Special Forces: Operation Alpha: Bang for the Buck (Kindle Worlds Novella) (SWAK Series Book 1)

by Margaret Madigan

“That’s the building she’s in,” Buck said.

  The complex of buildings resembled a college campus with its manicured landscape, carefully arranged open spaces, and purposefully artful architecture. All the buildings were steel and tinted glass, and clear glass skywalks connected several of them.

  The professional in him didn’t like all the glass. Too much exposure. What the hell had Mindy got herself into?

  “Let’s find out what’s going on,” Chill said.

  They stepped out of the car and did their best to blend. It looked like the cops had been there for a while because they’d collected a perimeter of reporters and civilian looky-loos. Probably a lot of the people who were supposed to be at work in the building, but had lucked out and missed whatever was going on inside.

  “I’ll talk to the locals,” Buck said. “You see what you can learn from law enforcement.”

  “Roger that,” Chill said, heading for the nearest cop.

  Buck searched out a reporter. Mindy hovered in the forefront of his mind, but he pushed her back so he could work. He’d be no good to her if he couldn’t do his job, and that meant putting his personal feelings aside. Other than protecting his teammates, he’d never done a mission where he had connections to the target. He’d only known Mindy a few days, but his gut roiled at the thought of her in danger.

  The reporter talked on her cell phone while the cameraman adjusted his equipment.

  “Hey,” Buck said. He turned on the Southern charm and aimed it at the woman.

  She lit up and got off the phone. “Hi,” he said.

  “What’s going on here? I showed up for work and there’s all these cops.”

  “Russian terrorists,” she reporter said. “They’ve demanded the police back away and allow their helicopter to land so they can leave. If the police don’t comply, they’ll kill a hostage every ten minutes until they get what they want.”

  “Shit,” Buck said. His heart dropped like a rock into his gut. Mindy was in there.

  “Looks like you picked a good day to be late for work,” the cameraman said.

  “The police have called in hostage negotiators and SWAT,” the reporter said. “But the first ten minutes is about up.”

  As if on cue, one of the windows on the second floor of the building blasted outward in a rain of shattered glass, a gunshot rang out, and a body toppled like a rag doll to the ground.

  Fuck.

  “Jesus.” Chill appeared at his shoulder. “They’re not messing around. What did you learn? Cops wouldn’t tell me shit.”

  “Russian terrorists. Nobody knows what they want other than to leave. They’re killing a hostage every ten minutes until that happens. That’s the first one,” Buck said.

  They stood in silence for a heartbeat, watching the pandemonium following a dead civilian plummeting to a bloody heap in front of the building. Nobody retrieved the body, probably worried Russians would shoot at them from the window, so it would lay there like road kill, a reminder of the stakes.

  “So. We’re going in, right?” Chill asked.

  Buck wanted to get inside that building to find Mindy and make sure those terrorists didn’t kill her. He refused to even consider her dead body tumbling out that window. He wouldn’t let it happen. He and Chill were more than sufficiently trained for the task. They’d done similar incursions as a team multiple times in the past. It would be a piece of cake.

  “It’s not a sanctioned mission. We could get in all kinds of trouble,” Buck said. Not that he cared. He was going in no matter what, but he had to give Chill the option to bow out.

  “Only if they know it was us,” Chill said.

  “So we’ll ghost it.”

  Buck turned and jogged for the car. Accomplishing the objective of getting rid of the terrorists—either by killing or neutralizing them—and collecting Mindy while remaining anonymous made the job more challenging, but would definitely save them any explanation to their superiors.

  “You bring a ski mask?” Buck asked once he’d reached the car.

  “Yep.” Chill pulled it from one of his pockets and dangled it in between them.

  “You’ll need shades to hide those eyes, too.”

  Chill’s most striking feature was his pale blue eyes. Not only did they attract ladies like flies, but on a black man—even a light-skinned black man—they made him stand out in a crowd, and made him easy to identify. Whereas Buck looked like every other Southern redneck hick. Better looking, but he still blended into the crowd.

