"Suck-up," Hammer called, grinning wickedly over at Gabe.

"Yeah," Gabe growled. "And what's it gonna get me? You out on that sniper op with me tonight? You'll be out there farting all over the place because you made a pig out of yourself eating a dozen of those cookies. The Taliban won't have any problem finding us, will they? They'll smell you a mile away."

Laughter erupted in the room. Bay rolled her eyes as the men started gabbing. Hampton laughed with them.

Bay placed her hand over her mouth. SEALs were just as coa.r.s.e in their horseplay as the Special Forces teams were. Nothing changed between black ops teams, Bay realized. With the stresses on them continuous and severe, black humor was the natural fallback position to alleviate some of that pressure and threat of dying.

Hampton's eyes gleam with humor as he studied the team around the table. And then he turned and met Bay's laughter filled gaze.

"d.a.m.n good cookie, Doc. Your mother is one h.e.l.luva cook. Tell her thank you."

"Anytime, Chief. Sorry you didn't get more."

"Did you get any?" Hampton asked, concerned.

"I'm taking the Fifth on that one, Chief."

"Uh-oh," Oz chirped up. He gave the guys a triumphant look. "You know what that means, don't you? That means Doc has a stash of those cookies in her tent."

Bay grinned. "Yes, and I've got them counted, Oz. And if any of them disappear, I know where to come to find the culprits."

The SEALs each feigned innocence, sporting their "Who? Me?" expressions.

Hampton said, "You'd better keep them on you, Doc. These guys are well known for filching goodies from everyone's boxes. They go into SEAL stealth mode into the tent and take 'em. You've been warned." He laughed, turned away and went back to his office.

As the team began to wander back toward the coffeepot, mugs in hand, Gabe watched the enjoyment on Bay's face. She was so open and readable. Whether she knew it or not, this was a great ice breaker between her and them. Teams shared everything. Especially a box coming from home. She'd shown her capacity to be a team member, even if they gobbled up most of her cookies like starved wolves.

"You up to some more rattle battle?" he asked Bay.

"Yeah," she grumped. "I suppose."

"Gotta get you to a point where it's muscle memory and automatic," he told her, turning and holding the door open for her. Calling over his shoulder, he asked for three volunteer SEALs to join them. One of them was Hammer.

BAY WORKED FOR an hour out on the range. She was sweating and dirty, and her hands slipped on the b.u.t.t of the SIG as she ran up the hill toward the next target. The ground was rocky, uneven and filled with potholes here and there. Breathing hard, still acclimating to the alt.i.tude, she released the empty mag, leaped over a rut, slammed another mag into the pistol. Her palm was bruised, her fingers aching.

Hammer was there, waiting to count her shots into the target. There was a SEAL by each position. Bay knew they would convene after this last run and she'd get their experienced feedback. Would Hammer ha.s.sle her? Coming up to the target, breathing hard, she held out the pistol with both hands, placed her feet apart to give her some steadiness. She fired off fifteen shots and then turned and headed downhill toward the last one.

Gabe convened the other SEALs in the shade of one of the large targets as Bay approached. Her face was flushed, perspiration making her flesh gleam as she walked up and holstered her SIG. Like them, she had her boonie hat on and wore wraparound sungla.s.ses on this bright, sunny day. She plopped down, grabbing a bottle of water he handed her.

Hammer crouched opposite of her. The other two SEALs, Sax, who was twenty-five and engaged to be married when he got off rotation and Shadow, a twenty-seven-year-old who was married, squatted with the group, notebooks in hand. Gabe joined them.

"Okay, how'd she do out there?" Gabe asked them.

Sax, who stood at the first target, said, "Twenty-five yards, ten in the red center and five out."

"Any comment about her stance or how she was holding the SIG?"

Sax shrugged and said, "It's learning to control your breathing." He gave Bay a slight smile. "You're better this time than last time, so you're improving, Doc."

Bay nodded. "That's good to hear. Thanks, Sax."

Gabe nodded toward Shadow.

"At fifty yards, eleven in the red center, four out. I have the same critique. It's about controlling your breathing." His brown eyes held Bay's. "I know you're still adjusting to this elevation. It was h.e.l.l on all of us the first month. You're doing well."

"Hammer?"

He rubbed his chin. "If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it." He held up his notebook. "Fifteen shots in the red circle at seventy-five yards. Not bad, Doc."

Bay felt as if she could have been knocked over by a feather with Hammer's a.s.sessment of her shooting skills. "Thanks, Hammer."

"You're obviously getting your breathing under control," Gabe told her. "You were improving at each station. And at the longer ranges you were putting more lead consistently into the center."

