Phoenix (Paragon Operations #2)

Ten Years Ago

Bravo

Operation Desert Force.

Location classified.

“Northwest corner of the building, retreat, retreat, retreat,” Alpha ordered through comms.

Hostile gunfire rang out across the compound.

Dragging the hostage, Zulu hit Alpha’s position first. Firing in short bursts, Echo and Delta followed. Crouched low, I brought up the rear, but the last damn place we needed to be holding was against this blown-out pile of rubble.

Reserving ammo, I scanned through my scope, then spared a glance at our Team leader and my best friend, Alpha. “What are we waiting for?” We’d taken down our target, we had the hostage. Our mission was complete.

“Intel from Command.” Alpha nodded toward building two. “Possible second HVT.”

“No easy day.” Smirking at the irony, I turned toward the building and threw Zulu a command before Alpha could stop me. “Cover me, Zulu.”

He dropped and sighted. “Copy that.”

Alpha spoke to overwatch through his direct comm link, then ordered me to stand down. “Hold position, Bravo. Waiting on sitrep from Command.”

“I’ll get the intel sooner,” I argued. “Sixty seconds. One sweep, and I’ll know who we’re after.” This terrorist cell had been swarming their leaders. It’s how we got the first HVT. One minute of recon, and I’d know exactly who the second target was.

“Wait,” Alpha commanded.

Shots flew over our heads, the hostage hit the dirt, and Delta and Echo returned fire.

“We don’t have time to wait.” This mission was already jacked—insertion had been delayed, dawn broke, the compound was teaming with tangoes. We needed to bug out.

Rounds from an incoming convoy with a roof-mounted belt-fed rained down on our POS, punctuating my thoughts as the hostage took one in the leg.

Alpha’s usually guarded expression twisted with anger. “I’m going in. You and Zulu cover me.”

Not fucking happening. We had a deal. Alpha was Team leader, I was tip of the spear. That was how we operated best. “I got this.” I held up my fist. “Relay the intel from Command when you get it, and remember the promise.” Always the promise.

Alpha fist-bumped me and recited our deal. “I promise I’ll take care of her if you kick down your last door.” Her being my younger sister. Dead parents, no living relatives, Maila was all I had left. She and Alpha.

“You better,” I warned. “Or I’ll come back and beat your ass before kicking your ass.” Already Oscar Mike, I hit the southeast side of the building and kicked the door in.

Sweeping to clear entry, I made it one step inside.

Then the world detonated.

The explosion deafening, the blastwave threw me. My back hit hard ground, my chest compressed, pain flared. A wall of fire roared.

Shit fell on top of me. My vision tunneled.

And darkened….

Hands gripped my ankles.

Jerked forward, pain radiated. Sucking in smoke and dust, I reached for my weapon.

My wrists were grabbed.

Kicking out, I yelled. “Alpha!”

Flames swamped me.

I was lifted off the ground.

I fucking fought.

A face got in mine. Ops Core FAST helmet, rail system, night vision, tactical lights. Mouth open. Fucker yelling. Everything ringing. Camo. Uniform. One of us. One of us.

I stopped fighting.

Started reading lips.

Couldn’t.

Fire. Smoke. Pain.

Dragged backwards.

Lights out.

Bounced.

Sucked in breath. Fucking ribs killing me. Bounced again. Same fucker in my face. Mouth open. Saying shit. Ringing.

Goddamn fucking ringing.

Hard bounce.

Out.

Jostled.

Slow exhale. Slower inhale.

Awake.

Fuck, awake. My Team. My weapon.

Eyes open.

Dark. Hum. Helo. No…. Transport?

Where the fuck was my Team?

Where was my weapon?

“He’s awake.”

English. American accent.

Exhale. Turn head.

Cargo. Transport. Ranger fuckers lined up, kitted out. No Team. “Where’s my Team?” Throat raw. Cough.

Same fucker from before. In my face again. Weird eyes. Insane eyes. Green? No. Gold. Not kitted up. Not in Army camo. MARPAT cammies. Desert version. Marine.

I moved.

