AN: I hope everyone is still enjoying the story. I haven't had very many reviews lately so I'm wondering if people are still enjoying it. I see a lot of traffic so that's hopeful I think. Anyway, for those that have reviewed, thanks! I don't own JE characters, just the ones I created.

Chapter 8

Legends and New Guys

Ranger looked at Elise. "You don't remember?"

She nodded and wrapped her arms around herself. "Yeah. The doctors in DC said it was traumatic amnesia." Sitting down she pulled herself into a ball and looked at him. "I've got bits and pieces of it, but Alan said I took a hit to the head right before we reached our destination. I know the basics of the operation from what the men have told me. Dipshit and Dillon—"

"Elise."

"Sorry. Diggory and Dillon figure I'll have the best luck getting to him." She shrugged. "I'm not sure how much of that's true since I can't remember, but I won't help them without my men. They'll be the best for this."

"And you think Cortez has Trevor?"

Elise nodded. "Yeah. Dillon said Trevor's mission was over a week ago. He was coming to see me. For him to not contact either of us is unusual. Trev would let me know if there was a family emergency."

Ranger came and sat next to her on the couch. "RangeMan will help you if you need it, Munchkin. As soldier to soldier, are you sure you can do this?"

"I have to, Daddy." She whispered. When she looked at him he saw the fear in her eyes. "If Cortez has Trevor, I can't leave him to whatever might happen."

…

Night came. Elise stood on the runway watching as five soldiers walked toward her from the plane. A slow grin came to her face. The fear that had formed in her stomach melted away into something dangerous. Something feral. The feel of the hunt was beginning to surge through her. There was a reason she was called Jaguar. Patience was a beautiful thing for her when it came to stalking her target. Her men were the best.

On the far right was Randall, or Randy. He was muscle. She knew he could rival her father and her uncles in size. Perhaps that was one of things that had drawn her attention to him. He reminded her of Uncle Tank.

Billy Georgeson was on his left. If Elise didn't know better she would swear he was another version of Lester. All good looks and smooth words which drew women to him like flies to honey. He was also a smart ass.

Victor was next to him. Truthfully, all of them were good looking. Elise had a small feeling she knew what her mother felt like whenever she had worked with the men at RangeMan. It had also been cause for several remarks about her relationship with her men. The boys didn't take kindly to those remarks. That just made her love them more. They were her brothers. Victor was amazing with a computer. She decided she'd introduce him to Cami. They would get along.

Darren and Kyle came next. Darren was a little shy when it came to women. It was endearing and more than once Elise had made the men leave him alone. Of course, they didn't always go out with her, so she knew there were plenty of times when Darren had been subjected to whatever "lessons" they thought he needed. Kyle was usually the one to cause the lessons if Billy wasn't available.

"Hey, Captain." Billy smiled winningly at her. "I hear we're back in action. Care to share the plan?"

Elise grinned again. The men knew this grin. It was when she was beginning to hunt.

…

They drove back to RangeMan silently. Elise had taken Ranger up on his offer to help with the search. She knew it meant that Ranger would be involved. Not only because he was the head of RangeMan and the government had contracted this mission out to them, but also because she was his daughter and he was going to keep an eye on her after her admission that she couldn't remember what happened with Cortez.

What did surprise her was when she walked into the conference room to find not only Ranger, but Tank, Lester, Bobby, Ram and Cal. Alan was already waiting for them. She glanced back at her guys. Billy looked like he was drooling. He had harassed Elise repeatedly over the past to let him meet her father. There was a bit of hero worship going on from Billy's end.

"Elise." Ranger nodded his head to her.

"Dude…" Billy whispered to Randy.

"Shut up." Randy growled trying not to laugh. They took their seats at the table. "Alright, Rangerette, spill. Why'd Dillon yank all of us from our locations and send us here?"

"Not that we're complaining," Billy said leaning back. "Lots of women…"

"Georgeson…" Elise rolled her eyes.

"What?"

"Think with your dick later." She looked at all her men. They gave her their full attention. Finally she said, "Cortez is back."

