Saving Him (SEAL Team #1)

Chapter 1

ADAM

“Alpha One, this is Alpha Two. I have northern overwatch. How copy?” I requested confirmation.

“Strong copy, Alpha Two. Alpha team in position to breach,” Alpha One replied.

Alpha One was Foster Holt. He’d joined the team recently, and at first, I had worried about the fit. Legacies either went one way or the other. Foster definitely went the good way.

I’d wanted the job myself. Badly. I understood Mercer and the command’s decision.

Foster had more time and a hell of a lot more experience, and…

well, you couldn’t discount the fact that his daddy was one of the first SEALs ever.

All that notwithstanding, he was shaping up to be a damn good team leader.

So much so that the initial anger I’d felt at being passed over was burning out after being spun up and walking outside the wire with him.

“Bravo team in position to breach. How copy?” Finlay Ryan, Alpha Four, reported.

“Strong copy, Bravo team,” Foster replied.

“Alpha Six has southern overwatch. How copy?”

“Strong copy, Six.” I checked my scope. “TOC, this is Alpha Two. How copy?”

The radio crackled in my ear.

“Lima Charlie, Alpha Two. Strong copy all around. You are cleared hot. Repeat. You’re cleared hot,” Commander Mercer replied.

I took a deep breath. I’d been tapped by Foster to oversee this op since he was still getting the lay of the team. It wasn’t the first I’d ever led, but something about this one felt more significant.

“You guys heard that. Breach on my mark.” I checked my scope again, and then my watch. The seconds ticked down. “Three, two, one. Execute. Execute. Execute.”

I was too far away to hear the boys breach the building, so I eagle-eyed the site, watching the building for anything out of the ordinary.

I swept the site and the surroundings over and over.

The area was supposed to be a hotbed, but this was as cold as a witch’s tit in the dead of winter. Not a single fucking squirter.

I did another sweep. Everything was silent. Still. Eerily so. So much so, the hair on the back of my neck—hell, on my whole damn body—stood on end.

“Alpha Six, check in,” I called. Something was off. I knew it. I could feel it in my bones.

“All clear, Alpha Two. Too clear. Over.”

Alpha Six was Carson Wilcox. He was our best sniper, but covering a field this size, we’d drawn straws as to who would help him. I’d pulled the short one.

Fucking short straw.

I fucking hated doing overwatch, but we were a team.

2IC or not, I took teamwork seriously. Plus, I had confidence in both Foster and Rocket.

They could handle their shit with or without me, even if I was used to being one of the ones busting through doors.

We’d been training for this shit with Foster from the moment he took over.

So, even though this was our first trip outside the wire with him, I knew we were humming like a well-oiled machine.

Another sweep through the scope, and I said, “Roger that, Alpha Six…”

I shut my trap and turned my radio down to a whisper. There was someone or something out there. I stilled my breath, listening for the slightest sound.

There it was. A noise. A small one. Just a tiny rustle. Whoever it was, they were damn good. It was hard as fuck to move silently in this terrain.

I keyed the distress signal on my mic, slowly pulled my sidearm, and waited. Moving was out of the question, but I was a sitting duck with my back exposed. I was damned if I did or damned if I didn’t at this point.

The team chattered in my ear to TOC. The HVT was not on site.

A fucking trap. That’s what this is.

A rustle of sand under someone’s feet sounded again, this time at five o’clock. Then another off to the left at nine.

Motherfucker. They’ve got me surrounded.

I glanced first to the right. The guy to that side was still out of my sight line. I chanced a look to the left, and a figure on the edge of my field of vision moved there, sneaking up on me. I keyed my mic again, rolled, and fired.

My side caught fire, just under my vest, as I watched my double tap to drop the guy at five o’clock to the ground. Ignoring the pain, I rolled and fired again. Nine o’clock dropped too. I reached for my M4.

Pain detonated throughout my chest, robbing me of my breath. A round struck my vest center mass. It didn’t penetrate, though. I would’ve been dead if it had.

I staggered to my feet, but another shot burned through my outer thigh.

I fired in the direction that round came from, advancing with each shot.

They might take me—and I knew that was the plan, because otherwise they would’ve and could’ve dropped me without giving away their position.

So, yeah, they might capture my ass, but I would take a few of the fuckers out before they got their hands on me.