Fisting the fucker’s blouse, I yanked him toward me. “Where the fuck is my Team?”

“You have a call.” He shoved something in front of me.

Sat phone. No Alpha. No Team. What the fuck? “TEAM,” I demanded.

“CALL,” he ordered.

Phone in face.

Sat up. Grabbed it. “Alpha?”

The line crackled. Click sounded. Then, “Son. While we have not spoken directly in years, I trust you know who this is. For the sake of national security, keep that fact to yourself.”

My head fucking spun.

Team not here. Operators I didn’t know. On a C-130 transport, when our exfil was helo.

Shit sank in.

I replied. “Yes, sir.”

“Apologies for the explosion. Rest assured, your Team is intact, but maneuvers had to be made. I know this was not the career trajectory you imagined. Hell, it wasn’t what I imagined for you either when I met you long before your father was the Vice Admiral and I was in office. Unfortunately, we’re here now.”

Where the fuck was here? “Sir?”

“I need someone I can trust. Your father, may he rest in peace, assured me before he passed that you would be the right man for the job.”

Years-old memory popped. My father. Hand on my shoulder. Newly pinned Trident on my chest.

“You’re not the best man, son, but you’re the right man. Remember that.”

I replied automatically to the Commander in Chief. “Yes, sir.”

“Excellent. Before we start, I also apologize for the manner of your extraction and minor injuries. We had to make it believable beyond a reasonable doubt. You understand.”

My brain still fucking scrambled from the explosion, I shook my head. “Sir?”

“Your death, son.”

Gut punched.

Sat phone in hand, my head sank to my knees.

The Commander in Chief delivered his orders.

“Petty Officer Second Class William Nilsen is officially deceased. Your new call sign is Phoenix. You report directly and only to me. Your missions will come through direct communication from either myself or Ground Branch. You’ll operate independently.

You’ll have every resource at my disposal available to you through indirect channels, but you do not exist. Not to the Oval Office, not to this administration, not to the United States of America. Are we clear?”

Motion sickness I’d never had crawled up my throat. “Yes, sir.”

“Questions?”

“My sister.” My eighteen-year-old sister. Who had no one except me.

“She’ll be taken care of. Her future is assured.”

Not good enough. “With all due respect, sir, she needs to know I’m alive.”

“Son.” There was an impatient exhale. “You know that’s neither prudent nor secure, for her sake. Understood?”

In that moment, I didn’t care. This was my sister we were talking about.

But this wasn’t about me.

I knew who I was speaking with. Who my father had been. There was never going to be a choice. This was honor. Duty. I’d taken an oath.

I will obey the orders of the President of the United States.

“Yes, sir,” I replied.

Four Days Later.

Location undisclosed.

Ninety-six hours of medical, debrief, psych evals disguised as interrogation and procedures.

The latter was worse than waterboarding.

Crash courses in intelligence gathering, HUMINT, SIGINT, GEOINT.

Need-to-know intel on the Special Activities Center.

Download on their Special Operations Group.

Same shit, different ways of saying it, all on repeat.

Complete and total deniability. Highly trained human weapon.

A dozen synonyms for Black Ops. I fucking got it.

SOG. Paramilitary. Ground Branch. Tertia Optio.

As covert as it fucking got.

Four days of this shit, and I was itching for my M4. Hell, I’d take my Sig. If I didn’t see daylight soon, maybe for sport I’d disarm one of these nameless fucks crawling around this subterranean concrete maze, then clear my own path aboveground.

As if he could read minds, the crazy-eyed fucker from the explosion, from the transport—the sat-phone-wielding Marine—glanced at me as we traversed another underground tunnel.

Expression locked, staring straight ahead, silently counting strides, I didn’t give him the satisfaction of meeting his glance.

The fucker had been on me since the transport. Watching, hovering, breathing down my neck. Every step I took, he was there.

But he barely spoke.

No one addressed him by name.

And he’d lost the Marine cammies after we’d gotten off the transport and had been in civies ever since.

So was I.

Except they weren’t my clothes.

All black. All new.

Yesterday, I’d bitched about the boots.

