s usual lazy drawl was clipped and tight. He’d gotten right to the point. “Senior, WildCard’s in deep shit. Sure could use you at the Bug, ASAP.”

  If it had been anyone else calling, Stan would have rolled over and moaned himself back to a feverish, near-sleep state. But O’Leary rarely asked for anything. So Stan had been up and dressed and in his truck inside three minutes.

  He forced himself to straighten up now as Petty Officer Second Class Mark Jenkins scurried across the parking lot to him. “O’Leary and Lopez locked Karmody in the bathroom, and Starrett, Muldoon, Rick, Steve, and Junior are holding off about twenty jarheads who want to rip him to shreds.”

  Stan’s head throbbed. “Sam Starrett and Mike Muldoon are here?” Fuck. They were officers. Despite the fact that Sam was a mustang—an enlisted man who’d gone to OTS and made the leap to officer—and Muldoon damn near worshiped the ground Stan walked on, their presence here made cleaning this up more complicated.

  And that wasn’t even taking into consideration the twenty U.S. Marines who wanted—probably for some very good reason—to rip WildCard Karmody to shreds. Twenty Marines. Not two. Not three. Twenty. Beautiful. Just beautiful.

  “Starrett swears he’s blinded by the extremely generous, uh, charms of a young lady he met here tonight. He’s seen nothing and will continue to see nothing. And Muldoon promised he’d be out the back door as soon as you arrived,” Jenk reported in his schoolboy tenor. His cartoon-character voice matched the freckles on his deceptively honest face.

  Stan managed to walk upright all the way to the Ladybug’s door. Damn, he was dripping with sweat. The key to defusing a volatile situation like this was to come in looking completely calm and cool. He found his handkerchief, mopped his forehead, and prayed again that he wouldn’t puke on the floor. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know exactly, Senior.” Jenk, a veritable fountain of information and official team gossip, was coming up dry. When was the last time that had happened?

  Stan cursed the full moon again. “Guess,” he ordered the kid.

  “I think WildCard went to see Adele again,” Jenk told him. “And I think it probably didn’t go too well. Again.”

  Adele Zakashansky. WildCard’s high school sweetheart who had dumped him without ceremony after years of alleged devotion. At least that was WildCard’s side of the story. The dumping had occurred a mayhem-filled six months ago. If Stan never heard her name again, it would be too soon.

  “I was playing pool with Lopez and Rick,” Jenk continued. “I didn’t even see WildCard come in. Then there was this commotion, and I look up and he’s going one on twenty with this bunch of Marines, like he’s Jackie Chan or something. O’Leary was near the bar, and he grabbed WildCard and tossed him into the head. Muldoon got the Marines to agree to a temporary cease-fire. But it’s only temporary.”

  God bless Chief Frank O’Leary and Ensign Mike Muldoon. “Anything broken?”

  “A big mirror on the wall,” Jenk said. “A coupla chairs.” He laughed. “And a lot of Marine balls. The Card’s a wild man.”

  The door opened and Mike Muldoon peeked out. “Senior! Thank God. You better get in here. The manager’s about five seconds from calling the police, WildCard’s shouting about getting out of the bathroom and finishing what he started, and the Marines are more than ready to rumble.”

  Stan mopped his face one more tim
e and stepped inside. “I got it from here, Muldoon,” he told the younger man.

  “Oh, wow, Senior, you look really terrible. Man, you got the flu,” Muldoon realized. He had one of those too-young, too-handsome faces with big expressive blue eyes that gave away everything he was feeling. And he wondered why he never won at poker. “You should be home, in bed—”

  “And you need to get out of here,” Stan said bluntly. “I can’t fix this for Karmody with you here.”

  Muldoon looked as if he were about to cry. “But—”

  “Get lost. Sir.”

  Muldoon was no dummy, and with one more pained look on his pretty face, he vanished.

  Stan glanced around the room. Marines, manager, man in the bathroom. The manager on duty tonight was Kevin Franklin—he knew the guy well. He was an asshole, but it was a devil-you-know situation—better than dealing with an unknown.

  Yes, indeed, it was WildCard Karmody’s lucky night—Stan could fix this. Provided he stayed on his feet and didn’t barf on anyone.

  Step one. Get the Marines out of here. With them gone, the manager would be less inclined to call in the local police. Stan aimed himself at the surly group.

  The highest ranking Marine was only a corporal—Jesus, they were all children. That was either going to make it really easy or really hard.

  “Tell Franklin to hold on,” Stan murmured to Jenk. “Ask him—pretty please—to give me five minutes. Ten, tops. Tell him I’m going to clear the room, then see what I can do to make acceptable reparations for the damage that’s been done.”

  Jenk slipped away.

  “How about we all step outside, Corporal,” Stan said to a big beefy kid who couldn’t have been more than twenty-three tender years old. “I’m Senior Chief Stan Wolchonok, U.S. Navy, SEAL Team Sixteen. I’m not sure exactly what there is to say here, but a little fresh air can’t hurt, huh?”

  “Why should we be the ones to leave?” Another kid, even bigger and beefier—and more drunk than Corporal Biceps—stepped forward. “That stupid little shit started it.”

  Stan could hear WildCard—the stupid little shit in question—howling from the men’s room, banging on the door and demanding to be let out.

  “We’ll go into the parking lot,” another Marine suggested, “if you send him into the parking lot, too.”

  Stan sighed. “Can’t do that, boys. If you want to fight him,” he said, “and I really don’t recommend it—he’s small, but he’s fast and he doesn’t know the meaning of the word quit—what do you say I call your CO and we set up a time for your best guy to meet Chief Karmody in a boxing ring? Nice and clean, everyone sober, no one goes to jail afterward for drunk and disorderly.”

