Danger Close (Shadow Warriors) Read online

  Danger Close

  Lindsay McKenna

  New York Times bestselling author Lindsay McKenna brings us the exciting beginning of her Shadow Warriors series…

  Placing women in ground combat is only a test for Congress, but for volunteer Corporal Cathy Fremont it’s life…and probably death. In the exotic jungles of Thailand, she’s trapped in a hotbed of deception and abuse because the enemy she can’t escape is on her side of the battle line. One risk she doesn’t need is an alliance with a marine, but trusting intense Captain Jim Boland might be her only chance of survival.

  Caught in the crosshairs of danger and political intrigue, Jim must sacrifice his hidden agenda to protect the woman who reawakens the passion inside him. But deadly corruption is closer than they think, and may destroy them both.

  To the women in all military services—who can do it all, no matter what career path you choose.

  You have the “right stuff.”

  Dear Reader,

  Some of you back in 1999 read my first e-book, Valkyrie. It later went on to win the Romantic Times Best E-book of the year.

  Valkyrie has been bought by Harlequin and I’m thrilled with acquisition. Why? Because it’s launching a new series called Shadow Warriors, published with Harlequin HQN. As the first book in this new series, it’s been retitled Danger Close.

  For those who might have bought the first edition all those years ago, I’ve done some editing. I’ve also cut down the book length and tightened it up to 100,000 words. Originally it was 130,000!

  This is a story of Corporal Cathy Fremont, US Marine Corps, who volunteers in 1985 for a congressional one-year trial to see if women can handle combat or not. Cathy is a sniper-quality shooter, so Major Louise Lane, CO of the WLF (Women’s Liberation Forces created by Congress), wants to show her off to the world, to tout what women can do as well—or better—than men.

  Captain Jim Boland, USMC, Marine Force Recon black ops, is asked by Colonel Mackey to try and get one of the WLF women to tell the truth about Major Lane as he sees it, with her heavy handed leadership running the company of women into the ground with extra patrols to get media attention. Jim is of high moral fiber and does it because he sees Cathy Fremont as an overworked underdog.

  Cathy is not allowed to consort with the Marines in Thailand where there is a dust-up between them and Laos. The Marine brigade is there to stop incursion of Laotians into Thai territory. When she meets Jim Boland, she trusts him and he slowly learns to trust her. In doing so, Jim falls in love with her. And she with him.

  Mackey is not above politics and has maneuvered Jim Boland into an impossible position: get Cathy Fremont to go to Congress in front a senate meeting and tell the truth about Major Lane and her abusive leadership of the women in her company.

  Jim and Cathy are caught up in politics, without knowing whether the players on both sides of the argument are wise or not. Their love will be tested to the breaking point. And it is only when Jim throws down the gauntlet to protect the woman he loves that he is willing to throw away his career to save her.

  Be sure to get the sequel to this book, Down Range (HQN December 2013). It’s their daughter Captain Morgan Boland's story!

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Also by Lindsay McKenna

  About the Author

  Excerpt from Down Range

  Chapter 1

  Camp Pendleton, March 1985

  “BULL’S-EYE, AGAIN!”

  Cathy Fremont ignored the approving glances of her teammates and felt the tension in her stomach dissolve. No one would have suspected she cared so much about accuracy. With Major Lane, the Commanding Officer, keeping a close eye on her, she couldn’t afford to let herself slip on the rifle range. Lane was not one of her admirers. The knot in Cathy’s stomach eased further as she saw her buddy, Lisa, approach. She pushed her superior from her thoughts. Lisa’s usual grin was missing as she joined Cathy on the rifle range.

  “What’s going on?” Cathy asked.

  “Would you believe my uncle, the congressman, showed up here?” Lisa sat down next to Cathy.

  Cathy set her M16 rifle aside to act as Lisa’s coach. “I didn’t believe that Lane would allow anyone this close to us.”

