All he had to do was pick up that gla.s.s and he'd fulfil his family legacy. He'd be one of those good-for-nothing Francis...o...b..ys again. Not that they'd know any better, people had said, the way the father sits around drinking himself into an early grave-- That was his future now, too. Angry. Alcoholic.

Alone.

Mia's face flashed in his mind. He could see her beautiful hazel eyes, her funny smile. The hurt on her face as she walked out the door.

He gripped the edge of the counter, trying to push the image away, trying not to want what he knew he couldn't have.

And when he looked up, there was that gla.s.s and that bottle, still sitting on the counter in front of him.

Hey, why fight destiny? He was pegged to follow this path right from the start. Yeah, he'd temporarily escaped by joining the Navy, but now he was back where he'd started. Back where he belonged.

At least he'd had the integrity to know that Mia didn't deserve to spend her life in his personal h.e.l.l. At least he had that much up on his old man.

Man, he loved her. Pain burned his stomach, his chest--rising up into his throat like bile.

He reached for the gla.s.s, wanting to wash away the taste, wanting not to care, not to need, not to feel.

I thought you were a SEAL. I thought you didn't quit.

Mia might as well have been standing in the room with him, her words echoed so loudly in his head.

"I'm not a SEAL anymore," he answered her ghostly presence.

You'll always be a SEAL. You were when you were eleven years old. You will be when you die.

The problem was, he'd already died. He'd died five years ago--he was just too stubborn and stupid to know it at the time. He'd lost his life when he'd lost his future. And now he'd lost Mia.

By choice, he reminded himself. He'd had a choice about that.

You do have a future. It's just not the one you thought you'd have back when you were a boy.

Some future. Broken. Angry. Less than whole.

I know you're going to do whatever it takes to feel whole again. I know you'll make the right choices.

Choices. What choices did he have now?

Drink the whiskey in this gla.s.s. Polish off the rest of the bottle. Kill himself slowly with alcohol the way his old man had. Spend the rest of his miserable life in limbo, drunk in his living room, with only the television for company.

He didn't want that.

You're strong, you're tough, you're creative--you can adapt.

Adapt. That's what being a SEAL had been all about. Sea, air or land, he'd learned to adapt to the environment, adapt to the country and the culture. Make changes to his method of operation. Break rules and conventions. Learn to make do.

But adapt to this? Adapt to forever walking with a cane? Adapt to knowing he would remain forever in the rear, away from the front lines and the action?

It would be so hard. It would be the hardest thing he'd ever done in his entire life. Whereas it would be so d.a.m.n easy just to give up.

It would've been easy to give up during h.e.l.l Week, too, when he'd done the gruelling final training to become a SEAL. He'd had the strength to keep going when all around him strong men were walking away. He'd endured the physical and psychological hardships.

Could he endure this, too?

I know you'll make the right choice.

And he did have a choice, didn't he? Despite what he'd thought, it came down to the very basic of choices.

To die.

Or to live.

Not just to be or not to be, but rather to do or not to do. To take charge or to lie back and quit.

But dammit, Mia was right. He was a SEAL, and SEALs didn't quit.

Alan Francisco looked down at the whiskey in his hand. He turned and threw it into the sink where the gla.s.s shattered and the whiskey trickled down the drain.

He chose life.

Mia's car bounced as she took the potholed dirt road much too fast.

She wasn't far now. Just another few miles until the turnoff that would lead directly to the cabin.

Determinedly, she wiped the last traces of her tears from her face. When she walked back in there, when she looked Alan in the eye, he was going to see only her calm offer of comfort and understanding. His angry words couldn't hurt her because she wouldn't let them. It would take more than that to drive her away.

She slowed as she rounded a curve, seeing a flash of sunlight on metal up ahead of her.

It was another car, heading directly toward her, going much too fast.

Mia hit the brakes and pulled as far to the right as she could, sc.r.a.ping the side of a tree as the other car went into a skid.

She watched it plunge down a sloping embankment, ploughing through the underbrush and coming to a sudden jarring stop as it hit a tree.

Mia scrambled to unfasten her seat belt, fumbling in her haste to get out of her car and down to the wreck.

It was almost entirely hidden in the thick growth, but she could hear someone crying. She pushed away branches to get to the driver's side door, yanking it open.

Blood. There was blood on the man's forehead and face, but he was moving and...

Dwayne Bell. The man in the driver's seat was Dwayne Bell. He recognized her at the exact moment she recognized him.

"Well, now, it's the girlfriend. Isn't this convenient," he said in his thick Louisiana drawl. He reached up to wipe the blood from his eyes and face.

Natasha. The crying sound came from Natasha. What was she doing here... ?

"Dammit, I think I must've hit my head on the windshield," Dwayne said.

Mia wanted to back away, to run, but Natasha was belted into the front seat. Mia couldn't simply just leave her there. But maybe Dwayne had hit his head hard enough to make him groggy.... Maybe he wouldn't notice if...

Mia quickly went around to the other side of the car. Tasha already had her seat belt unfastened and was up and in Mia's arms as soon as the door was opened.

"Are you okay?" she asked, smoothing back Tasha's hair from her face.

The little girl nodded, eyes wide. "Dwayne hit Thomas," she told Mia, tears still streaming down her face. "He fell down and was all b.l.o.o.d.y. Dwayne made him dead."

Thomas... ? Dead? No...

"I screamed and screamed for Thomas to help me--" Tasha hiccuped "--but he wouldn't get up and Frisco couldn't hear me and Dwayne took me in his car."

