Blood Lines

2

›› Gymnasium

›› Camp Lejeune, North Carolina

›› 1238 Hours

Shel exploded into action, throwing himself forward and lifting his hands to protect his face and head. Greene tried to take advantage of his longer reach and hit Shel, but the big Marine slapped the blows aside like they were nothing.

Greene pulled his arms in to better defend himself and even managed to get off another punch, but Shel ducked his head and took the blow on his forehead. Something in Greene’s hand snapped. He roared and cursed in pain as he tried to backpedal.

Mercilessly, Shel drove forward and caught his opponent around the throat with his left hand. He clamped down hard enough to shut Greene’s air off.

Panic widened Greene’s eyes. He flailed at Shel. Instead of releasing his hold, Shel tucked his head between his arms and squeezed harder. Blood veins swelled in Greene’s eyes. He struggled to speak, but it came out only as a cough.

One of Greene’s men came up on Shel’s right and threw a punch at his head. Shel leaned forward, pressed his face into Greene’s, and let the blow slide by across his shoulders. Then he swept his fist back over his attacker’s arm and caught the man on the side of the face.

The man dropped like a poleaxed steer.

Another man kicked at Shel from the left side, but Shel lifted his arm to block the effort, felt the impact shiver along his forearm and elbow, and drop-kicked the man in the crotch.

The man sank to his knees and retched. Before he could get up, Max ran to join in. Trained in combat, the Labrador seized the man’s arm and yanked him to one side into a sprawl. The man tried to get up. Max growled threateningly. The man got the message and lay still.

For a moment, Shel was lost in the anger that he normally kept locked away. He stood in the center of a gray fog and nothing seemed real. Then Remy was there. At first, Shel couldn’t even hear what the other man was saying. He saw Remy’s lips moving, but nothing reached his ears.

Then, in a rush, the world came back into focus.

“Shel!” Remy cursed and grabbed Shel’s arm. “Let him go! Shel! You’re going to kill him!”

Shel suddenly realized that Greene was deadweight hanging at the end of his arm. Remy had hold of Shel’s thumb and was peeling it back.

With effort, Shel bottled the anger and put it away. He made himself breathe out. Then he opened his hand and let Greene sag to the floor. He knew he wouldn’t have killed Greene. He still possessed enough control to stop short of that. But he wanted the man humbled.

By that time several Marines and sailors were closing in. Most of them hung back, uncertain about what to do.

“Calm down,” Remy ordered the crowd. “We got everything under control here.” He fished his ID card out of his pocket. “Special Agent Gautreau. NCIS. Anybody who wants to go home from this will stay out of it.”

›› Locker Room

›› Camp Lejeune, North Carolina

›› 1307 Hours

“You want to tell me what that was about?”

Shel tucked his shirttail into his jeans, buttoned the fly, and cinched his belt. He had pulled his boots on right after his pants the way he always did. The shirt always went on last.

Remy, still dressed in basketball clothes, leaned against the lockers in the dressing room. Everyone else in the room gave them plenty of space.

MPs had arrived within minutes and started sorting everything out. Remy had interfaced with them and cut Shel loose, which had suited Shel just fine.

“What?” Shel asked. “The part where Greene was ticked about potentially losing the game because he got tired of me hanging with him? Or the part where you stepped into that haymaker and nearly ended up lights out? Because, honestly, neither one of those things makes sense to me.”

Remy looked flustered. “I didn’t see him because I was busy watching you.”

“ I wasn’t going to hit you.” Shel calmly put his gear into a gym bag and zipped it.

“At the time, looking at you, I thought you might hit anybody.”

Shel flashed Remy a crooked-toothed grin. He didn’t feel humorous, but he’d learned that a show of gentler emotion sometimes defused a situation even if he didn’t feel it.

“I wouldn’t have hit you,” Shel said. “I wouldn’t even have hit him if he hadn’t hit you.” And maybe that was the truth.

“It was just a game.”

“Yeah. I had a good time. Glad you invited me.”

Remy looked at Shel as if he thought he were insane. “We could have gotten waxed out there.”

“Me and you?” Shel shook his head. “We could have taken a dozen guys like Greene. Maybe two dozen. He crawfished out of the situation quick enough once things started to go south.”

“This isn’t funny.”

“That’s because you didn’t see that look on your face when he pasted you.”

Remy frowned and touched his jaw tenderly. “We could have gotten in a lot of trouble.”

“Not from Greene and his buddies.” Shel reached back and ruffled Max’s ears.

“From the MPs. We could have spent Father’s Day in lockdown.”

“We aren’t. C’mon. I’ll buy you a beer at the canteen.”

Remy didn’t readily agree.

That bothered Shel. He believed in working closely with his team. Remy’s reluctance, though understandable, hurt.

A cell phone rang shrilly and cut through the hiss of water coming from the showers. Remy reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone, flipped it open, and spoke his name.

Shel leaned up against the lockers and waited like he was totally relaxed. Instead, his insides twisted even tighter. His anger was an old acquaintance. He knew from experience that it wasn’t going to be easily dismissed. He needed another diversion.

And the canteen’s probably the last place you need to be, he told himself honestly. Thinking about it, he figured beer and a pizza would be a better choice. He felt the need to apologize to Remy. That was normal too.