  “Fuck you,” Chill said. He resented the inconvenience.

  “The terrorists probably have all the entry points covered. The building is one big fucking glass window so it’ll be tough to sneak up on them, and we can’t climb it and drop in from the top,” Buck said.

  “We can’t use the skywalks. They’ll see us coming.” Chill asked.

  “They’re going to kill another hostage in five minutes and I don’t see any sign of SWAT yet,” Buck said.

  “I wish we had time for reconnaissance,” Chill said. “I don’t like going into something without intel.”

  “We’re going to have to deal with it. We can’t risk civilian lives—Mindy’s life—while we gather information,” Buck said.

  “Okay. Let’s at least do a quick circuit of the building so we know how many entrances there are, then pick one and go in.”

  They slipped away from the crowd and took off at a jog down a walkway that circled the complex. It looked like an exercise path, and had enough trees bordering it to offer a bit of cover.

  By the time they’d reached the opposite side of the building, they hadn’t encountered any push-back. Buck wondered if they’d been spotted.

  “I count four doors, total,” Chill said. “One on each side of the building. The back is probably the best bet since it looked like a utility door. No windows.”

  “Agreed,” Buck said. “Let’s go.”

  They rolled the ski masks over their faces, Chill slid on mirrored shades, and they pulled their weapons, sprinting for the door.

  Chill carefully checked the door handle. “Locked.”

  “Okay. I’ll blow it, then we take whoever’s on the other side.”

  “You brought explosive?” Chill asked.

  “Dude. It’s what I do.”

  “I don’t even want to know where you got it.”

  “I feel naked going into a mission without stuff that goes bang,” Buck said.

  Buck put together a quick explosive device to blow the door. He lit the primer cord and they stepped back a few feet, waiting for it to blow.

  “We’re in such deep shit,” Chill said.

  “Not if we save everyone,” Buck said as his device blew the door and they brought their guns up and ran into the fray.

  The small explosion destroyed the handle and locking mechanism. Buck threw the door open and they rushed in, surprising the shit out of one guy guarding the door. He yelped and shot at them, forcing Buck and Chill to shoot back.

  Two red holes appeared in the guy’s face.

  “Damn,” Buck said. “I wanted keep him alive for intel.”

  “We’ll keep the next one. I’m sure there will be plenty,” Chill said, entering into and clearing the hallway.

  “True. So they killed the civilian and dumped him out the second floor window,” Buck said.

  “Normally, I’d say we should clear the first floor, but since they’re killing people every ten minutes, maybe we should hit the second floor first?” Chill asked.

  “That’s my thinking, too.”

  They found stair access mid-hallway, but it required key-card access.

  “Fuck,” Buck said and set to work on another door-blast. The longer it took to get into the damn building, the more chance Mindy’d be the next body out the window.

  When the stairway door blew open, they ran up the stairs on quiet feet and at the second floor, Chill pulled the door open and Buck covered. They found nobody guarding the door.

  “
These guys are lazy,” Buck whispered. For which he was grateful.

  “Copy that.”

  The hall outside the stairs ran straight before jogging to the right. They paused to listen. “I don’t hear any…” Buck started.

  Then a gunshot and people screaming.

  “Shit.” Chill said. “Must be the next civvie.”

  “We have ten minutes to stop this.” Buck panicked on the inside, hoping Mindy hadn’t just gone out the window with a bullet in her head. That image tried to crowd into his mind, but he shoved it out. He couldn’t afford it, not if he wanted to do his job with a clear head.

  “We need a fix on how many there are. We can’t go rushing in there. We might take out some, but they’ll kill more hostages,” Chill said.

  “Agreed. Let’s see if we can get close enough to take a look.”

  Buck crept down the hall, Chill on his six, the sound of weeping and murmuring getting louder as they got closer. They reached the point where it jogged to the right and stopped. Buck hugged the right wall, before taking a quick peek.

