Ritt

by Anne L. Parks

  A low murmur wafted through the space. No one spoke loud enough for Lance to hear. Riley came out of the office and glanced around the area, her gaze stalled on Lance.

  “All right, show’s over. Let’s get back to work. Looks like Operation: Schoolhouse Rock is a go. All essential personnel need to be ready to jump on a plane to Syria by 1500 hours.”

  “I still think we should’ve named the op ‘See Dick Run’,” said Abbott.

  Riley stepped closer to Lance. “Commander, there is a seat saved for you on the transport, as well.”

  Lance nodded. Riley turned away, but he reached for her arm to stop her. Electricity burned a path up his arm and settled into his chest. Riley halted and looked at where he had hold of her wrist.

  Lance dropped her hand. “Excuse me—but I have two of my men that are on their way through Jordan enroute stateside that I need to meet with.”

  “Where are they?”

  “At security, but I need an escort to get down there, and get them into the building.” It was a statement, but the question was implied.

  “I’ll take you down,” Riley said and headed toward the elevators. She pushed the button for the bottom floor. “Sorry you had to witness the spectacle.”

  “You seemed to come through unscathed.”

  “He just likes to flex his muscles every once in a while—make sure I know who’s boss. Never amounts to much.”

  “I think you bumped up against his third rail in that meeting.”

  “He’s pissed I showed him up. If what I said was ‘unnecessary’ and meant nothing, he wouldn’t have paid me a visit.”

  “So, why make waves?”

  Elevator doors opened. She stepped out of the way of people trying to get past them. When the doors closed again, her gaze locked on his. “Because I don’t give a shit about Dix, or getting in line—I care about sending men into an op that has a very high degree of failure.”

  High-spirited, for sure, but was there more she wasn’t saying? She knew her shit, that was evident. There was a serious lack of adhering to a chain of command, or respect for her boss, and that screamed loose cannon to Lance. And a loose cannon was unpredictable, which was too dangerous in their line of work.

  The lobby of the embassy consisted of various bullet-proof glass walls that forced visitors to go through a series of check-in points before actually entering the building. A large room in the center housed four security personnel with AR-15’s at the ready. Their eyes swept back and forth across the lobby.

  Lance pointed to a separate room to their left where two men in fatigues sat. One had his head back, eyes closed, mouth open. The other guy was picking at his cuticles.

  Riley knocked on the security room, and one of the guards slid the window open. “Those two are with me,” she told the guard, pointing at Michael “Mick” McIntyre, and Lucas Black. They passed a sign-in sheet and she initialed next to both men’s names, and grabbed the two visitor security badges he handed to her.

  Lance introduced the two men. “Is there a secure room we could use for a little while. There are some things I need to go over with these guys before we take off this afternoon.”

  Back up on the fourth floor, Riley showed the men into a small conference room, and excused herself. Lance watched her walk down the hallway towards her office. She had an air about her. Pure confidence. A take-no-shit attitude, but with the knowledge and experience to back it up.

  “So, you guys will be hanging here for a few days while I finish up my current assignment. We have a house in town, a few blocks from the here. The fridge is stocked, movies of all types for your viewing pleasure. If you must go out, go together, but be aware of your surroundings. There is some growing negative sentiment in the area for the US forces.”

  The men both nodded, with a chorus of, “Yes, sir.” This was standard fare just about everywhere in the Middle East.

  “I have a few loose ends to tie up, but I need to get back to the house and pack for my Syrian field trip. Sit tight, and I’ll be back to pick you guys up in about twenty minutes.”

  “So,” Mick said, tilting his head toward the hallway Riley disappeared down, “what’s her story?”

  “CIA. Dep analyst.”

  “She seems a bit…intense,” Lucas said.

  “She has her moments. I just met her this morning, and so far she’s insulted her boss, pulled the rug out from under him in a meeting with brass, and basically ignored him as he ripped her a new asshole in front of all her people.”