Remy listened to the phone conversation for a few minutes, then said, “Sure” and closed the phone. He looked at Shel in idle speculation. “That was Maggie.”

Shel waited. Special Agent Maggie Foley was the team’s only civilian agent. She specialized in interrogation and profiling. Before landing the post at NCIS, she had been a Boston police officer.

“I thought maybe she was calling because she’d heard about what went down here,” Remy said.

Shel had figured the same thing.

“But she’s calling about something else,” Remy went on. “How do you feel about doing a job on Father’s Day?”

“What kind of job?”

“Fugitive recovery op. Got a guy on the local Most Wanted board that just turned up in Charlotte.”

“Sure.” Shel grabbed his gym bag. “You got a change of clothes?”

“Yeah.”

“You coming?”

“Planned on it. I don’t know that you’re safe out there alone.”

Shel gave Remy another crooked-toothed grin and slid his mirrored sunglasses into place. “Grab a shower and change while I go get my truck. If you’re not out front in ten minutes, you’ll have to catch up.”

Remy cursed at him but started working on the combination to his locker.

Shel stepped out of the room. He was aware that most of the men were staring at him. He didn’t like the attention, but he blew it off and concentrated on the job in front of him. Being in motion helped soothe him.

This was what he needed.

›› Gymnasium Parking Area

›› Camp Lejeune, North Carolina

›› 1326 Hours

Shel sat behind the steering wheel of his black Jeep Rubicon and ignored the fact that two MP Hummers now occupied the parking area in front of the gym. He knew they were there because of what had happened earlier.

Violence was part of every soldier’s world. If it wasn’t present out on the battlefield or in whatever country he was policing, then it lurked in the camps, posts, and bases where those warriors gathered. Violence was a necessary product of the trade they practiced, and it didn’t always stay under control.

Max sat patient and quiet in the backseat. The dog had learned to adjust to Shel’s dark moods when they stole up on him.

After checking his watch, Shel popped the glove compartment open and took out a dog treat. He called the dog’s name, then flipped the treat over his shoulder. Max caught it easily and devoured it with a couple of noisy chomps.

“You’re not the most polite company I could have,” Shel told the dog’s reflection in the rearview mirror.

Max barked at him.

“When we get back from this, if there’s time, I’ll take you down to the beach,” Shel promised.

Max barked again.

One of the first things Shel had learned after being paired with a K-9 unit was how smart the dogs were. He knew that Max didn’t understand his words, but he also knew the dog understood his intent. There were more good things in store for him than just the dog treat.

Lynyrd Skynyrd played on the stereo. Shel could listen to-and appreciate-a lot of different music, but it was Southern rock that took him back to his roots outside Fort Davis, Texas.

His daddy hadn’t cared for the rock and roll too much, but Shel knew Tyrel McHenry was acquainted with it. The Rolling Stones and the Beatles had been big during the Vietnam War when Tyrel had served.

But back home, Tyrel only listened to country and western music. Hank Williams Sr., Bob Wills, and a handful of others made up the core of his musical library. He had cut off anything new about the time Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn were singing together. But he had made allowances for George Strait and Randy Travis.

His daddy, Shel reflected, was some piece of work. He was a hard man to understand and a harder man to get to know. But he’d been fair when Shel and his brother were growing up.

Just never warm. Especially not after Shel and Don’s mama had died. That was how Tyrel had always referred to her. “The boys’ mama.” Never his wife.

And just like that, Shel was thinking about his daddy and his daddy’s ways all over again.

›› 1328 Hours

Remy jogged to a fire-engine red Camaro Z-28 that he had restored and continually worked on. He opened the trunk and dropped his gym bag inside, then hauled out the duffel containing his gear. All of the team carried spare weapons and tactical armor everywhere they went. It was the nature of the job.

Shel pulled up behind Remy and waited as the other man threw his duffel in the back. Remy kept out a 9 mm Beretta M9 pistol in a paddle holster. He wore a loose basketball jersey outside of his khaki pants that would cover the weapon.

Weapon already in place, Remy slid into the passenger seat. Golden yellow wraparound sunglasses masked his eyes.

“You ready to do this?” Remy asked.

“Yeah.”

“’Cause after that scene on the basketball court, I’m not so sure.”

Shel throttled the angry response and concentrated on breathing out. Pleasant or not, Remy’s concerns were warranted.

“I’m fine.” Shel slipped the Jeep into gear and headed out of the parking lot.

“You’re fine?”

“Yeah.”

“Just like that, you’re fine?” Remy clearly had a hard time believing that.

Shel glanced at him. “Yeah.”

“Then you tell me what that business back at the basketball game was.”

“An aberration.”

“Cool,” Remy said sarcastically. “I feel all relieved now. You’re using big words and everything.”

“You’re really going to make this hard, aren’t you?”

“We’re lucky we’re still outside a cell, still walking around. So, yeah, I’m gonna make this hard.”

“I got a thing,” Shel replied.

“What kind of thing? About winning basketball?”

Shel made himself tell the truth. “About Father’s Day.”

Remy stared at him in silence for a moment. “Oh. Okay.” Then he relaxed back into his seat like he was hesitant about saying anything else.