Down Range. Lindsay McKenna

He was familiar with SEAL slang. “A gun in the fight” meant the person had a personal, vested interest in the undertaking. Morgan had never gone through SEAL training. Instead, she’d been working off and on with them for years over in Afghanistan. Their slang and lingo were bound to rub off on her.

      “I understand. General Stevenson and I are responsible for the inception of Operation Shadow Warriors. We took your request seriously when you submitted this mission to General Stevenson. We’ve worked with SOCOM, Special Operation Command, up and down the chain of command to ensure this mission, which is now called Operation Peregrine, is successful.”

      “Thank you, sir. You don’t know how much this means to me.” Morgan held her breath as he slowly leafed through several pages of the mission. Would they let her be on the op? Just because they approved it didn’t mean she was assigned. They had to allow her to be a part of it! Never had Morgan ever wanted anything more in life right now than to go after Sangar Khogani. She had two scores to settle with him.

      At the same time, she knew Houston was well aware she was a sniper and a damned good one. She’d proved her skill out in the field many times over. Snipers weren’t supposed to be emotionally involved in the hunting of their quarry. They couldn’t do their job if revenge was uppermost on their minds. Emotions clouded a sniper’s mind-set; something no one wanted in the field during an op. Morgan realized she’d revealed her personal and emotional need to have a stake in this op. A stupid move on her part.

      And now General Houston knew how badly she wanted Khogani. Would he overlook her passion? Or not? Unsure, Morgan forced herself to sit quietly and wait. After all, that was what snipers did best. Patience was a virtue among the sniper cadre, and ordinarily, Morgan had the patience of Job. But Khogani stirred up violent, angry emotions in her, and there was no way around it. She wanted that bastard dead. His head on a platter. And she wanted to be the one who put it there.

      “Go to page four, Captain. This entails the guts of the op.”

      Morgan’s gaze went to page four. There were two names chosen for the op. One was her, which sent a giddy emotion of joy through her. When her eyes dropped to the second name, her heart plunged with disbelief. Gulping, she snapped a look up across the desk at Houston. Struggling to speak, she rasped, “But—sir, I’m assigned to this op with Lieutenant Jake Ramsey?” For a moment, she felt as if someone had hit her with an armor-piercing round to her Kevlar vest, sucking the breath out of her.

      “That’s right,” Mike Houston said. “General Stevenson and I want this to be a SEAL mission. You’ve worked well with them in the past. We needed a SEAL sniper who could be sniper leader on the op.”

      Morgan swallowed her disappointment. “Yes, sir,” she barely mouthed. There would be no way in hell she could voice protest over Ramsey being assigned. On top of that, he had been designated as lead sniper. In the sniping business, they were both equally qualified, but one sniper would be the leader, the final decision maker. And it would be him! Dammit! The ramifications of the assignment whirled like a nightmare around her. Obviously, these generals did not know their long personal history. Maybe that was a blessing in disguise. Morgan was sure she’d never have been assigned to the op if General Houston realized what she and Jake had once been to each other.

      Lifting her head, she said, “Sir? What led you to choose Lieutenant Ramsey?”

      Mike sat back in his leather chair and said, “His name was spit out by the computer, Captain. Any problems with that?”

      “None, sir,” she lied, her voice husky as she carefully closeted her roiling feelings. That was why she’d met Jake in the parking lot.

      “General Stevenson is interviewing First Lieutenant Ramsey as we speak. If she feels he’s the right man for the job, we’ll be setting up the briefing tomorrow at 0900 here in this office. We’ll all go over the details of this op at that time.” He picked up a voucher and handed it to her. “You’ll both be staying at this hotel located near the Pentagon. I know you just came out of Afghanistan, flying for almost twenty-four hours to make this meeting, Captain. Get a hot meal under your belt tonight and get a good night’s sleep. I need you a hundred percent tomorrow morning. Understand?”

      Quickly coming to her feet at attention, Morgan said, “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

      “Dismissed.”

      Morgan forced herself to turn and walk to the door. Emotions clashed within her. She felt a little dizzy. As she left the office, she was grateful not to see Jake Ramsey. She kept walking toward the front doors, trying to deal with this new development. Closing her eyes for a moment, she dragged in an uneven breath, forcing all those feelings down into her once more. It didn’t work.

      Morgan fought the deep jet lag. She’d only been able to grab some sleep aboard the C-5 that had flown her from Bagram air base in Afghanistan to Rota, Spain, and then on to Andrews Air Force Base just outside Washington, D.C.

      Pushing herself, Morgan left the Pentagon, glad to be out in the warm May sunlight once more. The breeze reminded her she was home, if but for a little while, not in the harsh desert mountains of Afghanistan with a hunter-killer SEAL team. Aiming herself at the rented SUV, Morgan looked at the voucher. She was so damned tired, she was weaving. Houston was right: she needed a hot shower and then bed. If she woke up sometime this evening, she’d get dinner to fortify herself. Because the turnaround on this op was immediate. The schedule had them leaving within twenty-four hours, headed back into Afghanistan.

      As she opened the door to the SUV, Morgan wanted to check in to the hotel and make a call to her parents in Gunnison, Colorado. And even more, she wanted to talk to her two-year-old daughter, Emma. Just thinking about her family buoyed Morgan. She tried to force her thoughts away from Jake Ramsey. What did he think of the sniper pairing on this op? He had to be feeling like an IED had exploded beneath him. Morgan knew, without any doubt, the last woman Jake would ever want on a mission with him would be her. Correction, he’d never want any woman on a mission with him, believing they were incapable of operating in combat.

      All hell was about to break loose….

      Chapter Two

      Jake Ramsey wondered what kind of bad karma was hanging over his head. When he opened door number one, he came face-to-face with an Army woman General. He snapped to attention in front of her desk and reported as ordered.

      “At ease,” General Maya Stevenson said, gesturing to the chair in front of her desk. “Have a seat, Lieutenant Ramsey. We have a lot to cover in a short amount of time.”

      Sitting, Jake got his first good look at the female General. His mind spun in shock, but somewhere, in his memory, he had heard this woman’s name. Where? And he almost blurted, what is a woman doing mission planning on a black ops? But didn’t. Judging from the serious look on her face, he’d keep his mouth shut. Her hair was black with some silver strands and barely brushed the shoulders of her green uniform. It was the burning intelligence in her large emerald eyes that warned him she wasn’t some weak woman like his mother. Far from it; so he sat there on edge, trying to appear interested but not anxious.

      “Lieutenant, you were chosen for Operation Peregrine by our computers.” She leaned forward, handing him the mission brief. “We need two snipers to go after Sangar Khogani, a Hill tribe leader who is an opium warlord.” She rested her hands on the file. “We have chosen a sniper team to go after him and remove his presence from the fight.”

      “Yes, ma’am.”

      “Are you interested in this type of op, Lieutenant?”

      “Absolutely, ma’am.” Jake felt himself sweat. This woman General had the kind of look that could cut an officer into so many ribbons. Why would she ask such a question?

      “Open the file to page four, Lieutenant.”

      Jake opened it. His mouth dropped as he read who his assigned sniper partner would be: Captain Morgan Boland. He snapped his mouth shut, feeling shock bolt through him. “Ma’am,” he said, struggling, looking at her, “this can’t