Chapter 3
chapter
three
Three years later
Drake
That night’s op was the most important one of my life.
I reassembled my automatic rifle. Cleaning my weapons was a way to focus my mind on a mission. The years had transformed me into Viktor’s lethal shadow operator.
Task Force Deadly Spear (TFDS) was born when Washington’s bureaucracy and politics all but crippled the special operations community, rendering the CIA ineffective and leaving the United States vulnerable to terrorist attacks.
Years of TFDS intelligence work yielded a series of small surgical strikes that chipped at the terrorist network responsible for the biggest loss of life on a single day in special operations history.
Maharib Altanwir was a secretive terrorist organization led by Youssef Hamza—known as the “Warrior” or Maharib.
He lost his entire family in Sudan—caught in the crossfire between a terrorist group and operators from Fire Team.
I remembered that mission. The terrorists had used civilians as shields.
Among them were Hamza’s wife and three daughters.
Hamza had a tight inner circle. He never did his own dirty work, but planted chatter in terror networks, manipulating their members into suicide missions through enlightenment propaganda.
The day Fire Team was lost, suicide bombers blew themselves up.
It took a couple of months for TFDS to figure out that other terrorist networks were being manipulated by a single mastermind.
Youssef Hamza and his Warrior of Enlightenment organization would meet its end that night. Viktor’s analysts uncovered the location of Youssef’s lair.
After three years, I could finally return to Izabel.
Izabel.
Fuck.
Hank had warned me to avoid social media.
He created an account for me, pretending to be an architect whom Iza had met at a convention.
Catfishing was a new low, but it had been my link to her.
My way of looking in on her. I didn’t obsess about it and checked on her maybe once or twice a month.
I rarely had downtime anyway. Hank maintained my social media updates, making sure that posts and pictures came from a U.S. location.
About a year ago, Izabel had opened an account on an online dating website.
I had lost my shit. That was the one fucking time social media cracked the walls I’d built around my emotions.
Hank assured me he’d do everything in his power so Izabel wouldn’t find a match.
That calmed me down a bit, but my friend had no control when the interest came from a coworker.
A hotshot new architect from Iza’s firm had tagged her in a post and she looked…happy.
My heart rolled painfully. I gripped the barrel of the rifle and imagined that punk’s neck between my fingers. Surely, Iza couldn’t be attracted to that shithead.
I squeezed my eyes shut and replaced the image of Izabel with that of my dead comrades, letting cold fury seep into my veins.
I cleared my mind until one directive remained.
Get Hamza.
Harran, Turkey
0200 local time
The tarmac blazed with lights as our tactical SUVs arrived at the hangar. Outside the structure, two Black Hawks sat with their rotors churning slowly and their engines keyed up in that familiar whine.
We had two assault teams—each with four operators. The mission code was Lightning. I was Lightning One. Brick was Lightning Two and led the second team. Each team had a sniper who would provide elevated cover fire.
My team piled into the waiting choppers. I nodded to a man in a flight suit. “You my gunner?”
“Yes, sir.” He needed to verify this shit because when we get dropped into a hot zone, we needed cover fire before our sniper got situated.
On my team was Edmunds; Spike, a former army ranger and sniper; and Rex, an ex-recon Marine who was also our demolitions expert.
Our target was forty minutes away in a compound in Al Bab, Syria, that was on the outskirts of Aleppo.
I consulted the pilot regarding the drop point.
From the latest intel, fast roping wasn’t possible, with tangos guarding the compound.
The INFIL (infiltration) plan would clear the rooftops of the outbuildings with our fifty-caliber machine gun and drop snipers into place.
As the bird lifted off and accelerated to regular cruising speed, we sat back to get our mind on the mission. We were flying into Syrian airspace without permission. Everyone on both helos knew if we got caught, we would be on our own. Washington would deny our existence.
Our helos flew by deserted wastelands and long stretches of highway, cruising low and completely blacked out as we stealthily approached the destination.
“Three minutes,” the pilot announced.
That was a signal for us to check our equipment, weapons, and ammo. Our gunner prepared the fifty cals and rotated the rounds. Our bird dropped almost to the ground before jumping over the barrier surrounding the compound.
