Caused a torrent of goose pimples to rise along my flesh.
“Okay, one last time,” Master Chief Bednarik said. Despite his being just a few feet away inside the helicopter, there was no way to hear his voice alone over the cacophony of the rotating blades.
Instead, he spoke through a microphone, instructions piped directly into our helmets.
Standing shoulder-to-shoulder along the rear of the helicopter, there were four of us in total. Myself and my friend Jeff Swinger, that had been by my side since basic training, were on the right.
Wedged in close beside us were two newbies, Spahn and Alcove, both rotated overseas after finishing BUD/S just a few months before.
Each so new they practically had spots when they first arrived, already they were settling into the groove of things. This jump would be our fifth as a group. As much working experience as we had with anybody outside of the guys we had been with since the very beginning.
“You are the Alpha team for this exercise. Petty Officer Swinger is in the lead,” he continued. “Your LZ is two clicks inland, along the leeward portion of the lower Chugoku Range. Bravo team will insert three clicks east of you on the inland side of the ridgeline.
“From there, both parties will proceed north to the rendezvous point before making your way on toward the extraction site together.”
The plan was one we had all been through no less than a hundred times. And even performed a couple of times already with various permutations of the details.
Sometimes, we were the Bravo team. On occasion, the extraction points were different.
With such a continued presence in the Middle East and Afghanistan, mountain training exercises had become a common part of life. A near-constant in the rare bits of downtime we had between active missions.
“Are there any questions?”
Not one of us said a word. Already we were thinking on the task ahead. The three-thousand-foot freefall that was about to ensue. The sequence of pulling the chute cords and steering ourselves into the narrow landing zone that looked to have been carved directly out of the side of the mountain range.
Tucking away our chutes and securing the area before moving to converge with the Bravo team.
Start to finish, the entire thing should take no more than a few hours. A basic run that would occupy most of the morning. Have us back in time for lunch, followed by an afternoon of going over the details, our training officers scrutinizing every misstep in hopes of imparting something that might later save our lives.
Rinse and repeat tomorrow, that one scheduled a bit later in the day, once the sun was fully up.
“Okay,” Master Chief said. Gave us a thumbs up. “Good luck, gentlemen.”
Chapter Fifteen
Byrdie knows that to look at him, there are two things that stand out immediately. Not the cultivated persona that he’s inhabited the last twenty years, with the motorcycle and the leather vest, but him as an individual.
The first is his hair. Left long on top and shaved to the scalp above either temple, it is a combination of a mohawk and a mullet. A unique look picked for that specific reason.
Never has he seen anybody else with it.
The second is his physical stature. Unlike Ringer or Gamer, the years of hanging out at The Wolf Den have never gotten to him. Armed with good genetics and a preternatural metabolism, he hasn’t succumbed to the pitfalls of a lifetime spent consuming beers and wings.
While the others might have allowed themselves to swell and bloat, he weighs exactly what he did the day he joined The Wolves. His frame is nothing more than skin stretched taut over muscle and bone. Every vein, every tendon, every striation, is plainly evident.
All of it heightened by the heavy tan staining his features.
A day removed from the fight with Ringer, he isn’t worried about his face being recognized. If anything, the bruising provides an extra layer of insulation. It ensures most people make a point of looking away, not wanting to be caught staring at the injuries.
The other two things though, he needs to be cognizant of.
Especially knowing that less than fifty yards away is someone that has crossed paths with him twice in the last week or so.
Regardless if she realizes it or not.
Easing the battered sedan up in front of the office of the Valley View Inn & Suites, Byrdie glances to the rearview mirror. Raising a hand, he adjusts the brim of the San Diego Chargers ball cap on his head. A cheap knockoff item picked up from a clearance bin for two dollars an hour before.
Nudging it to either side, he ensures the majority of his hair is tucked out of sight. That the top half of his face is hidden beneath the brim.
Content with what he sees, he wrenches open the door and steps out. Without the breeze of driving with the windows down, the sun feels especially pronounced. The thin layer of cloud cover does nothing to stifle the heat pressing against the long-sleeve t-shirt he wears.
Instantly, his body temperature rises more than a handful of degrees. Sweat lines his back as he makes a point to keep his gaze locked straight ahead.
Just seconds after arriving, he steps through the front door of the office. A bell affixed to the top of the door announces his presence as he passes into a space no more than ten feet square.
Fitting with the overall motif of the property, it looks like a relic from the sixties. On the floor is white tile, the corners cracked and crumbling. Stains of various colors and shapes are splashed liberally across it, the worst no doubt hidden by a trio of mismatched rugs.
Along one wall is a row of orange plastic chairs. Beside them is a handmade wooden table with a coffee pot that looks to be nothing more than decorative. Above them hang a pair of potted ferns, fronds hanging down, their tips brown and withered.
Clearly, the thought of renovation has never once occurred to anybody.
