by Zoe Dawson
Mad Max
SEAL Team Alpha
Zoe Dawosn
Mad Max
Copyright © 2020 by Karen Alarie
Cover Art © Robin Ludwig Design, Inc.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Created with Vellum
Contents
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
Glossary
About the Author
OTHER TITLES BY ZOE DAWSON
Acknowledgments
I’d like to thank my beta readers, reviewers and editor for helping with this book, especially Lisa Fournier for her excellent help. As always, you guys are the best.
To the ones who are still thinking about what they want to be
Mental toughness is when you can find fuel in an empty tank.
Anonymous
1
Somewhere in the deep Jungle
Maximilian “Mad Max” Keegan had woken up in some crazy, dangerous places, and not all of them had to do with combat. He’d find that funny if his head wasn’t about to roll off his neck, his side wasn’t on fire, and his ankle wasn’t telling him with very loud protests that he wasn’t walking, let alone running, anywhere anytime soon.
His ankle had no idea that his body wasn’t the one in charge. It was Max’s mind that ruled him, not physical pain. Thinking in a way that pushes you beyond your usual limits? It was all about limitless thinking, going beyond whatever it was you thought you could do, to a place you had previously thought might be impossible. Expanding the mind, expanded the possibilities.
He tried to move, but his coordination was jerky, and it had nothing to do with his head—his helmet provided most of the shock absorption from the fall. It was the blood loss from the bullet lodged in his side.
Fuck, he hated being shot.
Then you’re in the wrong fucking profession. He laughed softly. “Yeah, no shit.”
He was aware that he and Jugs were going to be pursued by the unknowns who had shot at the chopper and the terrorist group Al’Irada who wanted to retrieve their leader. He would be the perfect hostage to use as a bargaining chip. But he knew without a single doubt, their team would be back for them. All he had to do was survive.
After the lucky shot that had severed the rope that held them to the chopper and the second one that had lodged a bullet in his side, he’d fallen like a rock with Jugs in a harrowing few seconds that sent them plummeting to the ground, crashing into some trees on their way down. Luckily the helo hadn’t gotten high enough that the fall would have killed them, but it was bad enough. At least the team got away with the HVT. Max prayed his guys had suffered no other injuries.
As soon as he’d regained consciousness from the fall last night, he’d done a patch job on himself before assessing Jugs to help slow the bleeding and to protect against infection. Max had run his hand through the dog’s fur and over his flanks. He felt the wetness of blood before he found a wide, deep gash. The battle harness had protected Jugs’s chest and upper body during the fall, along with Max’s curling around the animal to cushion him. Max didn’t think he had any other injuries, but he hadn’t been able to go over him as thoroughly as he wanted. Max used Jugs’s own first aid kit situated on the dog’s tactical vest to doctor him up the best he could, but the Malinois needed stitches.
By mid-day Max had bled through the bandage and had to replace it. He’d bleed out before he could die from infection. The pressure bandage was all that stood between him and bleeding to death.
There was also the serious problem of dehydration. He had water and oral rehydration packs, but the water was in the pack that was just a few feet from him. Part of the severed strap flapped in the wind, courtesy of another one of those lucky shots.
He looked at his watch. It was now late afternoon, approximately fifteen hours since he fell. He needed Jugs, but he wasn’t here. Max had been unconscious and didn’t know where he’d gone. There was no way the Malinois had abandoned him. Jugs would die before he’d leave his teammate. He was either doing reconnaissance or hunting.
He pushed up on his elbow, and blazing hot pain flashed across his right side, deep inside where the bullet had plowed a channel of destruction and bounced off one of his ribs. Waves of agony crashed over him as the edges of his consciousness started to go black, like his brain was folding in on itself.
He gritted his teeth, fighting the encroaching darkness, the anguished moan trapped in his throat. His breathing ragged, he grabbed for the remnants of the first aid kit he’d ripped open last night from his tack vest and snatched the rolled gauze. At the last second, he grabbed a couple of the QuikClot bandages. Hopefully they would slow down the bleeding. It took all his energy and every ounce of his willpower to sit up.
Taking a fortifying breath, he removed his vest. He had to pause to let the pain run its course when a hot poker of agony radiated from the site of the bullet wound outward in a wave. Yeah, thanks so much, pain sensors. I got it. Moving right now wasn’t the best idea. But he had no choice. He couldn’t stay here. With more grunting and discomfort, he pulled off his shirt and cotton undershirt, both soaked with his blood, holding on as his mind went gray again.
