All Lines Black

by Dalton Fury

  Again and again, with hardly a break between each controlled pair.

  Kolt didn’t slow down and he didn’t look back.

  The sheltering structure looked like some kind of store, though it was hard to say for sure in the darkness. The walls were lined with shelves and racks, but they were all completely bare. A couple of the guys were shifting a free-standing shelf unit toward the front, positioning it as a barricade, but most of the rest were sprawled out on the floor, hastily bandaging wounds and cross-loading ammo. Those that could still walk, or at the very least, lean against something, were already heading to the front to set up firing positions.

  Kolt knew they couldn’t afford to stop, to dig in. Not here, deep in enemy territory. Eventually, they would run out of ammo and then they would be overrun. They had to keep moving, find some wheels. . . .

  But he knew that wasn’t going to happen.

  He called out into the darkness. “JoJo? You still with us?”

  “He caught one, boss,” Digger said from out of the gloom. “Don’t know if he’s going to make it.”

  “Shit.” Kolt squinted to orient on the sound of Digger’s voice. “Is the SAT still in one piece?”

  “Looks like.”

  “Call the JOC. Tell them to launch the QRF. Don’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”

  Raynor knew it would take more than tough talk to convince the CG to send more troops into harm’s way, but it was the only call. Maybe some of them would still be alive when the Rangers showed up.

  And if Allen shot down the request . . .

  Maybe this is how it was always supposed to end.

  Try as he might, Kolt couldn’t dismiss the thought.

  The report of a Kalashnikov, muted by the walls of the store, signaled the arrival of more enemy fighters.

  Kolt nodded in the darkness. Fine, he thought. But there’s still something I can do about it.

  He turned to his prisoner, pulled off the sack-hood, and leaned close. “Who was it?” he whispered. “Who?”

  Bitter laughter was the only reply.

  “We were both set up. If you really want revenge, give me a name.”

  “You will die ignorant,” the Syrian rasped. “And the war will never end. My son and I will laugh at you from paradise. That is all the revenge I need.”

  Kolt shook him by the shoulders. “Damn it—”

  The familiar buzz-saw noise of a five-second burst from a machine gun cut him off. Even before it ended, a second gun joined in.

  Shit, Kolt thought. And I didn’t think it could get any worse.

  But then Slapshot let out a whoop. “It’s about fucking time!”

  Kolt raised his head. The guns sounded again, but in the lull between, Kolt could also hear the faint sound of rotor blades beating the air.

  FIFTEEN

  Despite her promise to Gellar, Hawk actually did have one regret. She regretted not launching the QRF even sooner.

  Still, she had to give the SOAR pilots credit for doing the impossible. The original estimate of thirty minutes—give or take a few—had been based on a flight path that took them around Deir Ezzor and any other populated area that might have SAMs or other air defenses, but the 160th guys had taken a riskier direct path, flying nap of the earth, straight into the heart of the embattled city, redlining the jet engines the whole way.

  The two 60s hovered at opposite ends of the street, their 240 gunners scattering the enemy troops that seemed to be swarming in from everywhere. Hawk and Gellar were in the Chinook that settled down between them, less than twenty meters from embattled Delta operators. Fortunately, the opposite side of the street was an open field—part of the same city park or athletic complex that housed the soccer field where the team had jumped in—giving the pilot plenty of room to land the big helo. As the ground came up, Hawk moved to the ass end of the MH-47 and stared through her NODs out the open loading ramp. Even before the aircraft touched down, a line of camouflaged figures emerged from the storefront to their six o’clock. There was no question that these were her teammates, but the IR strobes and tags on their gear confirmed it.

  Hawk hopped down onto the ground, her HK416 at the low ready, even though the hovering 60s had driven back any hostiles. She felt giddy with relief, but her elation was short-lived. The Delta operators were emerging in groups of two and three. The walking wounded—and it looked like that was just about all of them—were supporting each other or carrying the seriously injured on litters.

  We’re too late, she thought, miserably. She did a headcount as she waved them up the ramp, mentally checking names on the roster.