She wiped the sweat off her brow. "I think that comes from making long shots at squirrels back home."

The SEALs all regarded her with light and easy expressions, as if they were starting to like her. It made Bay feel good. She could feel the cohesiveness beginning to build between them. It took away her anxiety and worry of not fitting into the group.

"Was your father in the military?" Hammer asked, tucking his notebook away in his left cammie pocket.

Bay nodded. "He was in the Marine Corps for four years. A corporal."

Hammer frowned. "The way you shoot, I'd bet he was a Marine Corps sniper."

Bay wiped her mouth after slugging down more water from the plastic bottle. "Yes, he was."

Gabe allowed his surprise to show. "You never said anything about that to me."

"I didn't think to tell you," she said, giving him a wry look. And she hadn't. Looking around at the tight circle of SEALs, Bay figured out that she should have because the looks on their collective faces turned to sudden respect. She shrugged her shoulders. "I figured my shooting skills would speak for me. Why is important that you guys know that my pa was a sniper?"

Gabe shook his head, wiped the sweat off his temple. "It helps us understand why you're so d.a.m.n good at shooting, Doc. That's why."

"Oh..." She finished drinking the last of the water and capping the emptied bottle. "Sorry. Where I come from, your reputation is based on how you live your life on an everyday basis. It doesn't matter what my mama or pa do. It matters how I conduct myself with others. What I do." She looked at each man's face. "Isn't that a better way to a.s.sess an individual?"

Gabe conceded she had a point. He was watching Hammer's face, the SEAL in deep thought about Bay's words. "You're right," Gabe admitted. "But among us, it helps us put you into perspective. And maybe, for some of the guys who were questioning whether you had the goods or not, knowing your father was a Marine Corps sniper could have swayed them a little sooner into trusting you as a shooter."

Bay rubbed her gritty, damp face. "Y'all are right," she muttered with apology. "Where I come from we know people by their acts and actions. My pa can't give me his sniper talents. I have to earn the skills through training and hard work."

Hammer chuckled. "Yeah, that's basically true, Doc. But you got a mean eye for a target. You have your pa's genes in you. If I'd known what I know now, I'd never have bet that hundred bucks against you."

Feeling grateful that Hammer wasn't poking fun at her or being rude, Bay felt another level of anxiety dissolve. The red-haired SEAL was regarding her with newfound respect. "Squirrels are mighty hard to shoot," she said, smiling a little and sifting the dirt through her hand. "My pa taught me the basics of tracking, camouflage and shooting, but the rest was up to me." Her smile faded as she a.s.sessed the team. "You guys need to understand, we ate what we shot. If I couldn't hit what I was shooting at, there was no food for the table that night."

Hammer stood, pulling the boonie hat a little lower on his brow. "When you going to get her dialed in on CQD, Griffin?"

Gabe stood up. "When we get time."

"Well, I'd like to help train Doc in. I'm really good at close-quarters defense." He held up his meaty hands, calluses on the edges of each of them.

Bay stood with the rest of them. "CQD?" She turned and looked up at Gabe. "Hand-to-hand combat?"

He nodded, picking up his M-4. "Yeah, it's called Close Quarter Defense, something you need to know. Did the Green Berets ever train you up on that?"

"No."

Hammer shook his head and muttered, "Sissies."

The rest of the SEALs chuckled and they all walked off together toward the camp.

Bay strolled at Gabe's side, watching her step and where she was going. The earth was chewed up badly because sometimes the Taliban would send mortars flying into the area in the dead of night. "Why do I need to learn that?" she demanded.

"In our business, we're often outnumbered. We can't get good ground a.s.set intel of how many Taliban are in a given area. Sometimes we're searching through houses in a village and things turn bad. We try not to shoot and kill someone if we can take them down with our other methods. We call it controlled violence. If a woman, child or elderly person is in the room, but unarmed, we don't shoot. We're looking for the bad guy with a weapon. Them, we will shoot."

Bay grimaced. "Am I going to be clearing rooms?"

"You will, in time," Hammer said. "Not right now, because you don't know our methods or how we work as a team when we do it."

"I think I'd like to just be a medic."

Hammer snickered and looked back at her. "Doc, you're on the front lines with SEALs. There is no safe place. You need to know how we operate so you don't get shot in the process. We can't protect you out there if we're doing a house-to-house search for an HVT. We want you alive, not dead."

Grinning, Bay said, "Hammer, the only reason you're concerned is that you wouldn't get any more cookies that my mama made."

The team erupted into good-natured laughter. A new sense of camaraderie was born.

CHAPTER TEN.