This morning, after my allotted three hours’ sleep, I’d woken to a new pair. Danner MEBs. Marine Expeditionary Boots. They matched the Marine fucker’s boots. Except he wasn’t a Marine anymore. I didn’t know what the hell he was. I didn’t ask.

He took a corner like he knew this maze, then stopped at a door, punched in a code that was the seventeenth variation he’d used on eighteen different keypads. I’d memorized every one.

The lock clicked, and he pushed the door open, but then he altered his behavior.

He didn’t walk in first.

He cocked his head once.

Interior pitch-black, no weapon on me, my senses on high alert, I smelled the distinctive scent of gun powder and metal. Adrenaline surged, and I didn’t hesitate.

Angling past him, I walked in.

Then the door shut behind me, the darkness became a pulse, and I heard his breath.

I lowered my voice. “No lights.” All the other rooms we’d been in had motion-activated lighting.

“Anteroom. Step forward.”

It took three paces.

Then the lights went on a section at a time, illuminating a fucking arsenal. The twenty-foot-long room was narrow, five feet wide in the middle, but the entire length, both sides, floor to ceiling, was lined with rack-mounted weapons. Everything from handguns to rifles, belt-feds, and RPGs.

There was also every tactical component you could think of. Optics, suppressors, sights, extended magazines, specialized grips.

A virtual SOF candy store.

Then there was the rear wall. It was all body armor, cold-weather gear, accessories, and electronic devices.

I glanced back at the Marine.

He slid a hand into his pocket. “Pick your gear.”

I didn’t ask for what. I walked the room.

Then walked it again.

I caught his watchful stare. “Weather?”

“Cold.”

I grabbed a jacket. Black, weather resistant, insulated.

My size. Shrugged into it. Then I strode back to the pistols and reached for what I knew.

Sig P226 MK25. No serial number. I checked the magazine.

Loaded. Shoving the 9mm into my back waistband, then grabbing a cell and small laptop, I nodded at the Marine fucker. “Good.”

He pulled out a cell, swiped, and quickly typed.

While he was distracted, I nabbed a second cell and slid it into my rear pocket.

He looked up. “Anything else?”

“No.” Wherever the fuck I was going, whatever the hell I was assigned to do, this would hold me until I could get my own gear. Shit that wasn’t being tracked or monitored, because the only way I was doing this was on my own.

With my own gear.

Everything from the clothes on my back to weapons, servers I’d secure myself to track and hack my own shit, to vehicles, places, and eventually, support.

If I was officially dead, then I was dead to everyone the second I stepped out of this goddamn bunker.

The Marine fucker turned toward the anteroom.

I followed.

He waited for the automatic lights to turn off. “You took a second cell.”

Bonus points for observation. I didn’t deny it. “You’re not going to worry about that.” I was armed. He wasn’t.

“You can’t ever call her.”

“Her who?”

He didn’t answer. He opened the door to the tunnel, the meager light spilled in, but he didn’t immediately walk out.

He glanced back at me.

This time, I held his eerie fucking stare.

Two beats later, his hand came up, palm open.

I glanced down. SIM card. I looked back up. “Mine?” I’d asked him twice for my old cell phone. Twice, he’d ignored me.

He didn’t reply now either. But his chin lifted a millimeter.

I took the SIM and shoved it into my pocket. Then I asked. “What’s your name?”

“Saint.”

He didn’t look like a saint. He looked like a Marine fucker who’d garotte you in your sleep.

Saint stepped out of the anteroom, then glanced down the tunnel. “Take the left corridor. Two hundred yards, there’s a door.” He recited a code, then handed me an envelope. “Good luck.” Pivoting, he walked in the opposite direction.

Two minutes later, I was in an alley. Muted daylight, the air cold enough to see my breath.

I scanned my surroundings twice, three times.

Then I checked the envelope.

Passport, wallet with an international driver’s license, cash—euros, bank card, credit card, and one condom.

Pocketing the wallet and passport with a new name, tossing the envelope in a dumpster, I powered up the first cell phone.

Then I walked out of the alley.