  Shaft . . . Digger . . . Nails . . . Trip . . . Slapshot . . .

  Where’s Kolt?

  Two more figures were making the crossing, one of them bareheaded but wearing stained and torn camo, carrying the other slung over his shoulders. That’s him, Hawk thought, but who’s he carrying?

  She glanced back into the belly of the helo. The cargo deck had been transformed into an emergency triage area, with the Delta operators—every one of them trained in combat-lifesaving techniques—continued the fight to save their mates.

  Hawk’s original count had not been wrong. Raynor had picked up a hitchhiker.

  “Son of a bitch!” Lauren Gellar stormed down the ramp, passing Hawk, and put herself directly in Raynor’s path. “Who the hell is that?”

  Hawk took another look at the man Raynor was carrying, noting the traditional Arab attire, and the sack-hood covering his face.

  The Syrian! Hawk realized. Racer had ignored the kill order and brought his precious cargo back alive.

  Raynor, looking a little unsteady on his feet, kept advancing. “Move.”

  Gellar did not move. Instead, she reached behind her, and in a motion too smooth to be anything but the product of experience, drew the little SIG semi-auto from its holster, and aimed it at Kolt.

  Hawk heard a roaring sound, like a waterfall inside her head, as adrenaline dumped into her bloodstream, but she snapped to and brought her weapon up, putting the red dot on the back of Gellar’s head. “Drop it! Drop your fucking weapon!”

  Gellar didn’t look back, didn’t acknowledge Hawk’s command or the threat she posed. “You’re not bringing him, Racer. I told you . . .”

  Hawk’s finger started to pull trigger slack, but even as it did, the whispers of doubt fighting to be heard over the adrenaline rush became warning sirens. I can’t kill her . . . She’s bluffing . . . I don’t have a shot. . . .

  The last was true. Gellar was between her and Kolt. If she put a round through Gellar’s skull, it might go through and hit him. Raynor kept coming, climbing the ramp, walking straight into Gellar’s weapon.

  Gellar took a step back, then moved aside, lowering the pistol, but she wasn’t finished. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with,” she shouted.

  Raynor kept going, up the ramp. His face was set like concrete, but his eyes revealed the pain of every step he took. He passed Hawk, but never once glancing in her direction.

  “Racer!” Gellar shouted after him. “You’re finished! Do you hear me?”

  Hawk saw the crew chief and a few of her teammates looking down the length of the cabin, observing the confrontation, but Raynor ignored Gellar. He tilted sideways, sliding the bound form of his captive off his shoulders. The Syrian dropped like a sack of potatoes, landing on the deck with a thud.

  “All Eagles up,” he rasped over helo common, letting the pilot know before raising his right hand, thumb up, toward Slapshot. “Go!”

  “Racer!” Gellar shouted again, stalking up the ramp, and then before Hawk or anyone else could make a move to stop her, took aim and put a bullet in the hooded head of Abu Hamam al-Suri.

  * * *

  Despite everything he’d just endured—or maybe because of it—the report of the pistol startled Raynor, but not as much as the blur of motion that was Cindy “Hawk” Bird. The female operator was on Gellar, almost before the spent brass hit the deck plate.r />
  Hawk slammed Gellar facedown onto the deck, and buried her knee in the woman’s back. Her right hand had Gellar’s gun hand pinned down. Her left was curled around the back of Gellar’s neck, grinding the spook’s face into the deck.

  The realization that Hawk was about to murder Gellar, momentarily overrode Kolt’s own desire to waste the bitch himself.

  “Hawk!” He threw his arms around Bird, pulling her clear.

  Trip and Digger had moved almost as quickly, but unlike Kolt, they seemed to share Hawk’s sense of priorities. Digger got to Gellar first, stomping his titanium-composite foot down on her wrist before she could even think about regaining control of her weapon. Trip immobilized her other arm by kneeling on it, slamming Gellar’s face down once more for good measure.

  “Cuff her and stuff her!” Raynor shouted. He was struggling to keep Hawk contained. He was exhausted and she wasn’t holding back anything.