  Another of the Marines, a kid with recent Cro-Magnon ancestry, sidled forward, moving like a fighter. This was definitely their best guy, right here, in person. What’dya know?

  Stan sized him up in one glance. Cocky and strong but inexperienced. Too inexperienced to know that inexperience could put you on the mat, facedown, lights out, faster than a ref could blink.

  “I’d rather fight you, pops,” the kid said, so full of himself, Stan could imagine his head exploding from an overinflated ego. Blam.

  “You’d be more of a challenge,” the kid continued. He grinned. “You look like you might even go a full two rounds before I knocked you out.”

  His dumbass friends laughed and nudged each other. They were on top of the world—but theirs was a very, very small planet. They were just too young and stupid to know it yet.

  Kid Cro-Magnon edged closer, invading Stan’s personal space. “And I say we do it right here. Right now.”

  Ah, crap. Stan didn’t want to fight. Not four days from now in a ring, and especially not tonight. Tonight, all he wanted was to go home and go to bed.

  He breathed on the kid, hoping he was contagious. Unfortunately this strain of the flu wasn’t fast acting.

  From all corners of the room, Stan could feel his men watching him. He could hear WildCard Karmody still shouting from the head. Christ, he still had to make things square with the asshole manager, and then talk Karmody down from whatever emotional ledge he was teetering on.

  Cro-Magnon loomed over him, stinking of gin, and Stan knew in a flash that this was the perfect time to choose speed over finesse. Finesse required too much talking, and damn, his throat was sore.

  “Fine. Let’s do it. Someone say go,” Stan said, his gaze never leaving Cro-Magnon.

  “Go,” Jenk shot back, good man.

  A quick jab, a hard uppercut, and an elbow to the back of the head. Stan stepped back, and Cave Boy was down and not coming up any time soon.

  It would’ve been even more effective if Stan hadn’t been sweating as he stood there, light as a dancer on the balls of his feet. Light-headed from fever, too, but those fools didn’t know that. He looked at the other jarheads, giving them his best dead eye gaze. Cold and emotionless. An absolute machine. “Who’s next? Come on, line up, girls. I’ll take you one at a time if that’s what you want.”

  He definitely had their attention. He had his SEALs’attention, too.

  “Stay back, Junior,” he said evenly, without turning around to see who was shuffling his feet back behind him. He didn’t have to turn. He knew his men.

  And they knew him. But right now he’d surprised them because although he was a fighter by nature, in the past he’d usually preferred to talk things out.

  The younger Marines were looking to the corporal for direction, and the Marine corporal, thank God, still had a few brain cells working. He stared down at his platoon’s boxing champ, unconscious and drooling on the dirty barroom floor.

  Stan watched while the corporal slowly did the math. If Stan could take their best man out in one point three seconds, then . . .

  “What do you say I call your CO and we set up a time for your best guy to meet Karmody in a boxing ring?” Stan said again.

  The corporal nodded jerkily, looking from Stan to the bathroom door, no doubt remembering Karmody with his mad scientist hair and his lean build, no doubt thinking that in the ring, their guy would be able to give him a thrashing.

  If Stan didn’t have the flu, he would’ve smiled. They were in for one big surprise. “What do you say you take Sleeping Beauty here and go on back to the base?” he suggested. Relentless repetition was usually needed when dealing with alcohol and idiots. “And tomorrow morning we’ll set up that boxing match.”

  “Well . . .” the corporal finally said.

  “Great,” Stan bulldozed over him. “We’ve got a deal.” He would’ve shaken the corporal’s hand if his own hadn’t been so damn sweaty. All he needed at this point was for the kid to think he was scared, so he tucked his hands behind his back in a modified parade rest. “Move it on out,” he ordered.

  Two of the Marines grabbed Cro-Magnon and they all shuffled away.

  As the door closed behind them, the room seemed to take a collective sigh of relief. Not that there were a lot of people left. A few bikers who looked disappointed that there wasn’t going to be a brawl. A pair of women eyeing Jay Lopez and Frank O’Leary as the SEALS stood holding the men’s room door tightly closed. A few couples making out in the darkness of the corner booths, ignoring the rest of the world.

  There was a time Stan had sat in one of those corner booths himself, getting very familiar with women who didn’t care that he didn’t look like Mel Gibson, who didn’t care that he left town at the drop of a hat and sometimes didn’t bother to come back. Candy, Julia, Molly, Val. Laura. Lisa. Linda. He’d met them all, if not here then in a dive very similar to this one. He should be feeling nostalgic, not nauseous.

  But shit, all he wanted was to go home.

  And he was only up to step two.

  Lieutenant junior grade Sam Starrett intercepted him on his way to the bar and the waiting manager. Starrett had his arm around a woman who had, quite possibly, the biggest breasts in the world. He was grinning and a little tipsy—if that word could be used
to describe a big, bad Navy SEAL.

  The woman whispered something in his ear, brushing her enormous jugs against him, and Starrett laughed. Obviously he thought he’d found the right kind of solace for whatever had been eating him up these past few months.

  “Senior Chief Stan Wolchonok,” Starrett said, “meet the marvelous Miss Mary Lou Morrison.”

  Damn, did he look like he was here to attend a party? Starrett had had more to drink than Stan had thought if he couldn’t see that Stan was dead on his feet. “Ma’am.” He managed to nod politely. He had to work to look her in the eye instead of staring, hypnotized, down into that amazing Grand Canyon of cleavage.

  Sweet lord.