In the span of several heartbeats, the night lit up with muzzle flashes. The team was jostled around as the pilot outmaneuvered the tracer assault. Then the bird banked left so our gunner could pave the way for insertion.
The hostiles retreated as the machine gun tore through the courtyard, cutting some of them in half before rising to the tallest structure and neutralizing the guards there as well. Spike dropped to the rooftop to assume sniper duties.
“Eagle in position,” Spike reported.
“Copy that,” Brick replied. “Dropping our package as well.” Lightning Two and his team were breaching the same building but from the rear entrance. This was to mitigate any enemy escape, especially our primary target.
Our helo returned to the courtyard, now empty of tangos, but the muzzle flashes continued from inside our target—a two-story concrete structure. Our gunner and Spike provided cover fire as we jumped to the ground.
I went first, took a knee, and sighted through my rifle as my team moved ahead. As the bird lifted off, I joined my men, and we shuffled toward our target in combat stance.
Spike made sure our path was clear and kept the hostiles from firing.
Mostly.
We reached the door and Rex immediately set the breaching charge.
As the entrance exploded, I tossed in a flash-bang grenade.
I tapped Edmunds. He forged ahead.
“Clear left,” he yelled.
Rex followed. “Clear right!”
I followed down the center and became the first man in our three-man stack. Eyes behind my rifle’s sight, I swept from room to room. The second room on our right yielded a huddle of women and children.
“Got this. Go!” Edmunds stayed behind to guard them while Rex and I continued on.
We reached a corner-fed room that was between two hallways. Spying Brick coming from the opposite hallway, the other team lead nodded. “Go ahead, One.”
I keyed my mic twice and then took a big step to balance my pivot into the room just as Rex swept in behind me. “Clear.”
Before us were stairs leading to the second floor.
I was sure the hostiles were lying in wait, ready to spray us with bullets but, from my experience, they were too eager and jumpy.
The house was in total darkness and everything was lit up only by our night vision goggles.
Leading by the dot from my scope, I sighted movement and squeezed off two shots just as gunfire erupted down the steps.
A man in a white robe fell on the landing.
Sporadic fire met me at the top of the steps, but the hostiles were shooting blindly. Rex and I quickly got rid of two more.
The first room at the top of the steps was clear but was laden with file cabinets and computers. One of Brick’s men stayed behind to collect hard drives and disks.
With a third room cleared, that left the last one at the end of the hallway. This was going to be?—
Gunshots blasted holes through the door. A force slammed into me and knocked me to my ass. A fiery arc swept above me. Someone dragged my dead weight into the last room we cleared.
“Son of a bitch,” I hissed. Chest on fire, I checked my vest and exhaled a painful breath.
“You all right?” Brick asked.
“Yeah. SAPI plate stopped the fucking round,” I choked.
“Looks like Youssef is making a last stand.” Brick gave me a hand up.
“Sounds good to me,” I muttered.
Rex entered the room. “Got an SED on the door.”
Through the throbbing of my chest, I grinned.
I loved our toys. Sticky Explosive Device was a bomb that could attach to any surface.
It was our last resort if the tango had no plans of surrendering because of the destruction it could cause.
I wanted Youssef dead and not to waste another molecule of oxygen on the bastard who’d killed my brothers.
“Light him up.”
I stared at the mangled body of the man who’d eluded capture for so long.
If Youssef Hamza hadn’t died from the blast wave, he would have bled out from the tear to his femoral artery.
A piece of the door had turned into a deadly spear and pierced Hamza in his thigh and sliced through the critical vessel if the massive pool of blood under him was anything to go by.
Brick received confirmation from our analyst that the transmitted image was indeed the Maharib Altanwir mastermind.
His end was fatalistic, poetic justice.
For me, it was a chance for my life to move forward. The weight in my chest, the need to avenge my fallen brothers had finally lifted as a sense of freedom took hold. The shackles of Deadly Spear fell off and I could look to a future again.
A future with Izabel.
Ramstein-Miesenbach, Germany
1800 local time
“So, any idea what you’re going to do after this?”