  Lisa furtively glanced up and down the firing line. Twenty-four women paired off into teams with one member in either a prone, sitting or standing position, firing at a row of targets up to 300 yards in front of them. Each team member would fire ten shots from each position, while the other acted as coach and spotter. Lisa made sure their drill instructor, Sergeant Bell, was safely out of hearing range, then she hissed over at Cathy, “Dammit, you get caught talking about her and you’re in deep shit.”

  Cathy ignored her warning. “So tell me, why was your illustrious uncle here? That’s an unexpected surprise, isn’t it?” Cathy watched Lisa roll her large blue eyes. Even at twenty and in combat clothes, she was wholesome and pretty looking. Her hair, once a long shining fall of ebony was now cut in a short cap about her ears.

  “Can you believe he came here to ask Major Lane to let me out of the Women’s Liberation Forces? My parents pressured him to use his political connections to get me released. Of all the dumb things…”

  Cathy stiffened. “And?”

  “Well, once I convinced my uncle I really loved what I was doing, and truly believed in it, he left shaking his head.”

  Too bad…and then Cathy caught herself. Her training Drill Instructor had often accused her of being too philosophical for her own good. One didn’t question orders, no matter how stupid they might seem. Not in the harsh atmosphere Lane had set up here at the WLF camp. Marine Corps boot camp had been a piece of cake compared to this.

  Life hadn’t roughed Lisa up yet. She probably thought that Camp Pendleton was a Girl Scout jamboree and that going into the Thailand Conflict was going to be one big summer camp experience.

  Wrong. It’s about killing and dying. Scowling, Cathy said, “Lisa, you’re lucky to have a family who cares. They want you alive and safe.”

  Lisa gave a huge sigh and blackened the sights of the M16 with lamp black before she prepared to fire. “Cathy, you’d think any family would be better than none. So quit siding with mine.”

  Cathy ran her fingers down the stock of her own rifle in a caressing gesture. “I’ve had plenty of foster parents to act as mom and dad. Why is it kids with parents never appreciate them? There’s no justice in this world.

  Absolutely none.”

  “Your attitude is lousy, Fremont,” Lisa teased, her eyes alight with laughter. “Major Lane and Sergeant Bell always tell you that.”

  Cathy’s full mouth tightened momentarily. “Yeah, well they can brainwash all the rest of these women, but they won’t me.” Case in point, Cathy kept her hair, which was the same ginger color as the blanket of freckles across her nose and cheeks, in a ponytail. Unlike many of the gung-ho recruits in the WLF, Cathy hadn’t cut her hair despite the I-could-kill-you look Lane had given her. “The rest of you are kids are barely out of the cradle, but I’ve seen twenty-six years of life.”

  “It’s probably because of this worldly experience that you’ve done more PT, o
bstacle courses and extra sentry duty than anyone in the company,” Lisa goaded with a chuckle.

  “That’s because I’m a stubborn mule and they want to break my spirit. They want me to believe all that crap they’re shoveling out to the rest of you. Which—” Cathy reached out, lightly hitting Lisa’s shoulder “—you gals soak up like thirsty sponges.” Idealism got people killed, no matter how much they wanted to trust it.

  “Penny named you well. You really are a Valkyrie dude hovering above all our battles and picking up the pieces. You run interference for us and get in trouble as a result. I don’t see how you’ve lasted this long.”

  Cathy cringed every time she heard her nickname, Valkyrie. “Even orphaned oddballs have their place in life, didn’t you know?” She gave Lisa a warm glance. Lisa had been Cathy’s roommate at Ohio State University and was a ray of sunlight in Cathy’s dark, pragmatic world. She’d been struggling to keep her part-time paramedic job with the Columbus fire department, which paid for her nursing program tuition. If she hadn’t run into such financial difficulty when Craig died during her third year of school, things might have been different.

  Lisa gave her a wink while settling more securely into her position on the firing line. “Well, oddball or not, you walk on water as far as I’m concerned, Fremont.”

  “Nothing like a majority of one.” Lifting the cap off Lisa’s head, Cathy turned it around so the bill brushed the back of her sweaty neck. “Let’s get down to business. You’ve got to keep up your rep as a bull’s-eye expert. We all want to be dedicated killers for the good of the WLF.”

