Blue Forever (Men in Uniform) by Nina Bruhns Read Free Book Online Page A

plastering it all over the Chinese media in hopes a conscientious citizen would spot him and turn him in.
    She dug further, and learned that—
    Je
sus. Kiptyn Llowell was a major in Marine Corps Intelligence—the MCOIB. What the hell was a
Marine
doing in China? She was pretty sure Marine Corps Intelligence concerned itself almost exclusively with war theater recon. And as far as she knew there were no impending U.S. battles in China.
    The whole thing smelled fishy to her, start to finish.
    “I still say we hijack the transport,” Alex Zane was saying, continuing the debate on mission strategy, “before the AUV reaches the navy base. It’s the only reasonable option.”
    “I agree,” Walker said. “Once it passes through security at Yulin, kiss it goodbye.”
    “There’s not enough time to prepare,” Quinn argued, shaking his head. “The truck has already left the factory.” He held up a hand to forestall Zane’s response. “Yeah, it’s up north near Shanghai. It’ll take another day to get to Yulin, but that’s still too short a time to put together a plan with any chance of success and getting away alive.”
    They’d gone around and around on that same argument at least ten times.
    Commander Bridger had stayed silent for the most part, leaning back in his chair, ankles crossed, keeping one ear on the conversation while devoting most of his attention to his tablet. Darcy assumed he was getting constant reports on the other ops STORM Corps was conducting worldwide. It was highly unusual for Bridger to be out on a mission at all, let alone hanging about for so long. Especially with another STORM Board of Command member already on the team. She wondered about that.
    Bobby Lee was coming up to his two-year mark as a commander. Maybe Bridger was here to do an eval on his performance.
    Rand Jaeger was also staying quiet, but that was par for the course. The South African Jaeger was terse and more than a little mysterious. Like her, he was a computer geek of the first order and grand master of anything high-tech. Tall, rangy, and sandy-haired, he had wire-rimmed glasses framing eyes that missed nothing. If he’d spend more than five minutes a year outside and put a little color onto that pale skin, he’d be a great-looking guy.
    For a com spec, Jaeger rarely spoke, just fixed it so others could. So when he suddenly sat up at his laptop and said in his quirky Afrikaans accent, “Hey. That spy. He drove off a cliff and got killed,” everyone turned to him in surprise.
    “What spy?” Zane asked, clueless.
    “He’s got a girl with him, too. Some woman from the State Department he kidnapped at a village market.”
    “Is she dead, too?” Bridger asked, fingers poised over his tablet.
    “Looks that way.”
    “What fucking spy?” repeated Zane.
    Just then, Captain Jenson strode up to the table looking annoyed. “He’s not a real spy. He’s an MCOIB operator we sent in as a decoy for your op. Some damn idiot in D.C. leaked his cover a day early,” he muttered, slashing a hand through his hair. “What a damn goatfuck.”
    Stunned, Darcy didn’t even see Commander Bridger get to his feet. But all at once he was towering over the much shorter Jenson, scowling down at him.
    Uh-oh
. Speaking of idiots . . .
    Darcy kept her face scrupulously neutral. If she weren’t sitting, she’d be taking a giant step backward. Bridger had been her boss for more than six years and she knew the man did not suffer fools.
    This guy was definitely a fool.
    “Are you actually saying,” the commander said deceptively mildly, “that you sent a U.S. Marine into a high risk area inside enemy territory on a
ghost mission
? And then deliberately
blew his cover
?”
    Bridger’s expression was so unreadable the oblivious idiot had no idea he was about to get an ass-whooping of epic proportions.
    “You know as well as I do, Commander, that good military strategy sometimes requires sacrifices from the men on the ground.”