"He's a machine now." Ian stated heavily, his expression saddened as he watched Nathan work out. "He's the best damned killer I've ever laid my eyes on. Silent as a thought."
Jordan turned to Reno Chavez, the commander of the group.
Reno shook his black head. "He's not a SEAL any longer. He questions orders continuously, lays in backup plans out the ass, and always has a plan if that one goes bad. If he feels he needs to deviate, then he deviates. He's not insubordinate, but he's a leader now. He won't follow easily unless he's assured the plan is the only way to go. He's a , Jordan, but he's a damned efficient one. Like a shark. Cold-blooded. Focused. And deadly."
Jordan nodded. "Thank you, Reno. I appreciate the report."
"You have my written report as well." Reno nodded to the file that had been laid on Jordan's desk.
The monthly reports hadn't deviated in years. Nathan was barely a man any longer. He often reminded Jordan of a robot, little more.
"Jordan, he's not going to survive like this." Ian said quietly, turning back to the window, watching the man that had once been his friend. "He'll self-destruct. One of these days, he'll put a bullet in his own head."
As though Noah had heard him, sensed him, he sat up on the weight bench and grabbed a towel. His gaze sliced past the two-way mirror and stared back at them. His eyes were darker, wilder than Nathan Malone's had been. Searing navy blue in a dark, sharply defined face. His black hair was thick, long, nearly to his shoulders now. He refused to cut it. As he turned his back Jordan glimpsed the black sun pierced by a red sword that had been tattooed on the left shoulder blade of Noah's back.
The emblem of the Elite Operational Unit was another re-minder of how Noah had shed his past as Nathan Malone. He had signed his life over to a unit that at times could be little more than a suicide mission.
"He'll survive." Jordan kept his response cool, but what he felt inside was anything but cool. "He's not finished yet. He just thinks he is." Nathan hadn't returned to his wife yet, and Noah, the man he was, hadn't forgotten that woman. He wouldn't find himself until he did.
Jordan had pulled his nephew into this unit because he knew the man he loved like a brother would have never survived intact if he'd had to face the world after his release from the clinic. Or if he'd had to face his wife.
The psychologist had agreed. Nathan would have taken a walk one day and just never returned. He hadn't been ready. Noah might still not be ready either. But Jordan was going to end up testing him anyway.
Three years later
"It won't be easy to get him to agree to it," Ian Richards warned Jordan as they watched the six-man unit of the Elite Ops working out in the gym through the two-way mirror that looked into it.
Noah was stronger than ever. Lean. Powerful. Cold.
"He'll go," Jordan said softly. "He'll not let her remain in danger."
Ian blew out a hard breath as they stared at the man they all knew as Noah now.
"Would she want him back like this?" he asked.
Jordan had questioned that one himself. For six years Sabella Malone had been without her husband. In the past three years, she had finally begun living again. Dating again. There was a chance Noah could lose the wife he never admitted he had, very soon, to another man's arms.
"We'll find out, won't we," Jordan mused.
"We'll be your backup in the Alpine mission," Reno told him then. This small group of men had been assigned to the Elite Ops; partly privately funded, partly government backed, the unit was a test unit, a group of dead men, of rogues. In the past years they had become a highly advanced, specialized unit dealing in operations that other agencies couldn't touch either because of political sensitivity, or the level of danger involved.
Jordan nodded slowly before watching Noah once more.
"We'll meet up at the command center set up in Big Bend National Park," he told them. "You'll receive your orders within the next day or so."
Ian and Reno nodded and left quickly, heading out to prepare for the coming operation. All that was left was getting Noah Blake to go along with it.
Jordan sat down at his desk, picked up the file he had on the mission, and called Noah into his office.
Noah made him wait. When he walked into Jordan's office, his hair was still damp from his shower, his blue eyes cold, no emotion, no life flickering within them.
"Are we ready?" Noah took the seat in front of the desk that Jordan indicated.
"Almost." Jordan nodded. "Command center will be broken down tonight and flown to the new location. We should be set up within forty-eight hours."
Noah didn't say anything, he just stared back at Jordan, waiting. His patience was seemingly endless now. But when he erupted into action there was no one faster. No one deadlier.
"You're delaying," Noah finally drawled, that ruined voice scraping.
That voice had once been flowing, deep. Now, it was guttural, almost raw.
"First mission is in Texas," Jordan stated.
Noah didn't respond His gaze didn't even flicker. As though nothing in Texas concerned him. No family, no grandfather, brother, or father. No wife.
"Command center will based forty miles out of Alpine."
"No." Noah's tone was icy.
Jordan lifted the file and slapped it down in front of him. "Read the file. You don't want the mission, then the hell with it. You can head to Siberia for all I give a damn and babysit that scientist they had us kidnap last month, in the cold. But you will read the file first."
Jordan stomped from the office, slammed the door behind him, and left Noah to the information they had gathered.
Noah, he never thought of himself as Nathan anymore, stared at the file as though it were a rattler. He didn't want to read it. He didn't want to know. Siberia suited him just fine. Hell, that scientist was a quiet little thing, she just liked working on her projects, she didn't like company. She would do.
He got to his feet, then stopped. He stared at the file and almost turned away. Almost. A picture had slid from just inside the file, and he knew that chin.
He picked it up slowly. The center of his chest was a hard, searing knot of agony as he pulled the picture free and frowned.
And there it was. That familiar curve of the brow, those pretty, soft gray eyes. But he'd be damned if he knew the woman they belonged to.