Thomas was unconscious maybe, but not dead. Please G.o.d, not dead. Not Thomas King- Moving quickly, Mia carried Natasha around the car and up the embankment, praying Dwayne was too dizzy to notice, hoping that if she didn't turn around to check, he wouldn't-- "Where you going in such a hurry, darlin'?" Dwayne drawled.

Mia froze. And turned around. And found herself staring down the muzzle of a very big, very deadly-looking gun.

Dwayne held a handkerchief to his forehead, but his gun hand was decidedly steady as he hefted his bulk out of the car.

"I think we'll take your car," he told her with a gap-toothed smile. "In fact, you can drive."

Frisco knew something was wrong. The woods were too quiet. There was no echo of laughter or voices from the lake. And he'd never known Tasha to be silent for long.

The footpath down to the water wasn't easy to navigate on crutches, but he moved as quickly as he could. And as he neared the clearing--out of force of habit--he drew his gun from his shoulder holster. He moved as silently as he could, ready to drop his right crutch should the need arise to use his gun.

He saw Thomas, crumpled on the beach, blood on his face.

There was no sign of Tasha--or anyone else. But there were fresh tire tracks at the boat drop. Whoever had been here had gone.

And taken Tasha with them.

Fris...o...b..lstered his gun as he moved quickly toward Thomas.

The kid stirred as Frisco touched him, searching for a pulse. He was alive, thank G.o.d. His nose was bleeding and he had a nasty-looking gash on the back of his head. "Tasha," he gasped. "The fat man took Tash."

The fat man.

Dwayne Bell.

Took Tasha.

Frisco had been at the cabin, wrestling with his demons while Dwayne had been down here kicking the living daylights out of Thomas and kidnapping Tash. Guilt flooded him, but he instantly pushed it aside. He'd have time to feel guilty later. Right now he had to move fast, to get Tasha back.

"How long ago?" Frisco tore a piece of fabric from his shirttail and used it to apply pressure to the back of Thomas's head as he helped the kid sit up.

"I don't know. He hit me hard and I went down." Thomas let out a stream of foul language that would've made a SEAL take notice. "I tried to fight it--I heard Tasha screaming for me, but I blacked out. Dammit. Dammit!" There were tears in his eyes. "Lieutenant, she's scared to death of this guy. We gotta find her and get her back."

Frisco nodded, watching as Thomas forced away his dizziness and crawled to the lake to splash water onto his face, washing away the blood. The kid probably had a broken nose, but he didn't so much as say ouch. "Can you walk, or should I get your car and bring it around?"

Thomas straightened up, wobbling only slightly. "I can walk." He felt his pockets and swore again. "The fat man took my car keys."

Frisco started up the path that led back to the cabin. "So we'll hot-wire it." He looked back. "Tell me if I'm going too fast for you." Now that was a switch, wasn't it?

"You know how to hot-wire a car?"

"It's something we're taught in the SEAL teams."

"Shoot," Thomas said. "I could be a SEAL."

Frisco looked back at him and nodded. "Yeah, you could."

Chapter 16.

"I need your help."

Frisco looked out the open car window, up at Lt. Joe Catalanotto, the Commanding Officer of SEAL Team Ten's Alpha Squad. Cat looked like he was ready to ship out on some high-level security training mission. He was dressed in fatigues and a black combat vest and wore his long dark hair back in a ponytail.

"Right now?" Cat asked, bending slightly to look inside the car, his sharp gaze taking in Thomas's battered appearance and b.l.o.o.d.y T-shirt.

"Yeah," Frisco said. "My sister's kid's been s.n.a.t.c.hed. Sharon got herself in too deep with a drug dealer. He's the one that took the kid. I need help finding him and getting her back."

Joe Cat nodded. "How many guys you need?"

"How many you got?"

Frisco's former CO smiled. "How's all seven of Alpha Squad?"

Seven. Those seven were the six guys Frisco had served with--along with his own replacement. That was one man he wasn't looking forward to working with. But he nodded anyway. Right now he needed all the help he could get to find Natasha. "Good."

As Frisco watched, Cat slipped a microthin cellular phone from the pocket of his vest and dialled a coded number.

"Yeah, Catalanotto," he said. "Cancel Alpha Squad's flight out. Our training mission has been delayed--" he glanced up at the cloudless blue sky "--due to severe weather conditions. Unless otherwise directed, we'll be off base as of 1600 hours, executing local reconnaissance and surveillance training." He snapped the phone shut and turned back to Frisco. "Let's pay a visit to the equipment room, get the gear we need to find this guy."

"Whoa, Frisco, nice couch!"

With the exception of the glaringly pink couch, Frisco's apartment was starting to look like command central.

Lucky had finished cleaning the place up and had moved the sofa in yesterday. Now, under Joe Cat's command, Bobby and Wes--Bob, tall and built like a truck; Wes, short and razor thin, but inseparable since BUD/S training had made them swim buddies--had moved aside all unessential furniture and set the small dining room table in the centre of the living room.

"You've gotta do the rest of the room in pink, too--it suits you, baby!" Six and a half feet tall, black and built like a linebacker, Chief Daryl Becker--nicknamed Harvard--possessed an ivy league education and a wicked sense of humour. He carried a heavy armload of surveillance gear, which he began to set up on the table.

Blue McCoy was the next to arrive. The blond-haired SEAL brought several large cases that made the muscles in his arms stand out in high relief. a.s.sault weapons--G.o.d forbid they'd need to use them. Even the normally taciturn executive officer and second in command of Alpha Squad couldn't resist commenting on the pink couch.

"I'm dying to meet this new girlfriend of yours," Blue said in his soft Southern drawl. "Please tell me that sofa there belongs to her."

Mia.