  “What do you see?” Chill asked.

  “Too many to count between civilians and terrorists.”

  “Did you see your girl?”

  Buck hadn’t seen her, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t there. He’d had to take a very quick look to avoid being seen. “She’s not my ‘girl,’” he said, though at some point he must have started thinking about her that way given how his brain screamed at him save her. “But no, I didn’t see her.”

  “Doesn’t mean she’s not out there.”

  “Don’t suppose you brought a mirror?”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay. I’m going to take another look,” Buck said.

  This time, he moved slowly so as not to attract any attention. A central area where the desks and chairs and other equipment had been pushed back was filled with employees—most of them in lab coats—surrounded by well-armed men. Buck counted a dozen men, more employees.

  He slipped away from view. “Twelve guys, lots of hardware. They look like professional mercs,” Buck said.

  “Can we take them all?”

  Just then the phone rang in the common area. A man with a Russian accent answered and from his end of the conversation, it sounded like authorities had met their demands and backed off. The Russian hung up, and Buck chanced another peek around the corner. The guy was talking into a military-grade walkie.

  “Guessing they’ve called for pickup, so they must have whatever they came for.”

  “They’re on the way,” the Russian said. “I’ll take her, you finish off the rest and follow me.”

  “No,” a female voice said. “I won’t go if you kill everyone else.”

  Buck recognized Mindy’s voice. Why would they kidnap her?

  “You are a stupid, stubborn woman,” the Russian said. Buck had to agree. “I will kill them one at a time and make you watch, so you know it’s all because of you.”

  A moment of silence dragged on, in which Buck had to assume that prospect played out in Mindy’s head.

  “You don’t have time,” she said. Maybe she wasn’t stupid. “I think you’ve terrified them sufficiently that they’re not going to chase after us. Besides, you have all the guns. They’re no threat to you. Just leave them.”

  More silence followed until the Russian finally said, “Fine.”

  The fact that he caved and didn’t kill everyone told Buck something about him—that he wasn’t only a cold Russian killing machine. He had some sort of training that led him to consider odds, consequences, and potential outcomes.

  “They’re coming this direction,” Buck whispered. He heard the thump-thump-thump of a chopper arriving. “You heard the woman?”

  Chill nodded.

  “That’s Mindy. When they round the corner, I’ll take the leader, you snatch her and head for the stairs.”

  “You can’t take them all yourself.”

  Buck pulled a tear gas grenade from a pocket. “I borrowed this, too. You get her into the stairs, I’ll be right behind you.”

  “Okay. Let’s do it.”

  They both retreated toward the stairwell, Chill more than Buck. When the Russian leader came around the bend, he carried an AK-47, pointed down at the ground, clearly not expecting resistance between him and the roof. Mindy followed right behind, with another Russian pointing a gun at her back.

  Buck jumped out and shoulder-tackled the leader, shoving him into the opposite wall, while at the same time grabbing Mindy by the arm and throwing her as much as pulling her behind him toward Chill.

  The look of surprise on everyone’s faces would have been hilarious if they didn’t all have guns and recover quickly enough once they realized they’d been ambushed. With Mindy behind him he had to trust Chill to do his part. A couple of the Russians took aim and started shooting. Buck got off a couple of rounds as he retreated, though he didn’t know if he hit anything. He pulled the grenade pin with his teeth and threw it when he got even with the stairs.

  He dove into the stairwell as the gas filled the hallway. Bullets pinged off the door while they hustled down the stairs.

  “You okay, Mindy?” He yelled.

  “We’re good,” Chill answered.

  She and Chill were a flight of stairs ahead of him. The door above him opened and a bunch of coughing, wheezing Russians leaned over the stair railing and shot downward. Buck slammed himself back against the wall, but heaved a sigh when he heard the exit door below him open.