  Lisa gave her a pleading look. “Cathy! I mean it! If the wrong person hears you blaspheming our unit, your ass, to put it succinctly, is in a sling!”

  “Get in position and quit giving me lectures. You’ll have to take a number to get in my lecture line. Now, come on. Bell is giving us that dark look again, and I don’t want to end up doing fifty push-ups here on the range because we’re acting like two gossipy women.”

  Cathy watched with pleasure as Lisa hit seven out of ten bull’s-eyes and put the other three in the center ring. The range was one of the few places Cathy enjoyed in WLF training. The field activities such as the rifle range, running a patrol or compass and map work, gave her a degree of freedom, a chance to escape the ever-watchful eyes of the women D.I.s. Back at the barracks, Captain Kay Ingram, otherwise known as Horse Face by the older women in the WLF, was continually stamping and snorting around like the hard-core Marine Corps officer she was. And after three months of brutal combat training, Cathy was having one hell of a time pretending to be docile, especially when Ingram hassled bone-weary people by hauling them out of bed late at night and making them stand at attention or do push-ups.

  Cathy traded places with Lisa, assumed the sitting position and prepared to shoot. She glanced up, giving Lisa a slight smile. So far, they’d made it through almost three months at Camp Pendleton. Cathy watched Ingram with wariness, because the woman officer had a malicious streak in her toward any woman she thought didn’t measure up to her feminist fighting machine ideal.

  Private Janet Hayes, a blonde eighteen-year-old, was Ingram’s latest victim. Sometimes, Cathy had seen Ingram give Lisa a long, speculative look. Just thinking about it made the hairs on the back of Cathy’s neck stand up. Ingram was abusive in every way, including physically, and Cathy had no desire to see Lisa with a black eye—or worse. Too bad your uncle couldn’t get you out of here, Cathy thought, settling down into position.

  The rifle rested easily against her shoulder, the stock firmly pressed against her cheek. Cathy had learned to shoot and handle a rifle at foster home number five. Little did she know at the time the early training would be put to use in the WLF. After eating, sleeping and working with the M16 rifle for hours a day, Cathy considered it her friend, second only to Lisa. The command to fire was given. Cathy held her breath and gently brushed the trigger. She felt the recoil, heard the bark of the rifle and instinctively brought the sights back on the target.

  “Bull’s-eye!” Lisa shouted, slapping her on the back. “You’re such a show-off, Fremont.”

  “Yeah, I know it.” If it hadn’t been for her ability as a marksman and a hunter, Lane would have happily dumped her a long time ago and Cathy knew it. She couldn’t screw up or Lane would bury her so deep she would never see the sun shine again.

  Ingram hated her. Cathy had no illusions that the Marine officer would waste her out in the field to get rid of her legally. Cathy could see the report already: Corporal Cathy Fremont was killed in action near Ban Pua, Thailand.

  Cathy would control her own destiny or else. Squad Three, the squad she ran, had been a model of perfection. Even Ingram had grudgingly recognized the squad’s statistics on the rifle range, running PT, map and compass work. Lane always paraded Cathy’s squad before the news-hungry reporters who wanted entertainment news about this all-woman military force. And the major was far from stupid: she never allowed Cathy to be interviewed.

  Cathy effortlessly squeezed off a couple of rounds, pleased to see they were also bull’s-eyes. If I keep up my marks and keep my squad high in all areas of expertise, we’re safe, she calculated. Ten women in her squad were fiercely loyal to her—even Janet Hayes, who had no business being in the WLF. Hayes was an accident waiting to happen. And Ingram had deliberately placed Hayes in Cathy’s squad and emphasized with that throaty snarl of hers, “Fremont, you make damn sure you take good care of Hayes. Understand? Train her right.” Yeah, you bet she understood. Ingram wanted her placed in the squad most likely to survive combat. They might hate me, but they can’t live without me right now, Cathy thought with a twinge of rare pleasure.

  “Ready?” Lisa asked.

  “Ready.”

  Cathy squeezed off another shot. Bull’s-eye.