"BE CAREFUL OUT there tonight?" Bay asked Gabe as he got ready to board the Night Stalker piloted MH-47 Chinook helicopter winding up on the ap.r.o.n at Ops. It was already dark and the sniper op with Hammer had been given authorization. The chief felt Bay needed more time to acclimate to the platoon before being thrown into a sniper mission. She knew the two SEALs would be dropped below a ridge far above the village where the three new Taliban rat lines had been discovered. The villagers didn't want the Taliban in their valley; all they wanted was to be left in peace to farm and survive.

Gabe heard the worry in her tone as he straightened from tightening the knife sheath containing a SOF knight on his left thigh. They stood just outside Ops, waiting for the crew chief of the Night Stalker helo to give them the signal to board. There were no lights and he couldn't see as well as he could hear her tone. "We'll be okay."

Tucking her lower lip between her teeth, Bay suddenly felt anxiety. She knew Gabe was a good sniper and had four deployments under his belt. She worried about Hammer, too, who was running to make the helo, having gotten delayed by the Chief Hampton back at HQ. The smell of aviation kerosene fuel was in the air as the MH-47 spooled up. Reaching out, she gripped his left arm. "Just be safe, Gabe. Okay?"

Gabe gazed down into her deeply shadowed face, her eyes fraught with fear. His arm tingled where her fingers touched the material of his cammie sleeve. When she removed her hand from his sleeve, Gabe felt as if he'd lost something special. Unquantifiable.

He sought and found her fingers, squeezing them. "You worry too much. It could be a quiet night out there. We never know...."

BAY SAT IN Chief Hampton's office with him, listening to the radio chatter. It was 0200 and she was fighting dropping off to sleep, her head resting on her arms at the corner of his desk.

"Why don't you go hit the sack?" Hampton said to her.

Rousing herself, Bay pushed strands of hair off her face. "If I'm going to be doing this work, I want to understand how you guys operate."

Hampton pulled over another report to read it. "Okay, but you're going with us tomorrow morning to that village. I'd like you sharp, Doc."

Bay sighed. She didn't want to tell the chief that she was personally worried for Gabe's safety. That comment had no place here. Rubbing her hands on the thigh of her cammies, she pushed the chair back. "Okay..."

"Blue Bird Main, this is Blue Bird Actual. Over."

Bay stopped breathing for a moment as Gabe's low voice came over the radio.

Hampton answered, "Blue Bird Actual, this is Blue Bird Main. Over."

"Two tangos coming down the northeast rat line carrying sacks. Probably fertilizer. Am I authorized to take them out? Over."

Bay released a breath as Hampton's face went expressionless. Her fingers curved into her palms. Two Taliban had been spotted coming down the rat line. If they were carrying large bags, it was usually fertilizer, which was used to create IEDs. Her heart began a slow pound.

"Blue Bird Actual, can you wait to see if there's anyone else coming down that trail? Over."

"Roger, Blue Bird Main. They have half a mile before they reach the bottom and are in the valley. Over."

"Blue bird Main, let's wait and see."

"Roger."

Hampton scowled and put the radio down on his desk.

"Do you suspect others?" Bay asked.

He rubbed his face. "Usually, when the Taliban is bringing in loads of fertilizer, there's a group of them. Not just two. And usually it's on a caravan of camels or donkeys. Sometimes on the backs of men instead. Just depends."

"So you're wanting Gabe and Hammer to wait and see?"

"Yeah. Because if there's more coming over that ridge, they're all armed. If Gabe and Hammer shoot those two, it can create a hornet's nest with the ones they don't see. We have no idea of what kind of force is out there and what they might be up against."

He picked up another radio and called for a Predator Drone to be sent to the GPS coordinates where the two snipers were in their hide, concealed from the enemy's view.

Bay heard the CIA guy on the other end who handled the drones out of Camp Bravo. One would be sent on station in thirty minutes. The crew was outfitting it with missiles right now. There was worry in the chief's eyes as he ended the transmission.

"What does that mean?"

"It means-" Hampton sighed "-that the drone isn't going to be on station soon enough to be eyes in the sky to help us out. I want to know if the rest of this Taliban group is on the other side of the mountain. If Gabe fires, they'll spot the muzzle flash."

"And that's not good," she whispered, her heart beating harder. "How close to that path are they?"

"A thousand yards," Hampton muttered.

Just then, LT Paul Brafford popped into the office. Brafford was barely six feet tall, black hair and blue eyes. He was married with three children, Bay had found out the other day. Brafford carried photos of his three kids and his wife in the upper Velcro pocket of his Kevlar vest. She was touched to hear that.

Bay stood to give the officer the chair, hoping he'd let her stay.