around the corner from Feeb Headquarters in DC with instructions to forward it to the FBI should something happen to him. And let Haine know he had it. Oh, yes, Haine would fund his retirement nicely. Barrett would make sure Haine won his big Pentagon contract, because if he did, Barrett figured Haine would be good for a million a year, easy.
Barrett had twenty little packages, just like this one.
Much better than any 401(k).
Now all he had to do was find this woman, Charlotte Court. That was the hard part. Killing her would be the easy part.
San Luis
She fell asleep like a child, between one breath and the next. Matt had never been around kids and had no brothers or sisters or even cousins to give him secondhand experience, but his married buddies told him that’s what happened. When kids ran out of steam, they dropped to sleep in a second, sometimes right in their tracks.
Charlotte did just that, her muscles relaxing in an instant.
Matt felt the pulse at her wrist. It was slow, but the fact that he could feel it was a good sign. Below a body temperature of 91° the radial pu lse disappears. He judged her temperature to be about 95°. In an hour’s time it w ould be 96 and by morning her skin temperature would be back up to 98, with a core temperature of 98.6. He had every intention of being there in the morning to make sure of it.
She dropped off to sleep like a child because she was shocked and exhausted, but also because she knew she was safe. She was a woman who’d been in danger and that fired up all the senses. Animals who were prey had keener senses than the predators; they had to.
Charlotte had been in combat mode, all senses firing all the time. Judging by the state of the undressed wound, she’d been in combat mode for about two months now. Battlehardened warriors who trained daily for the stress of combat found it hard to sustain two straight months of imminent danger and vigilance without bleeding off the stress in some way, let alone a young woman who couldn’t have trained for it.
He knew exactly how she’d survived. By sleeping lightly, if at all. By being mindful of her surroundings at all times, ready to take flight at the first untoward movement. By keeping her adrenaline levels dangerously high, so high that the by-product of adrenaline, cortisol, would eventually ruin her kidneys.
His men were self-selected to be able to handle the worst life could throw at them. Most actually thrived in dangerous situations.
Few people outside Special Forces realized that with the kind of men the armed forces recruited, keeping them on an adrenaline high wasn’t difficult. Men like SEALs were hardwired for the hunt. They thrived under stress, with adrenaline-tolerance levels that would kill any other kind of man. What was hard was turning them off. Humans fighting for their lives are reduced to animals, with the swift instincts of the wild. But few animals can survive that kind of stress without the ability to switch off when they can. The part of Charlotte’s brain that was older than conscious thought was telling her she was safe with him. Falling asleep in his arms was her body telling him she trusted him. I can’t talk about it.
Her head didn’t trust him though, not yet.
Eventually it would. He’d make sure of it. The promise he’d made to her was real—as long as he was alive to draw a breath, no man would ever hurt her again. To keep that promise, he needed to know what the danger was, so he could guard against it. Her head would catch up with her body sometime soon, and she’d tell him everything. Her body would tell him when that happened before she knew it herself. Body language was infinitely easier to understand than the convoluted human brain. Particularly the female brain, which he’d never figured out.
His body was talking to him, too. Loud and clear. Couldn’t be louder, couldn’t be clearer. He wanted this woman, with every cell of his body. The danger she was in just made
Barrett had twenty little packages, just like this one.
Much better than any 401(k).
Now all he had to do was find this woman, Charlotte Court. That was the hard part. Killing her would be the easy part.
San Luis
She fell asleep like a child, between one breath and the next. Matt had never been around kids and had no brothers or sisters or even cousins to give him secondhand experience, but his married buddies told him that’s what happened. When kids ran out of steam, they dropped to sleep in a second, sometimes right in their tracks.
Charlotte did just that, her muscles relaxing in an instant.
Matt felt the pulse at her wrist. It was slow, but the fact that he could feel it was a good sign. Below a body temperature of 91° the radial pu lse disappears. He judged her temperature to be about 95°. In an hour’s time it w ould be 96 and by morning her skin temperature would be back up to 98, with a core temperature of 98.6. He had every intention of being there in the morning to make sure of it.
She dropped off to sleep like a child because she was shocked and exhausted, but also because she knew she was safe. She was a woman who’d been in danger and that fired up all the senses. Animals who were prey had keener senses than the predators; they had to.
Charlotte had been in combat mode, all senses firing all the time. Judging by the state of the undressed wound, she’d been in combat mode for about two months now. Battlehardened warriors who trained daily for the stress of combat found it hard to sustain two straight months of imminent danger and vigilance without bleeding off the stress in some way, let alone a young woman who couldn’t have trained for it.
He knew exactly how she’d survived. By sleeping lightly, if at all. By being mindful of her surroundings at all times, ready to take flight at the first untoward movement. By keeping her adrenaline levels dangerously high, so high that the by-product of adrenaline, cortisol, would eventually ruin her kidneys.
His men were self-selected to be able to handle the worst life could throw at them. Most actually thrived in dangerous situations.
Few people outside Special Forces realized that with the kind of men the armed forces recruited, keeping them on an adrenaline high wasn’t difficult. Men like SEALs were hardwired for the hunt. They thrived under stress, with adrenaline-tolerance levels that would kill any other kind of man. What was hard was turning them off. Humans fighting for their lives are reduced to animals, with the swift instincts of the wild. But few animals can survive that kind of stress without the ability to switch off when they can. The part of Charlotte’s brain that was older than conscious thought was telling her she was safe with him. Falling asleep in his arms was her body telling him she trusted him. I can’t talk about it.
Her head didn’t trust him though, not yet.
Eventually it would. He’d make sure of it. The promise he’d made to her was real—as long as he was alive to draw a breath, no man would ever hurt her again. To keep that promise, he needed to know what the danger was, so he could guard against it. Her head would catch up with her body sometime soon, and she’d tell him everything. Her body would tell him when that happened before she knew it herself. Body language was infinitely easier to understand than the convoluted human brain. Particularly the female brain, which he’d never figured out.
His body was talking to him, too. Loud and clear. Couldn’t be louder, couldn’t be clearer. He wanted this woman, with every cell of his body. The danger she was in just made
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