I advanced on two more of my would-be captors, taking one out just as my knees were cut out from under me. I pulled my K-bar, sinking it deep into the thigh of the guy behind me. I twisted it as I pulled it free, slicing it across his throat as he fell forward.

I attempted to get to my feet again, but the muzzle of an AK was thrust into my face, stopping me in my tracks.

The suck exploded. That’s for damn sure.

Then everything went dark.

I came back to myself, if you could call it that. I hadn’t been knocked out, at least not completely, but my vision had gone dark, and my awareness had diminished a bit, but I’d still been able to hear what was happening around me.

My awareness spiked as my head bounced off whatever I was lying on. I tried to sit up, and this time, I bounced my head off whatever was above me. Feeling around me, I came to the sudden and scary realization that I was in a box. A motherfucking box.

I’m a man in a box.

I laughed ruefully. If that didn’t fucking take the cake. It’s one of my favorite songs, thanks to Rocket, who played the damned thing incessantly. Now, I was the epitome of the man in the box, and they were blaring that fucking song at me.

Irony fucking sucks. I’m just saying.

Mixed with the music was a cacophony of ear-piercing sounds—a woman screaming, a baby crying, and Muslim prayers.

The combination was enough to make your teeth rattle and your bones ache.

They’d learned this from the shit televised about what the U.S.

had done to Noriega all those years ago.

We used it because it was fucking effective. The same reason they stole it.

It drove you crazy, being unable to escape the constant blaring sounds. I was slowly losing my goddamn mind.

I closed my eyes, allowing calm to wash over me like standing in the rain during a summer shower on the farm back in Tennessee. The water was warm, soft, gentle, and refreshing, cooling you off as you lifted your face to the sun. The heat and light lifted you like nothing else ever could.

A deep breath in and out. Then I did it again. I opened my eyes back up to my current personal hell.

I looked around the space they’d stowed me in, and for one of the few times in my life, I was happy I wasn’t a behemoth like Brock and some others in the teams. Yes, I was built like a brick outhouse, but I barely brushed six feet, whereas Rocket was nearly half a foot taller.

Thank God Rocket wasn’t the one taken.

Brock had been my best friend since we met on the way to Basic. He’d annoyed the shit out of me, but after a few days—yes, they’d even bunked us together—I’d realized his constant rattling was due to him having ADHD.

Realized. He told me. Same difference.

That didn’t mean it was any easier to deal with on some days—and in some cases, some hours because, fuck, Rocket could be a lot to deal with.

Most of the time, he had the attention span of a two-year-old on an Easter Basket with a massive chocolate bunny high, but he had slowly become my right hand.

We’d even somehow managed to make it into BUD/S together.

I took a few deep breaths and let my thoughts of my swim buddy fall away. I needed to get my shit together and figure out how to get myself out of this damn mess.

The box was made entirely of corrugated metal like a shipping container, but it was a miniature version.

I could sit straight, with my back to the short side, and stretch my legs out in front of me.

I could even lie down on my side with my legs drawn up toward my chest, but that was about it. There wasn’t much wiggle room.

I lay down and rolled onto my belly, then finagled my way toward the end they’d shoved me into. The fuckers had thrown me in head first, and my head hit something. Hard. Luckily, I’d not been knocked out. It had been close, though. My vision had gone wonky for a bit.

When I finally reached where the door to the box was, I felt all around, slowly cataloging every groove.

Nothing!

“Fuck,” I growled under my breath.

There was absolutely nothing that distinguished itself as a latch or hinges. I turned myself back around the way they’d put me in. Along the way, I did the same thing with the side wall. Still nothing.

I continued along the entire box, looking for any weak points or deviations that could be helpful.

I found some things I would’ve liked to investigate further, but I’d have to wait until I had more light.

I was sure one was a camera and a couple of things that could be speakers or metal mesh portholes.

It had been just after full dark when we’d been attacked, and I’d been grabbed from my overwatch position.

My team wouldn’t think I’d deserted, but I didn’t know how they’d come through the firefight.

We’d definitely been outnumbered. At least my sniper spot had been, but I didn’t think there were enough people left after I’d been tossed into the vehicle that I had to be overly worried about them being overrun.

Let him be okay. Please let them all be okay.