  The sound of a chopper close by flooded the stairwell from outside, and suddenly the gunfire from above stopped and he heard footsteps thundering up to the roof. The Russians had left the building.

  ***

  Melinda slumped into the back seat of Buck’s car, exhausted after the long, traumatic day.

  Buck and Dante—who insisted on being called Chill—had rescued her. She’d called Buck on instinct, not knowing if he’d come, but he had. She had no idea what it meant, if anything, but in the deepest parts of her rattled heart it meant she could trust him.

  While the Russians had taken off, the police and SWAT had stormed the building. They weren’t able to catch the Russians but they brought out all her coworkers, including Brent’s body.

  The paramedics had looked at her and cleared her, then she went to hug April and make sure everyone else was okay. She’d avoided the medical examiner van where Brent’s body and the bodies of her colleagues Mark Rosen and Charlie Baker, who’d been shot and dumped out the window, were stored. She couldn’t face that yet.

  Buck and Chill had stayed back away from the crowd since they didn’t have permission to be there in an official capacity. They could get in trouble if the press splashed it all over media.

  The police took statements from everyone else at the scene, but because Melinda had been the target of the attack, they’d taken her back to the station for questioning. They hadn’t been happy when she refused to tell them exactly what the Russians had been after, but she’d cited patent and confidentiality restrictions and told them if they wanted more information they’d have to take it up with Triada attorneys.

  She’d been worrying the problem in her mind all afternoon. The fact that the Russians had stolen her work irritated her, but Cristobal couldn’t be so stupid in offering to collect it for them as to think she hadn’t backed it all up somewhere else? Maybe he’d actually been trying to save her work? Or he assumed that, like most people who meant to save documents to the cloud or some other safe place, she’d never got around to it? Aside from her personal computer, she also saved it to the company server. But Cristobal had access to that, too, so he could very well have wiped it from both locations. Untangling his motivations made her already aching head worse, and since she hadn’t seen him in the aftermath and had no idea what had happened to him, she’d have to wait to find out.

  Buck and Chill had given their statements with the assurance that the Navy would throw all kinds of legal shit at the cops if
they leaked that two off-duty SEALs were involved.

  Afterward, they escorted her out to the car where she collapsed into the back seat.

  “Let’s get you home,” Buck said, starting the engine and pulling away from the police station.

  “What about Chill?” she asked.

  “We’ll drop you then head back to base,” Chill said.

  “Is there any chance you can stay with me, Buck? I don’t want to be alone.”

  She caught the smirk from Chill before he faced forward. He could smirk all he wanted. She didn’t care. Her insides felt like a flock of grasshoppers had taken up residence. If she stopped too long to think about the day, she’d probably puke all over the rental car. She didn’t want to be alone.

  “Sure,” Buck said. “Let’s drop Chill back at the base and I’ll pick up a few things, then we can head over to your place.”

  His calm, matter-of-fact voice held no suggestion or innuendo, no irritation that she’d put him out. It relieved her more than she could put into words. “I tried Jayla to see if she’d come over, but she’s not answering her phone.”

  “It’s okay, Mindy. I don’t mind.”

  “Thank you,” she mumbled as she closed her eyes and let the vibration of the wheels on the road lull her into a groggy kind of sleep. She dozed through the entire trip to base, images of guns and blood preventing her from relaxing completely. Buck left her in the car while he collected his things, and only when they pulled up in front of her house and he shook her awake did she finally seek consciousness again.

  “Time to wake up, darlin’.” His low, gentle voice calmed her skittish nerves and washed away the violent images of her dreams.

  He escorted her into the house, and dumped his duffel on the couch as he followed her through the dining room toward the kitchen. She glanced back at the couch, then at him.

  “You better go put that in the bedroom. I’m not sleeping alone.”

  His face scrunched into worry. “Are you sure? I don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage or assuming anything.”

  “I’m asking you. I’m a nervous wreck. Having you next to me will help me sleep.”

  “Okay. Whatever you need,” he said.