  “One more,” Lisa said, marking down the scores.

  Cathy tasted the grit that moved in a cloud across them. Dust was everywhere. Camp Pendleton’s scrub brush hills and ocher dirt haunted all of them. They’d have to completely strip down their rifles tonight because of the damn yellow dust. Cathy spit out the grit.

  “I hate Camp Pendleton,” she growled, preparing for her final shots.

  Lisa chortled. “Hey, in another week we get liberty! We can drown our dirt-clogged throats with ice-cold beer. I’m looking forward to that! We’ll sit there in the EM club over at San Onofre, drink beer, listen to some moody music on the juke box, sing, dance and generally get drunk.”

  “Sounds good, sis.” Did it ever. Cathy couldn’t remember this feeling of paranoia in their time at the Marine Corps boot camp. But Lane’s dogged determination and her brutal methods of molding her women into a crack fighting unit were the cause of Cathy’s uneasiness.

  She kept her expression veiled so that the D.I.s, slowly walking through the ranks, couldn’t fathom what she was really thinking. Anyone breathing a word against the WLF was put on report. Cathy had no wish to get beaten with rubber hoses and then thrown in a dark closet for days. She kept track of the women who mysteriously disappeared for three or four days, and soon realized they were the type Lane called “troublemakers.”

  There was Penny Amato, the corporal who ran Squad One. Cathy had liked the spunky twenty-four-year-old Italian immediately. But Penny’s frankness had gotten her into trouble. Now, after three months, she could see that spark of vitality fade in Penny’s big almond brown eyes. She’d wanted to tell Penny to hang in there, not to let Ingram get to her. But self-preservation counseled her not to approach Penny—not yet. Ingram possessed all-terrain radar; she had a sixth sense about people and she was watching Cathy very, very closely….

  “WHERE THE hell did that congressman come from?” Kay Ingram demanded as she entered Louise Lane’s office. She shut the door and looked over at her C.O. At five foot nine and of medium build with an aura of quiet power, Lane was often called Wonder Woman by the press. Her short black hair, blue eyes and svelte figure completed the picture. Political cart
oonists wondered where she kept her golden lasso stashed.

  Lane looked up. Her narrowed gaze took in Ingram’s tall, compact form. She demanded her officers be as close to perfection as possible. At twenty-nine years old, Kay was, in her judgment, a model woman Marine. Standing five foot ten inches tall and a solid one-hundred and fifty pounds of muscle, Kay possessed squared shoulders, merciless brown eyes and an impassive, oval face. If there were such a thing a killing machine, Ingram would have been the blueprint for it, Lane decided. True, she hadn’t been tested in combat yet, but Louise instinctively knew she’d do well. Some women were born to soldiering; it came as natural to them as it did to some men. Not that all men were soldiers, reflected Louise Lane grimly. No, very few of them were. Women were more suited for the task. They possessed a real maternal survival instinct. Female of all other species were the hunters. Why should it be any different among humans?

  “Congressman Gardener wanted his niece, Lisa Gardener, out of the WLF,” Louise griped.

  Ingram’s thick, arched eyebrows moved up in surprise. She made herself comfortable on the plastic-covered sofa after Lane gave a cursory nod, which meant: at ease. “Is that the joke of the day?”

  “Sounds like one, doesn’t it?”

  “A few of the other girl’s relatives have tried getting them out,” Kay agreed. “Nothing to worry about, though.”

  “Gardener’s the only one who has power figures in her family, though. I couldn’t just pacify the congressman with our standard response. He had to be handled with kid gloves.”

  “No one comes up against you and wins,” Kay said with a smile, showing her widely spaced teeth. Until recently, two of her front teeth had been chipped. Lane had convinced her to have them capped because she was second in command and would be in the public eye from time to time. Didn’t Kay want to project the perfection inherent in a woman soldier? Kay had hastily agreed and beaten a path to the nearest base dentist.

  “Sometimes even a silver tongue won’t turn the trick,” Louise muttered. She stood up, placing her hands behind her back as she always did when she was bothered by something. “I invited Congressman Gardener to visit us.”