Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
Operation Caldera. Fancy name for a kill order.
At least they aren’t pretending this is a capture op.
His commanding officers had to know better than to send him and his team on a capture mission for the asshole they’d been hunting for almost two years.
He glanced at the red-ringed target zone on the map, a heat-blasted speck in the middle of the damn ocean that barely qualified as land.
The island was officially uncharted and uninhabited, yet somehow it was French-controlled.
All the intel they could find pointed to it being nothing more than volcanic ash and tropical decay baked into a jungle hellscape.
Now it was also a hiding place for the piece of shit responsible for the Benghazi-style bombing of the US embassy in Aleppo two years ago.
They’d lost former SEALs in that blast. Good men.
Brothers. One of them had bled out in Viper’s arms while they tried to drag civilians out of the burning shell of a diplomatic compound.
No quarter.
No forgiveness.
There was no chance in hell he was leaving that island without the bastard’s head in a goddamn bag.
He jabbed a finger at the infrared overlay.
“The French call it ?le Saonae. It’s a volcanic island, but its last eruption clocked in around 3,000 years ago.
Intel says the caldera is showing signs of being unstable.
” There wasn’t much that scared the shit out of him.
Volcanoes were one of those things. “It could pop again,” he lifted one shoulder, “or it could sleep another hundred years. Who the fuck knows?”
Reaper muttered, “Perfect place for a scumbag to hole up.”
“Remote enough no one would think to check it,” Juice added. “Until now.”
Viper nodded. “Terrain’s thick with a triple-canopy style rainforest in the northern quadrant.
Jungles wrap around the caldera, and most of the southern slope is sheer rock.
Entry point’s here—narrow inlet, and a lava-rock beach a couple of klicks east of a freshwater stream system.
No locals. No infrastructure. Closest satellite ping gave us a single heat signature too big to be any known wildlife on the island and a boat registered to a known associate of the Fuckwad who’d lived for way longer than he should. ”
“Isn’t it a stretch for knowing it’s him?” Kaze leaned over the intel packet, scowling. “Normally, we get more than a boat owned by a known associate to confirm our target is hot.”
“Correct,” Viper confirmed. “He was ID’d in a photo from a day tripper on social media less than forty-eight hours ago.
” He turned to Trace, who’d been silent until now, leaning in shadows next to Juice.
Viper recognized the darkness of Bran’s eyes flickering amber in the dim light.
“You’ll run interference with Langley’s contacts on comms,” he told him.
“If they get twitchy about how we proceed, you buy us time.”
Trace’s nod was tight, and his voice was underscored by the growl of his wolf half. “You’ll get it.”
Viper shifted his focus back to the rest of the team.
“We go in hard, full combat load. Thermal gear, NVGs, the works. This guy—Al-Rami—isn’t a ghost. Our brothers in the black ops world have given him scars.
The last time anyone ran recon on him, he favored his right leg and wore a comms tap in his left ear.
” He gave them a moment to scribble that intel onto the inside of their arms. It was always useful to have a manual backup for shit like this in case their equipment took a crap and refused to work.
“Thank fuck on this op we aren’t bogged down with rules of engagement.
” He paused and met each man’s gaze. “This is payback. It’s justice.
It’s the one shot we get to make damn sure no more embassies go up in flames because some fanatic got cute. ”
He stabbed the mission map again. “We hit the drop point in ninety minutes. From there, it’s a two-klick hike through volcanic brush, razorleaf vines, banyan root systems, and more goddamn mosquitoes than God intended to exist. Wildlife includes fruit bats, geckos, tenrecs—nothing we haven’t handled before.
But keep an eye out for scald pockets. The ground’s not stable.
You step where it’s soft, you could punch through into somewhere that’s gonna scald your balls off. ”
“Sounds like paradise,” Kaze muttered.
“No time for sightseeing,” Viper snapped. “We’ve got one mission—track Al-Rami, neutralize the target, and exfil before an overzealous day tripper puts our faces on the book of fucking faces and outs us to the world. Understood?”
“Yes, Sir,” Kaze replied.
Viper checked his watch, then scanned the team. Reaper was loading ammo, Zero was double-checking sensors, and Juice was adjusting Trace’s gear—normal routines that sent a jolt of relief through him.
Good. We’re ready to roll.
The tablet in his hand vibrated, and an alert showed at the top of the screen. He tapped into the updated intel from command and winced internally.
Here we fucking go.