Blood still oozed from the wound, dripping into the ground that was still wet. At least it had slowed down. He used his combat breathing to remain centered, then, his hands shaking, he cut off a swath of Kerlix gauze and folded it several times. As he started to press it to the wound, he glanced at the clotting bandages. He could hear Saint in his head saying, Don’t use this unless you think you’re bleeding to death. Okay, this qualified. His breathing heavy, pain making him pant and release soft cries, he opened them and braced for the next round of misery as he pressed on the wound. He gritted his teeth, almost losing consciousness at the agony, and fought to roll the elastic bandage around his waist, wrapping it as best he could and securing it with the built-in Velcro.
He collapsed to the ground, breathing heavily around the surges of torment sapping his energy and making him want to curl into a fetal position and not move.
His hip ached like a bitch as he moved onto it, then pushed up again, fighting to keep himself upright. Reaching for an elastic bandage, he tried to bend to get to his ankle, but with a sharp cry of agony, he sank to the ground, losing his battle to remain aware.
He floated in and out. The sound of metal and a thump near his head made him start to full awareness again. He turned to his right to find a beat-up backpack beside his head. Not his.
He ignored it for now, even though he could smell cooked fish and his mouth watered, his stomach rolling with hunger.
He tried to focus and reached into his Individual First Aid Kit, or IFAK, for more military-issued combat pills. With some effort and a lot of pain, he managed to get the p
ackage open.
Working his body to the side again, he grabbed the plastic water bottle that was almost empty and drained the contents, swallowing the pills that included a painkiller, anti-inflammatory, and antibiotic.
Jugs materialized and licked his face, then nudged the unfamiliar pack toward him. He rubbed the dog’s fur.
“What did you do? Steal someone’s kit? That was impolite, Jugs. Thanks, buddy.” Max managed to look around, but he was still concealed, and there was no movement in the area. He pulled open the straps of the bag, and the aroma of the cooked fish grew stronger. He dug inside, pushing aside the metal piece, and snagged the plastic-wrapped fish. He ripped it open and devoured half of the tender meat, then pushed the rest toward Jugs. “Eat, buddy.”
As soon as Jugs had devoured the remaining fish and licked the plastic clean, Max said firmly, “Jugs, bring me that pack.” He pointed, and the attentive animal’s ears pricked forward, and he hobbled over to Max’s battle pack. “That’s it, Jugs.” Then he switched to the German word for fetch, elongating the i. “Bring.”
The Malinois clamped his teeth to the pack and wrestled it over to Max. “Good, boy,” he said as he opened the rucksack and pulled out a full bottle of water. He dumped in a packet of the rehydration powder, shook it, and drank the whole bottle, then called for Jugs.
He didn’t like the way Jugs was panting. It was hot, but this seemed to be something more. His pal limped over. Max grabbed more water, then pulled out the K9’s rehydration powder from the kit that was stored in his harness. He dropped it in, shook, and slowly upended the bottle into his collapsible nylon bowl. Jugs drank until most of it was gone, his pink tongue lapping, but Max tapped the bowl. “All of it,” he said, and Jugs finished the rest.
Jugs could easily find water, but the injury on his flank would definitely slow him down. He’d had some mild blood loss and he needed a boost.
“Come here,” he ordered, and Jugs shuffled closer. “No more running off to find me food,” he said, grateful for his friend’s unerring attention to his handler’s needs. Max reached out, captured his collar, and pulled him closer. Jugs was breathing heavily. Max lifted Jugs’s lip and pressed against his gum for less than a second and watched as the blood flowed back into the tissue. It was sluggish.
Careful not to hurt him, he slipped on his muzzle and captured Jugs underneath his armpit on the uninjured side of his torso. Max had to grit his teeth as his own pain ramped up again, but he took his time irrigating Jugs’s wound and applying another dressing. He yelped once but didn’t try to bite Max. Their bond was too strong for that. He removed the muzzle and, after administering his combat pill pack, released Jugs. Seeing Jugs in this state was unbearable. Max meticulously took care of his partner from nose to tail.
By this time, Max was blinded by the pain, exhausted. He lay back and managed to give Jugs one more command. “Behüten.” Guard and protect. Then he passed out again.
Dr. Renata Cavalcante started her day hardly being able to contain her excitement over an ancient helmet. It was proof the Spanish galleons had been in this area in the 16th Century. The find gave credence to rumors that had been running rampant in the area for decades, that there might be sunken treasure from where the ships had gone down in a storm.
Now, her excitement had been eclipsed by annoyance and anxiety as she followed a trail of paw prints to retrieve the precious helmet, her gut in knots over the significant loss. She had placed the artifact in her backpack for safekeeping along with her leftover food, and a dog had stolen it. She had broken down her camp and packed up everything into the backpack now strapped to her back and started after the thief as soon as she realized the helmet was missing. She knelt and checked the tracks again. It was clear that not only was this a domestic dog, but the thieving animal was injured.