  “Busy first day, Commander,” Lucas said.

  Lance shook his head. “You’re telling me.”

  * * *

  Lance walked up the ramp into the belly of the C-130 and took the open seat next to Dix. He glanced around, recognizing a few faces from Riley’s team, along with a SEAL team. He’d expected Riley would be sitting on the opposite side of Dix so they could go over strategies and scenarios, but the seat remained open.

  At the opposite end of the plane, he caught sight of her. About as far away from her boss as she could’ve gotten without being in the cockpit. Her head was back, eyes closed. One of the SEALs said something to her. A grin spread across her face, and she shot him the bird.

  Lance wondered what had been said. Being a SEAL, he could only imagine the remark had been crude.

  Dix fiddled with the lid on a bottle of Dramamine. His hands shook as he tapped two pills into his hand, tossed them in his mouth, and chased them with a swig of water from his bottle. “I hate flying in these planes. Bumpy. Loud. Uncomfortable.”

  Lance shrugged. “You ride in them enough, you don’t notice any of that after a while.” The subject of Riley was going to be a touchy one to bring up, but he needed to talk to Dix about what had been said during the meeting. He still couldn’t get a read on the guy. And it was imperative the role be filled with someone at the top of his game.

  Or hers.

  “Any merit to the concerns Riley brought up during the meeting?”

  Dix snorted. “No, not at all.”

  “Why do you think she said it?”

  Irritation flamed in Dix’s eyes. “Riley Bray is an attention whore trying to move up in the company, and doesn’t care who she defames to reach her ultimate goal.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “My job.”

  Dix shifted in the belt seats, closed his eyes, and looked as if he was going to try to get some sleep.

  Something niggled at Lance. Dix never addressed Riley’s actual concerns or refuted them. He made a personal attack on her character as proof that her claims had no merit.

  Laughter erupted from the other end of the plane. Riley was speaking to a circle of SEALs around her. They all threw their heads back, howls of laughter drowning out the monotone drone of the big bird’s engines. The guys liked Riley. He could tell from the way they acted, they accepted her as a member of their team.

  Dix, on the other hand, had yet to interact with anyone other than Lance or Riley. He spoke to no one on his team. And no one spoke to him.

  Which had warning bells going off all over the place.

  Chapter 3

  Forward Operating Base

  Sadad, Syria

  Riley leaned against the rock and mud wall and watched her SEAL team kick back and unwind after an intense training session earlier that morning. There was no definitive timeline for when the operation would take place. The final nod had to come from Washington. So, they waited. And trained. And tried to bear the unknown in the sweltering heat of the Syrian desert.

  A couple of old couches that looked as if they had been rescued from the trash heaps in Damascus sat at one end of a makeshift basketball court. It was about a quarter of the size of a real court, complete with a trash can with the bottom knocked out attached to a metal pole in the ground.

  “Horse”, the team leader, was showing Riley pictures of his daughter’s first day of kindergarten. The blonde girl grinned, missing a front tooth, wearing bright pink leggings wi
th a navy blue t-shirt that proclaimed her to be "Daddy’s Little Girl".

  Grunts and groans came from the game. Three men were hanging on a guy aptly nicknamed “Bull”, due to his immense size—which was saying something amongst a group of huge men in their own right. He managed to get to the basket without much trouble, and dunked the ball with one hand. No jumping required. He shook the men off him, turned, and raised his arms in victory.

  Riley chuckled. She had grown close to this SEAL team over the past year in Syria. She’d worked with them almost exclusively, and thought of them as an extension of her family. In fact, she was probably closer to these men than she was with anyone in the CIA assigned there.

  One of Bull’s hangers dropped onto the couch next to Horse, and mopped his brow with the sleeve of his t-shirt sleeve. “Ripper” had legendary status on the team as having the worst smelling farts—high praise with the men. Riley had accidentally walked through the jet wash of one his blasts and gagged and choked to get fresh air in her lungs. Not dying from the incident had made her worthy of the men’s friendship.