The silence in the room was deafening. A pin could have dropped and everyone would have heard the noise. Randy was shaking his head. "Diggory sent for you, didn't he?"

"Wait, that's not fucking possible." Billy said glaring at her.

"Oh, it's possible." Elise replied. "And it wasn't just Diggory. Dillon came too."

"They can't—your medical on that—"

"Is clearly irrelevant." She said firmly. "What Dillon and I do agree on is that he has Trevor."

"Oh fuck." Kyle grinned. "Jaguar is coming out to play with a vengeance, isn't she?"

"No." Elise shook her head. "We're just going to find him and hand him back to the government."

"That's not a good idea." Alan said speculatively. "We've done that once and clearly it didn't work."

"Captain. I have a question." Billy said raising his hand.

"No, you cannot meet my father if we live through this." Elise replied automatically as she looked through the folder. The men laughed. It had become a common routine between the two of them once Billy had found out who Elise's father was. Every battle they went into his question was, "If we live through this then can we meet your father?" Her response was always no.

"Har." Billy rolled his eyes. "He's right there. You lose."

She looked at him for a long moment, then looked at Ranger. "Daddy, when this over can you help me ship him to a third world country?"

"What kind of survival rate do you want?"

"Bare minimum."

"Sure, Munchkin. We can do that." Ranger nodded.

Elise shot a smug look at Billy. He glared her. "That's just cold."

She laughed briefly. "What's the question?"

"Depending on how things play out what kind of operation are we looking at? Op TLD or Op TLM?"

Her men looked at her expectantly. Her father and uncles were looking at each other as though they were trying to remember what those Ops were. She resisted the urge to laugh. They definitely would not know what those ops were.

"If things go the way I think they will, then consider it Op TLD meets Op TLM." She answered.

Vic stretched leisurely back in his chair with a grin. "I love my job."

"Alright, I'll bite." Lester finally said. "What the hell are ops TLD and TLM?"

Randy laughed. "Operations Think Like Dad and Think Like Mom."

"Please tell me this is going where I think it is." Tank grinned.

"Shit, it was epic." Darren replied facing Tank. "A few years ago we were on a mission that was FUBAR before we'd even left the states. Half the time I don't think we should have gotten out of there alive—"

"We shouldn't have." Randy agreed.

"—but towards the end, we're surrounded. Exhausted, and ready to give up. We find Elise lying down in the middle of us staring straight up. At first we thought she was down. Trevor asks what's wrong. She's quiet for several minutes then goes, "I know exactly what Dad would do in this situation. Right now I'm trying to figure out what Mom would do in this situation."" At this point all the men were chuckling. Ranger raised an eyebrow at Elise who shrugged and grinned. "She finally figures something out and tells us what it is. We didn't think it had a shot in hell, but we didn't have anything to lose at that point. But it worked. I'm not sure who was more confused, us or them."

"Trust me, I think the enemy is still scratching their heads trying to figure out what the hell happened." Randy said.

"After that, we started referring to things as Op TLD or Op TLM depending on what was needed." Billy told them as they calmed down.

"I get that." Lester couldn't repress the laughter anymore. It was too brilliant. He could only imagine the responses of the enemy if Elise had used Stephanie's way of thinking. She was definitely one to think outside the box and it looked like that had been exactly what she'd had to do.

"Okay, so what do you need us to do?" Kyle asked Elise above the laughter.

She leaned back in her seat. "Tomorrow afternoon we're going to go over everything about Cortez."

"Resources?" Darren asked.

"RangeMan."

"Shit we get to work with legends?" Billy looked like he wanted to faint.

"Georgeson, don't make me taser your ass." Elise said flatly.

"You should taser his ass for good measure." Kyle said.

"I veto the tasering as the team medic. Just saying." Alan called out. "Do you know what you could do to him?"

"Besides save the women of the world from Don Juan?" Elise asked sweetly.

"I have never had a woman complain about my moves." Billy defended himself.

"You don't stick around long enough to find out." Alan shot back.