The animal was a wily opponent, taking her back and forth, through some small creek where she lost his trail until she picked it up again farther downstream. Her main concern was getting that helmet back, but after seeing that the dog was injured, she wanted to help if she could. Damn that Hippocratic Oath she’d taken. Apparently, it extended to animals.
She wasn’t out here to be a Doctor of Medicine. She’d left that behind and had retrained, much to her family’s disgust, to become an anthropologist. She was American born, but her father was Brazilian. She straddled both worlds, speaking the languages—Spanish and Portuguese and, of course, English. Her mother came from an upper-crust Boston family full of all kinds of professionals—doctors, lawyers, bankers. She’d tried to fit into that mold, and it had chafed every second of every minute she’d had to endure it. Taking care of people and sacrificing her life to late night calls and untold hours of selfless giving wasn’t in her nature.
It was the history of dead civilizations that interested her more.
She knew that sounded terrible, but she hated holding the lives of people in her hands. By the time she finished her residency, she was sleep-deprived, anxious, had a hole in her stomach, and was close to a nervous breakdown.
She moved on deeper into the jungle and wondered at the lack of rodent activity. Not just during the day, but at night when they should have been more active. There had been a lot of human activity through here in the last week. She was somewhat protected after the Paraguayan government offered some secret incentives to the drug runners and rebels here Renata wasn’t privy to. She didn’t want to think what kind of relationship they had with the undesirables in the area to get them to agree to leave her alone. She had a pass of sorts, so the armed men who she came across didn’t bother her.
She walked quietly, following the tracks until she came to a particularly thick part of the jungle. The forest around her was like a blanket of rolling green, the air thin and the jungle so dense she could barely see a few feet beyond her footsteps. If she went through, there would be a lot of noise.
Her only alternative would be to go around. After taking a drink of her water, she turned left and walked for about fifteen minutes, then penetrated the thick overgrowth.
She came out into a small clearing bordered by a small stream and stopped dead. Of course, he heard her from a mile away. Dogs had acute hearing. She could see he was a beautiful dog, glossy coat a bit dulled, but it looked like someone had bandaged up his flank. She had to consider she was a bit lucky there. A completely healthy Malinois could take her out without breaking a doggie sweat.
He didn’t move but watched her intently. She skirted him, and he changed position to keep her in view. That’s when she saw the boots. There was a man in the brush, and it looked like he wasn’t moving.
She had to get to him. She had no idea who this pair could be, but with the camouflage pants above the boots and the tactical vest on the dog, it was most likely someone in the military.
There had been that chopper and automatic gunfire last night.
Did he and the K9 have something to do with all that activity?
Which meant the dog was lethally trained and wouldn’t hesitate to take her out of the equation to protect the man behind him.
This was going to be tricky. She had to be careful not to hurt the K9 who was only doing his best to protect his buddy, but to administer assistance, the dog had to be safely neutralized.
She crouched down and set her pack on the ground, opening it while keeping her eyes on the very alert Malinois. She pulled out a coil of climbing rope which was the softest she had. She started to loop it and fashion a large net, tying knots as fast as she could, then she threaded a long piece of the rope through the loops she’d left in place, so that when she pulled, it would act as a drawstring on a bag.
When she was ready, she started moving toward the man. The dog changed his demeanor in a blink of an eye. His lips curled away from his teeth and he barked, a low growl coming from deep in his chest. As soon as she had made it about halfway, the dog attacked.
His gait was slower but more powerful than she had imagined. He launched himself at her at record spe
ed. She sidestepped and caught him in the net, then stumbled back as his jaws snapped, pulling the string to trap him.
She felt bad about the soft whimpering he made, but he was relentless. She sprinted toward the man. Blood soaked wrappings, drained water bottles, empty packets and the leftover plastic from her fish littered the ground. But near the man’s head, she saw her other backpack and the glint of the helmet’s metal and she breathed a sigh of relief. She saw two things that would make it safer for both her and the dog. She grabbed for the muzzle and his leash and ran back to the struggling K9, using her body to subdue him, being careful not to put any pressure on his injury, she immobilized his neck and wrestled with the animal as she worked the muzzle on his snapping jaws. Once on, she released him from the net and clipped his leash to his collar and pulled him toward a sturdy tree, where she fastened the leash tightly.
He lunged at her, but he couldn’t harm her now. He growled and barked, pacing back and forth.
She went back to the man, who held his arm across his chest, and crouched down to start assessing his injuries when she felt the muzzle of a gun slide against her ribcage.
“I’ll kill you if you hurt my dog.”
Oliver “Artful Dodger” Graham stood close to his pacing LT in case Ford “Fast Lane” Nixon lost it and attempted to throttle the pencil neck who was telling him that all choppers were grounded. These orders were from the Paraguayan government, who was royally pissed that the American military had carried out a black op on their soil without their cooperation or knowledge.