  That, and the fact she always took care of her team in the field. They trusted her to get them in and out of ops safely. She hadn’t lost a guy yet—something Riley wore as a badge of honor.

  “Hey Riley,” Ripper asked, “when are you going to marry me?”

  Riley leaned back against the wall and crossed one foot over the other. “Well, let me put it this way…I’d switch teams before I married you, Ripper.”

  “I’m totally okay with that as long as I get to watch.” A shit-eating grin slid into place and he winked at her.

  Laughter erupted in the group, along with a series of playful admonishments. Bull tossed a crumpled-up bag of chips at Ripper’s head.

  “What?” Ripper’s eyes were wide and filled with mock innocence. “Like none of you thought the same thing.”

  Horse dragged his hand down his face and chuckled. “The rest of us know better than to voice it, dumbass.”

  Ripper shrugged.

  Riley laughed. She really did love these guys. They were like a motley crew of brothers who had each other’s backs, and treated her like a little sister—even though she was a few years older than half of them.

  Her cell phone rang. She covered her ear and turned away from the group of men still laughing. The wind caught her hair and wiped it across her face, the ends slapping against the dark lenses of her aviator sunglasses.

  “Riley, I have an update for you.” Ryan Flaherty, one of the enlisted Navy personnel on the team. She liked him. He was excellent at his job, able to kick back and have fun without getting weird because she was a woman (and a spook), but knew when to reign it in and be professional.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “The op is a go.”

  Dread doused her like a bucket of ice water poured over her head. Reality slapped her in the face. Not being able to make recommendations the higher ups took seriously stung.

  Pivoting, she stared at the men, joking with each other. Anger and fear churned in her stomach, and forced bile up her throat. She choked it down.

  “When?”

  “Tonight.”

  Riley’s knees went weak. Fuck! It was too soon. The team wasn’t ready. She wasn’t ready. Dix’s declaration that the intel was good did nothing to alleviate her apprehension. Something dark and sinister lingered in the air. A black cloud that she couldn’t wave away. Her gaze bounced from one man to the other.

  How many would be injured—or worse?

  Normally, she would push the questions back into the depths of her mind. Her strength was her confidence. But, now? Helplessness swamped her. This was not her operation. This was all Dix and there was no telling where his priorities lay.

  The image of Horse’s daughter flooded her mind, quickly replaced by a black body bag unzipped to show Horse’s lifeless corpse within.

  What if she lost him? How could she deal with taking him away from that sweet little girl?

  Another image popped into her head—rows of body bags.

  What if she lost all of them?

  * * *

  Lance jogged across the airstrip. Dix had just called to let him know the operation was a go. He wondered how Riley was handling the information. She seemed level-headed and professional, but he noticed a fire in her eyes as she talked about her concerns for this mission.

  “Lance,” Someone called to him.

  Lance slowed as he approached a group of SEALs walking across the tarmac toward the hangar. As they got closer, Lance recognized the men.

  “Wolf, long time,” he greeted the man and shook his hand.

  “Where the hell have you been hiding?” Wolf asked.

  Lance grinned. “Here, there, and everywhere.” The best answer was the non-answer, in this case. The 13 was highly covert, and not up for open discussion, even among SEALs he trusted with his life. Only a handful of people had knowledge of the team outside of the twelve members already in place. This trip was intended to fill the final spot.

  “I hear ya,” Wolf nodded. “Hey, if you’re going to be around for a couple days, let’s get caught up.”

  The rest of the men filed by them, shaking Lance’s hand, and giving him a head nod before making their way into the hangar. Most likely a pre-brief for an upcoming mission.

  “What do you guys have going on?” Lance asked.

  “Some shit going down north of Damascus.” Wolf nodded toward the hangar. “I’ll know more in about thirty.”

  “I’ll let you get to it, then.” They shook hands again and parted.