  Digger flashed him a look that said, are you fucking serious? But he and Trip nevertheless did as ordered, none-too-gently zip-tying Gellar.

  “Hawk!” Raynor shouted in her ear again, shaking her to get her attention. “Stand down!”

  Gellar, her face bloody, looked up. “You’re finished!” she screamed. “You are fucking dead—”

  Trip muffled her with a strip of olive-drab 100-mile-an-hour tape, but she continued to scream into the gag.

  “Hawk,” Raynor said again, more gently, and this seemed to reach through her fury.

  “She killed him,” Hawk said, the words coming out broken, punctuated by gasps. Or maybe they were sobs. “She murdered him.”

  “I know,” Kolt whispered. He glanced down at the motionless form of the Syrian. He tugged off the hood, which was wet and sticky with blood. The bullet had punched through Abu Hamam’s cheek, shattering bone on its way through to his brain, but the change to his appearance was more profound than that. It was as if the subtraction of al-Suri’s life force had fundamentally altered everything about him. Raynor couldn’t believe the lump of meat on the deck was the same man he had carried across half the city. He was having an even harder time remembering why he had bothered.

  He realized now that everyone was looking at him. Digger and Trip . . . the rest of the team, those that were still conscious, at least . . . the helo crew. The Chinook hadn’t moved.

  “What are you looking at?” he growled. It sounded juvenile in his own ears, but it did the trick. The Delta operators went back to work, and the crew chief barked into his mic, relaying the “go” order to the pilot. There was a faint shudder and the deck tilted up as the helicopter lifted off.

  Kolt relaxed his grip on Hawk by degrees, only letting go when he was certain that she wouldn’t pounce on Gellar again.

  “She killed him,” Hawk repeated.

  Raynor nodded, then knelt beside Gellar. Blood was oozing from an egg-sized abrasion on her forehead, trickling down into her unblinking eyes as she glowered back at him. He reached out and ripped the tape away.

  “Fucking dead!” she shouted.

  “Shut up.”

  Surprisingly, Gellar did, but only for a second. “You heard the kill order, Racer.” She raised her voice, shouting loud enough to be heard over the roar of the jet engines. “The president wanted him dead. Dead. This is a war, and he was the enemy.”

  She lowered her voice again, her next words for Raynor’s ears only. “How did you think this was going to end?”

  Kolt ignored the question. “Who do you work for? I know you aren’t getting your orders from POTUS. Who?”

  She closed her mouth, the muscles in her jaw bulging visibly as she ground her teeth together.

  Kolt spoke softly now, just loud enough for her to hear him over the roar of the turbines. “You . . . or whoever you work for, made a deal with him. You handed us over to him . . . you practically gift wrapped us. And when it didn’t work out like you planned, you did everything you could to make sure we didn’t make it back.”

  “Good luck proving it,” she whispered. “If you live that long. You disobeyed a direct order. You’re finished. And her . . .” Her eyes flitted toward Hawk.

  “I’m not going to prove anything,” Kolt said. “I’m not even going to try. And you’re not going to do anything either. Not to me. Not to Hawk. Not to anyone in the Unit.”

  Gellar went silent again.

  “Here’s what you are going to do. You’re going to report back that our primary mission was a bust, but that I crossed off al-Suri, exactly as you ordered. And then you’re going to forget all about what just happened here.”

  “Why the hell would I do that?”

  Kolt leaned closer. “Because your boss fucked up and you know it. Maybe you were in on it. Maybe you were just following orders . . . I don’t really care . . . but selling us to the Syrian . . . that’s fucking treason. I don’t care how powerful he is; that shit will stick to him forever.

  “So I’m not going to say anything. Not yet. But you can bet money that I’ll be taking out an insurance policy. If anything happens to me, or any of my people . . . anything at all. If I even feel like someone is looking at me wrong . . .”

  “What? What will you do? Send it to The Washington Post? No one will fucking believe you. They won’t even care.”

  Raynor shook his head. “Nope.” He nodded his head up the cabin, at his teammates. “They’ll know. Every shooter in JSOC will know what really happened here. And they’ll settle the account.”