Taking it all in with a quick glance, Byrdie walks directly to the front counter as a man emerges from a room in the back. Well into his forties, most of the hair from the top of his head is gone. Making up for it is a ring of grizzled black fur and a bushy beard, both heavily flecked with silver.
Dressed in chinos and a bowling shirt, he knifes a hand along the inside of his pants as he approaches. A vain attempt to use the tail of his shirt to hide his paunch.
The overhead light reflects from the sheen of sweat resting on his brow, calling into question just what he was doing in the back a moment before.
A question Byrdie is reasonably certain he doesn’t want to know the answer to.
“Help you?” the man asks. Coming to a stop on the opposite side of the counter, he mirrors Byrdie’s pose. Dark hair lines his knuckles and forearms, matching his head and neck.
“Need a room,” Byrdie says.
The man’s left eyebrow arches just slightly. He makes no attempt at hiding a quick assessment of Byrdie.
“Just passing through?”
Based on the state of the place, what little business they do receive must be from folks passing through. People that either need a place to crash for a few hours before getting back on the road or want somewhere they can do something without being spotted.
A hint of agitation rises through Byrdie, though he manages to keep it locked from sight.
No need to draw attention to himself just yet.
“Yeah,” he replies. “Headed across the border in the morning, just need a place to sack out for the night.”
Again, the man’s gaze shifts from Byrdie to the car parked outside. A dozen questions visibly dance across his features, though he manages to keep them to himself.
Grunting softly, he reaches to the side. Taking up a printed form and a pencil, he places them both on the counter in front of Byrdie.
“Fill this out,” he says. “Cash or credit?”
The annoyance Byrdie feels spikes again. Both the tone and the pointed manner of the man’s question are fast growing old, though still he manages to keep it mashed into place.
; There will be a time in the very near future for letting such hostility out. For grabbing the Ogo women and returning them to The Wolf Den. Using them to retake his rightful place at the head table and using the full weight of his authority to come down on Kyle Clady for everything that has transpired in the last couple of weeks.
Until then, he can let this bald bastard have his moment.
“Cash,” he replies as he begins to fill out the form. Every bit of it completely made up, he scribbles in a name he once heard on an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger. The address is the house he grew up in, bulldozed decades before.
The phone number a string of digits that may or may not connect to anything.
“Forty bucks for the night,” the man replies.
Head down, Byrdie grunts as he completes the form. Scribbling a twisted line as a signature, he shoves it back across the counter. Fishing out his wallet, he drops two twenties down, the man snatching them up before they even stop moving.
Money in hand, he extends a finger before him, motioning to the building comprising the main of the motel.
“Rooms are numbered one through ten, starting on this end. Seven and eight are occupied, everything else is empty.”
He drops the finger and shifts his shoulders, letting Byrdie see the row of keys hanging behind the counter.
“Your pick.”
Chapter Sixteen
There is no sting as the needle enters the crook of Sven’s elbow. Long past noticing such things, he doesn’t even register as the metal tip punctures his skin. Nor does he think much of the red hue that stains the bottom inch of the clear plastic line connected to the needle.
His focus stays on the bag of saline affixed to the opposite end of the line. Ensuring that it stays elevated, he makes sure there are no air bubbles present. Once content, he ties it to the handle of the side door of the van standing open behind him.
Makeshift as hell, but more than sufficient for what he needs.
The combination of the wound on his side and his trek through the desert have his system running precariously low on needed fluids and electrolytes. With the truncated timeframe he is working from, there is no way to consume enough of either.
Not and have them be absorbed anyway, the majority of it pissed out before his system can possibly put it to use.
Using the awning above for cover, Sven props himself up in the shade. Hips planted in the sand, his shoulder blades rest against the side of the van. He tilts his head back, letting the rear of his skull touch against the cool metal.
His eyes glaze as he stares out, watching the flat tops of the midday swells roll in.
Not quite waves. More like gentle lulls. The kind he would like nothing more than to be using a surfboard to rest atop, letting them lift and drop him in an even progression.
Some people would probably look at the events of the last couple days and see them as an unmitigated disaster. They’d see the wound on his side and the bag currently attached to his arm. Recall the gruesome carnage of the night before and feel the dull thump in his head from being knocked unconscious.
All of it they would mix together, bemoaning their plight. They’d say the odds, or the gods, or the universe, or whatever else they wanted to blame, were stacked against them.
Sven knows better than that shit. He didn’t get into this business with the intention of everything always being perfect. Quite the opposite, in fact.
If what he does was easy, the field would be overcrowded. People that read too many books or watch too many movies would be flooding the market. Crowding him out.
Sven is here because he endures. He is willing to put in the time and effort to outwork the others.
To insert an IV into his own arm to prep for the night ahead when others would still be sleeping off the one before.
He is the best at what he does precisely because it is difficult. He has outlasted others too many to count because he doesn’t mind the hardship.
Revels in it, even.
“Sven?”
Maile’s voice is soft, almost tentative. It arrives a moment before she does, climbing from the interior of the van.