Tank and Ranger shared a look and both repressed the urge to laugh. Billy was like Lester in his wild days. Ranger wondered if Lester would pick up on it.

"Randy, I need you in the morning." Elise looked at him. "Meet me here at the gym around 8."

Randy looked at her for a moment then asked, "You sure? If you don't remember fighting him before—"

"Then you're going to make sure I'm prepared to fight him again." Elise gave him a look that clearly brooked no argument.

"Sounds good." He shrugged.

"Hey. The rest of us are good enough to spar with you." Billy said indignantly

"Speak for yourself." Kyle muttered.

Elise raised an eyebrow. "Billy, the last time I sparred with you, I had you down in under five seconds."

"I was hung over."

"Excuses." She replied a smile playing at her lips.

"If I may." Ranger interceded. "Since RangeMan is being used as well for this…Op TLD&M, I'd like to lay a few ground rules. Most of you will be staying here at the available apartments we have. I imagine all of you will want to use the gym to work out, which I highly encourage. However, I expect to be kept up to speed with the entire goings on."

"Yes sir." All the men chorused. Elise bit her lip to keep from laughing.

…

CJ walked down the street whistling. The pretty young thing he'd met last night had been well worth it. He was feeling relaxed and ready to go help his mother. He was putting some of his studies to work while they were on vacation. He was majoring in business and wanted to be able to help both his parents and hopefully find a good niche for himself when the time was right. His teachers had all told him he was a shrewd thinker. Stephanie had let him come to her offices several times and he gained a better understanding of what was expected as a boss and the intricacies of her business.

"Manoso."

He turned to see someone leaning against the wall staring at him. He wasn't all that built. He was dressed in black and was slowly smoking a cigarette.

"Who wants to know?" CJ asked calmly. His gut said this wasn't going to end well. Something wasn't right with this man.

"Someone wants to speak with you."

"Then he can come out here."

"In private."

"Not happening."

The man pushed himself from the wall. He walked toward CJ lazily. "Boy, don't make this tougher than it needs to be."

"Seems to me your boss is making it tougher than it needs to be." He shot back.

Several other men came from out of nowhere. CJ was surrounded, but he wasn't going down without a fight. The first guy looked at him. "How'd you like to do this? The easy way or the hard way?"

"I've never been one to take the easy route." CJ snarled.

"Pity."

They attacked. CJ was a good fighter thanks to the training he'd had growing up. He could hold his own, but when you had one man against seven it was a tough fight, one that he wasn't sure he was actually going to win. Whoever the hell these guys were, they weren't taking him down that easily.

He felt the cold metal of a blade slice through his side. Rather than cave to the pain shooting through him, he continued to fight. He was barely aware of an added player who helped beat back the other men.

When they were gone, CJ staggered to the ground. His eyes shut and he tried to focus on getting past the pain. Someone slapped him in the face enough to make him open his eyes. He glared at the person. "Morelli?"

His voice was raspy. JJ looked down at him. "Shit man, we've got to get you to the hospital."

…

Cami ran along the beach enjoying the morning air. She knew when Elise came home last night that something was up and from her sister's demeanor it was something she would not talk about. Cami could also tell Ranger knew about it but was going to keep things quiet. She had a feeling Elise's vacation was on a temporary hold until she did whatever she had to.

She ran fast, weaving away from the waves and sometimes weaving into them. She knew she was free on the beach and feeling the wind through her hair as she ran made her want to fly. Cami knew she could fly if she wanted to.

Stopping, she braced her hands on her knees and took several deep breaths. She didn't want to turn back, but she had already been running for an hour this morning. She wanted to go to RangeMan and see if her dad would let her play with the computers. She would even promise to not lock anyone out of something.

The hair on the back of her neck rose. Something was wrong. Someone was there. Someone who shouldn't be there. She kept her head bent down, she slowed her breathing. She listened as the person came closer to her. When they were close enough, she turned swinging.

Before she could land a punch she was tackled and something covered her nose and mouth. Fuck, she thought as she slid into unconsciousness.