  Lance stepped inside the Tactical Operations Center and closed the door behind him. He glanced around, getting a feel for the set up. No two TOC’s were set up the same. If you’ve seen one TOC—you’ve seen one TOC.

  Approximately twelve large flat screens filled a wall surrounding two six-foot by twelve-foot screens. Along the top of the screens were various red digital clocks—local time, Zulu, DC—among the most prevalent. Several people sat at desks with at least two computer screens. Satellite images of the area, including the target school, populated the screens. Dix stood next to a man wearing desert fatigues, apparently in deep discussion.

  Interestingly, Riley Bray was not in the TOC. Lance wondered if she hadn’t been informed the op was going, had decided not to be a witness to what she predicted was going to be a failed mission, or if Dix had told her she was not welcome.

  Dix lifted his head, caught sight of Lance, and gestured him over. “Commander,” he greeted him with a handshake. Making a sweeping gesture with his arm, he asked, “What do you think?”

  “Who would suspect such a high-tech facility in the middle of the Syrian desert?” It never ceased to amaze him how, no matter where in the world he was—even aboard aircraft carriers in the middle of the ocean—there was always the ability to have communications on various levels.

  “This isn’t the typical military tac ops center,” Dix said. Lance resisted the urge to roll his eyes. The man never missed an opportunity to make a dig in order to make himself look good. It was irritating as hell.

  * * *

  Riley watched as the SEAL team gathered their gear and suited up. A few hours earlier, the hot sun baked the men as they played basketball and joked with Riley. Now, the sun had set, and darkness enveloped them. The only source of light was a large fire pit that blazed and spit embers in the air. The shadow it produced across the men’s faces sent a shiver through Riley.

  Death masks. Contorting the men’s features in orange and black on one half of their faces, and eliminating the other half.

  They spoke, but the jovial nature was gone, replaced with the confident tone of professionals. Vests covered in velcro were pulled on. Knives sheathed. Handguns holstered. And rifles run through a series of checks and double checks. It was a choreographed dance, beautiful but haunting to watch.

  The whir of the helo blades as they came to life and gathered speed was like a five-minute
call for the SEALs. They gathered up their gear and headed toward the large bird. Riley watched them from the shadows. This was not a time to speak. No words of encouragement, no “goodbye’s” or “good luck’s” were uttered. She wanted to be as calm as her outward appearance, but ice sludged through her veins as she watched the men climb into the helo’s belly.

  The bird lifted into the air and created a hurricane of dust and dirt that wrapped around her, and sent her hair flying in all directions. She watched the bird lift into the air for as long as she could before dirt peppered her eyes, and she was forced to turn away. The low whomp whomp of the helo soon died, and the area was quiet.

  As if nothing had happened.

  Riley sent up a quick prayer for her team’s safe return, and turned toward the TOC, an uneasy fear squeezing her heart in a vice.

  * * *

  The door to the TOC opened, and Riley Bray breezed through it, her red hair swirled around her head in a gust from another helo landing. She walked over to them and stood on the opposite side of Flaherty. The young man glanced up and gave her a smile.

  Dix glanced at her and grunted an incoherent greeting. The look on his face was as if he had belched the wild boar’s ass he had eaten at lunch, and the aftertaste was even more disgusting than the actual ingestion had been.

  “We have state of the art comms here.” He pointed to the computer screens on the Petty Officer’s desk. Each screen was split into six squares. “Petty Officer Flaherty, have the team turn on the cameras,” he directed the kid.

  Flaherty looked like he had graduated from high school about six months ago and was still not mature enough to shave.

  “Yes, sir,” Flaherty said. He pulled the mouthpiece from his headset down from the top of his head. “Alpha team, command would like a camera check prior to boots down.”

  “Roger, command. Cameras on.”

  Each square filled with dayglow green. One by one, the faces of each man on the team came into focus.

  “Cutting edge technology allows us to see what the SEALs are seeing.”

  “In real time? No lag?” Lance asked.