“Sorry to bother you, but this was buzzing.”
Extended before her is a cellphone. The burner procured just a few days before, to be destroyed in the very near future. The face plate is lit up, a string of digits splayed across it.
Not that Sven even needs to see them to know who is calling, only a single person having the number.
Flicking his gaze from the screen to Maile, he extends a hand. His fingers curl back, motioning for her to hand it over.
Doing as instructed, she climbs the rest of the way from the van. No words are exchanged as she continues on, feet dragging through the sand. Taking off at a diagonal, she heads toward the water’s edge, giving him privacy without being told.
A second solid performed by her in just the past six hours. A positive sign that she might be sticking around a bit longer than he previously expected.
Phone in hand, Sven sits and watches her go. His eyes fix on the bright yellow bikini bottoms she wears, a clear contrast to her light brown skin.
Not until she is well over fifty yards away, beyond earshot, does he press the phone to his face.
“Yeah?”
“I spoke to the man paying the bills,” Elsa Teller opens. An odd place to start, though Sven recognizes the reasoning behind it immediately.
A not-so-subtle warning that he isn’t going to like what is about to be shared, coupled with a reminder that it isn’t coming from her.
“And?”
In the background is the faint sound of the freeway. The dull buzz of tires passing over blacktop at a high rate of speed. “He would like to know about a timeframe.”
Sven’s grip tightens slightly on the phone. His gaze shifts out ahead of him. Peering past the boy running with his dog and a pair of middle-aged women strolling along, he focuses on the sea.
He watches as it splashes up on shore, stripes of white foam resting atop it.
So badly, he wants to be out there. Drawing strength from those waters in a way that the IV plunged into his vein can never provide.
In the coming day, he will finish this job. He will steal out into the desert, do what he must, and be on his way. By this time on Wednesday, the van will be parked somewhere new. The phone in hand will be destroyed.
And he can go back to the anonymity he craves. Rising and falling with the incoming swells.
His soul and his bank account both full.
“Imminent.”
When he accepted the job from Teller a few days before, no explicit window was discussed. Two targets in total, one had been eliminated in less than thirty-six hours. The second one, he was given only a name and a previous address. Nothing more, and in even less time than the previous, he has already garnered a location and a plan.
Even taken down a good chunk of The Wolves in the process.
By most conventional standards, he has been moving at lightning speed.
Not that such standards apply to people like the one he knows to be fitting the bill on this.
“Meaning?” Teller asks, her tone making it clear she doesn’t want to.
“Tell the Senator, it will be done tonight.”
Chapter Seventeen
“Detective Marsh, Wilson Ramirez from El Cajon PD returning your call.”
Dropping the receiver onto the desk, Marsh pushes the call to speakerphone. Across from him, Mark Tinley lifts his gaze from the blizzard of paper covering the floor.
The same blizzard that has now grown to encompass both desks and a good chunk of the wall behind Marsh as well.
“Sorry for the delay,” Ramirez adds. “Been a little crazy out here.”
A few feet away, Tinley snorts. Not a word is uttered, though Marsh knows exactly what is insinuated.
If the Chief Detective thinks things have been crazy, he’s really not going to like what he’s about to hear.
“
Yeah, well, it’s about to get worse,” Marsh says. “And there’s no way to sugarcoat it, so I’ll just jump right to the punchline. Last night, my partner and I got called to a crime scene in Chula Vista. We were told it was a shooting, but turns out it was closer to a damn slaughter.”
More a courtesy call than anything, there doesn’t need to be an extreme level of detail. The endpoint alone gets across everything Marsh needs it to.
Maybe a couple hours ago, when he first got back, he would have had the patience for something more. Now, after sifting through all this paperwork, it just doesn’t exist.
In its place is wanton frustration, this case needing to go away soon.
“Aw, hell,” Ramirez mutters. “Wolves?”
Marsh can’t think of another reason why he would be looping in Ramirez, though he doesn’t bother voicing as much.
Nothing good will come from it.
“Yeah,” he replies. “Six found dead, signs of multiple shooters.”
An intake of air is the initial response, so sharp it sounds like a whistle as Ramirez draws it in. “Wait, you mean...?”
He doesn’t finish the question, though already Marsh knows where it is going. If someone called to tell him there had been a shooting involving the Wolves that left six dead, his first thought sure as hell wouldn’t be that they were on the receiving end.
More than twelve hours of canvassing the neighborhood has turned up zero in the form of usable information. Given that it was after midnight on a Sunday, most people were asleep. Those that heard something either didn’t think much of it or made a concerted effort to stay far away from it.
Not terribly surprising in a neighborhood with such a high immigrant population, not all of which are exactly legal.
“Still awaiting formal IDs,” Marsh says. “Based on the leather vests they were wearing though, we’ve got Ringer and another identified as a deputy known as Gamer.”
“Top two guys?” Ramirez asks. “That can’t be a coincidence.”
Battle Cry Page 7