“Change of plans.” His voice was clipped as he tapped the satmap that would update their wrist-mounted displays. “New campfire showed up on thermal. Satellite caught movement about a hundred meters off our original LZ. Looks like someone set up shop where we were supposed to drop.”
Zero lifted a brow. “Friendly?”
“Our local source says it’s an archaeology dig site.
” It drove him batshit when stuff like this happened.
Not because his guys weren’t epic at reacting on the fly to fast changes, but because having civilians in the vicinity made the potential for friendly fire incidents more of a reality than he was comfortable with.
“The French government has flagged that site as civilian. There’s zero military presence, but we aren’t going to assume that means no weapons. Don’t take stupid chances, boys.”
“Roger fuckin’ that,” Reaper muttered.
“We bump the DZ two klicks to the northeast,” Viper continued. “Secondary drop zone is tighter, and the tree cover is thicker. But we’ll make it work. Comms are dark, and rolling in five, four, three…”
The ramp door cracked open behind them, and the roar of the wind punched through the cabin. Red light bathed the interior in a blood-colored glow. The C-130 bucked as it found its altitude hold when the night air whipped in. It was humid and thick with heat that had no business being this high up.
Viper stood, checked his rig, and turned to face his team.
Juice, Reaper, Kaze, Zero, and Trace. They were all geared up, ready to wage war in a jungle most men couldn’t even pronounce.
“You see anyone on the ground, you don’t engage unless they’re holding a weapon or screaming your name.
We stay invisible unless this asshole Al-Rami shows his face.
You get eyes on that bastard, you call it in—no lone wolf shit.
We move together. We take him together.”
“Hooyah,” the team answered.
The green light flashed, and Viper stepped into the wind. Gravity caught him like an old friend with a mean streak. The world went black except for his altimeter and the dull red glow of infrared across his goggles. The wind howled past his ears, stealing breath and thought and fury.
He loved this part, the freefall silence and the high-altitude hush before the world took form again.
He drifted through warm air pockets, adjusting his descent with the lightest pressure on his toggles.
Below him, the island spread like a predator crouched in the dark.
Trees clawed upward, and rock jutted like broken teeth.
He squinted at a couple of low lights from the interior of the island.
What the hell are those?
He committed the approximate location to memory in case they’d found their target’s hidey hole. A vibration against his wrist told him he had five seconds to chute time.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
Go.
He pulled, the canopy snapped open with a violent jerk, and his body surged upward in a hard swing. His lines tightened, and his descent slowed. The world reassembled in his goggles—lush, green, and hostile.
Ahead, Trace drifted left over the dense foliage. Juice flared early, angling to hit the far side of the secondary DZ. Reaper followed, cutting sharply to the right. Zero and Kaze hung back slightly, covering angles.
Perfect.
The impact of his boots hitting the ground came hard as they slammed into volcanic soil.
His knees flexed as the jolt punched up through his legs and into his spine.
He tucked, rolled, and came up crouched behind a wide fern the size of a compact car.
A horn sounded faintly in the distance, and he dropped to the ground and brought his weapon up. Using the scope, he searched the area.
Was that an alarm?
Have we been made?
No gunfire or attack came toward him, yet he couldn’t shake the unease that slid into his soul.
Maybe I imagined it.
“All Stations, status check.” As he listened to the click-click from each of his men, he mentally ticked Checkpoint Alpha off the list in his head and stripped off his chute.
He secured it under a slab of exposed basalt.
If they had time, they’d grab them on the way out.
If not, then the Navy would replace them.
He paused and double-checked his M4 as his HUD flared green. No damage—he’d take it.
All systems solid.
He crouched low and keyed the hand signal.
Form up.
Shapes emerged from the shadows one by one.
Reaper, with his weapon up, swept the left.
Kaze moved silently through the underbrush.
Trace materialized out of the dark, eyes glowing faintly as Bran’s spirit emerged from inside him.
Juice came last, his nod tight, his eyes already scanning the tree line for movement.
Viper held up two fingers, then pointed northeast toward the heat signature he’d spotted from the air.
They moved as one—predators in the night, stepping lightly over roots and ducking beneath hanging moss and sharp leaves that sliced their skin like razors.
As they moved out in formation, the jungle was alive with insects, shrieks from distant fruit bats, and other nocturnal animals, letting them know all was well in the area.
I’m coming for you, fucker.
Tick fucking tock.
Your time on this earth is counting down…
Tick tock.
Tick tock.