  Gellar didn’t reply. She just stared back at him, nostrils flaring as she breathed.

  Raynor reached out and slapped the tape over her mouth again, then dropped the bloody sack-hood over her face further muffling her protests. He looked away, realized that everyone was staring at him, and rose to his feet, keeping one hand on the bulkhead for stability. “Whatever you’ve got, save it for the hotwash.”

  But despite what he had told Gellar, Raynor had no intention of letting this go. Somebody had set them up, sent them to die.

  Somebody was going to pay.

  Read on for an excerpt from the next Delta Force novel,

  Execute Authority.

  Kolt and his mates had learned long ago that no amount of training could overcome certain physical realities. When you see death up close, or feel your death is imminent, it takes time for the brain to process stimuli from the eyes and ears, select the appropriate response, and then send the signal to the body. Not long in practical terms—no more than two-tenths of a second—but Kolt Raynor knew that was one-tenth of a second too long.

  Being able to assess a threat in the blink of an eye could mean the difference between icing an armed terrorist, or accidentally killing an unarmed civilian or a hostage you were trying to rescue. Or getting yourself killed by the guy you missed.

  In the fraction of a second between the flash of red mist and the eruption of activity around POTUS—before the body of the Greek leader could hit the ground—Kolt Raynor saw a lot. The way Midas’s head had snapped back and the cloud of atomized blood that hung in the air behind him indicated a high-velocity, medium-caliber round, fired from a distance—from somewhere to the north and at an elevation of less than forty degrees.

  “SNIPER!” he shouted, repeating the warning, “SNIPER! SNIPER!”

  Adrenaline dumped into his bloodstream and he began turning in the direction from which the shot had come, his right hand seeking out the grip of his holstered Glock 23. It was a reflexive action—turn toward the threat, neutralize the threat before he can get off another shot. His rational mind knew better. The sniper was probably at least four or five hundred yards away. There wasn’t a damn thing Raynor could do to “neutralize” a threat like that, not with a handgun from where he was standing. There was only one correct response, and the Secret Service agents were already doing it, collapsing on Champ, forming a human shield around him, hustling him into the open and waiting Escalade. The HP protective detail had done the same for Midas, closing on him and removing him from Raynor’s
line of sight, though Kolt knew it was already too late for the man.

  He had not seen the actual exit wound, only the resulting blood spatter, but he had caught a glimpse of the entrance wound.

  The bullet had entered through the Greek prime minister’s left eye.

  It took another hundredth of a second for the full significance of this to hit home.

  No. No fucking way.

  He looked north, in the direction from which he knew the shot had come, searching for the shooter’s location. Warning bells were ringing in his subconscious. The sniper was still out there and all of them were standing in the open, vulnerable. But if the man was the pro Raynor knew him to be, then he would not be foolish enough to risk betraying his location with a second shot. The shooter had already accomplished his primary mission; all that remained was the exfil.

  Raynor raised his eyes slightly, trying to visualize the path of the bullet. It could not have come from a nearby rooftop. The angle had been far too shallow for that, and besides, his own Noble squadron snipers occupied every one of those rooftops.

  No broken windows, no open windows.

  Farther out, the shooter’s field of fire would have been obstructed by other buildings and vegetation.

  So where the hell is—

  His eyes settled on the lightly forested slope of a hillside peeking out from behind the rows of buildings. Mount Lycabettus, the three-hundred-meter tall mountain that looked out across the city.

  During his earlier recon, Raynor had taken note of the possible exposure from the west slope of Mount Lycabettus. Simmons had initially been dismissive, pointing out that the mountain was more than half a mile away, to which Kolt had replied that Delta snipers routinely broke plates from the sniper condo at that distance. Simmons had passed the concern along to the locals who had promised to patrol the hillside, but the SAIC was clearly more concerned with threats of the up close and personal variety. Kolt had not pressed the issue beyond that. Simmons was right about the unlikelihood of a threat originating from the distant hillside. Outside of JSOC, there were only a handful of men with the skill to make a shot like that.