Seek and Destroy (TREX, #5)

by Allie K. Adams

  Seek and Destroy — A TREX Adventure 206

  SEEK AND DESTROY

  TREX Adventure 5

  By Allie K. Adams

  A TREX ADVENTURE

  SEEK AND DESTROY

  Copyright © 2014 by Allie K. Adams

  First E-book Publication: February 2014

  Cover design by Kari Ayasha, Cover to Cover Designs

  All art and logo copyright © 2014 by Allie K. Adams

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This Ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This Ebook may not be re-sold or given away to others. If you would like to share this book with others, please purchase an additional copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Allie K. Adams

  www.alliekadams.com

  TREX’S MISSION STATEMENT

  Tactical Retrieval Experts (TREX) is a privately funded agency independent of law enforcement, military, or any governmental restrictions. Our focus is on tracking and retrieving objects. Simply put: we find things. Employing highly-trained agents with extensive experience in covert operations and unlimited resources, we will find anything and with guaranteed confidentiality. No matter the circumstances. No matter the danger. Call on TREX—we find what’s been lost.

  ONE

  “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” Dan Weber, world-renowned superspy turned special director of the entire western region of TREX, whispered through the mic resting against his neck.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” David Snyder grunted as he belly crawled through the thick brush behind his mentor. He hated the jungle, hated the heat, and really hated Sri Lanka in general. After spending six months in Colombia and nearly getting his ass shot off, he’d had enough of ops in other countries. And now, here they were on the other side of the world to take out yet another threat to his U.S. of A. “I still have a bad feeling about this.”

  He’d committed the logistics for their entire op to memory—a mental gift that came in handy while in the field. He felt pretty damn good about their strike path. But then Weber had to go and screw everything up by shifting the path at the last minute. Again. “Too predictable” he’d called it.

  “It’s just nerves,” he offered to ease David’s mind.

  “Right. Nerves.” He didn’t usually let his personal feelings into his missions. For some reason he had a very weird feeling about this one. Not weird, exactly. Eerie? No, that didn’t even come close to it. He couldn’t describe the apprehension filling his veins, slowing his motions.

  The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. Something simply didn’t feel right. “Weber?”

  “You’ll be fine. You said this is what you wanted.”

  Yes, he wanted his own op. After Weber gave him lead on this one, the SD decided to tag along. It didn’t piss him off, not really. Sure, knowing your superior didn’t trust you enough to handle an op on your own would get under anyone’s skin. He also knew Weber. To say the guy had trust issues would be an understatement.

  He’d played backup for the best of them, including Weber. Now in the driver’s seat, his mentor came along to make sure he didn’t crash and burn. It made sense.

  Bruised his ego.

  But made sense.

  David brought up his head just enough to see they hadn’t made very good progress in the last twenty minutes. They needed to stay low, but this crawling around in the rotting jungle didn’t top his list of things to do before he died. The stench of the fermenting leaves masked everything else. The flies landing on his face and neck irritated the shit out of him. When they bit into his flesh, it really pissed him off.

  “You know what to do,” Weber coached. “Once Khalil is dead, we’ll go back to the safe house and have a nice cold beer. Let’s brief one more time.”

  “I know what I’m doing, Weber.” They’d already briefed on the plan half a dozen times. Weber had been behind a desk for too long. He’d forgotten how skilled, how insanely precise the spec ops agents in TREX had to be. They only needed to be briefed once, and sometimes they didn’t even need that.

  “I know you do,” Weber answered after a long period of silence. “This is so fucking awkward.”

  “What? Training me in your old role as TREX’s superspy? Or the fact this is your last field op?”

  Weber stiffened. “Who told you?”

  “Your lady.”

  “Damn it. JT doesn’t know when to keep her mouth shut.”

  David grinned. “It was only a matter of time, old friend. You’re the special director now. The rest of the directors answer to you. You’re a suit. You can’t take on every psychopath waging a war against the U.S.” That’s my job now.

  Weber sighed. “Right. Just remember what I told you.”

  “About the bird? I figured the heat had gotten to you.”

  “It’s a metaphor, smartass. Do you even know what it means?”

  He wanted to tell Weber where to stick his metaphor. Another fly feasted on the flesh of his neck and he fought to reach up and slap at it. “No, and right now I don’t give a shit.”

  “Quit bitching about what you don’t have and make due with what’s in front of you.”

  “What, your ass?”

  Weber growled through the mic. “Would you be serious for once? All this talk of bad feelings is not instilling confidence, my friend.”

  “So I have a feeling, so the fuck what? Doesn’t stop me from doing my job.” He hated it when Weber lectured, especially when he happened to be right.

  “That’s what I wanted to hear.” Weber made the signal for silence. David flattened himself on the ground. The fragrant smell of the rotting fauna kicked up into his nostrils. He breathed through his mouth after the overwhelming urge to gag caused his saliva glands to activate. He and Weber moved out from under the shaded shelter of the jungle and into the clearing.

  Jesus, the humidity alone robbed the oxygen from the air. Like he needed another reason to have a hard time breathing. The sun’s heat breached his one-piece Kevlar and spandex blend TREX dubbed Kevspa, causing the protective undergarment to stick to him in all the wrong places. The sweat immediately pooled on his lower back, running down the sides of his waist. Shit. As if the flies biting into his flesh didn’t already have him irritated as hell, now he had to fight the urge to shift and itch at the trickle of moisture every time it tickled down.

  He squinted against the brightness of the sun. Not a single cloud graced the sky. Of course. Sweat rolled down his forehead and into his eyes, causing them to sting and tear. His throat dry, he swallowed.

  Something did not feel right. He hesitated, the sense of unease causing his neck hairs to continue to prickle. Wiping his eyes on his sleeve, he drew in an uneasy breath to slow his ever-quickening heart rate. His mind wandered, as if he didn’t have enough to focus on.

  What if the op went south? His chest tightened at the thought. He and Weber were the only two within shooting distance of Khalil and his men. The rest of the team had been ordered to stay back and wait for the signal. If Khalil’s men discovered the two assassins sneaking in to take out their asshole leader, both TREX agents were fucked.

  Weber assured them this would be an easy in and out. One shot and the bio-terrorist would no longer be a threat. The two of them would slip in, take him out, and slip back out without being detected. No n
eed calling in the cavalry for something this effortless.

  Effortless? Riiight. David blew at a fly as it attempted to crawl into his mouth. Creeping through sparse cover in an attempt to remain undetected while the unrelenting sun blazed down, blistering their skin and dehydrating the hell out of them did not classify as effortless.

  Their cover had dwindled to a few dried, dead grass blades by the time the two reached the compound. Thank God Khalil and his men had spent all day drinking or they would have easily spotted the two TREX agents dressed in head-to-toe black as they stole into their territory. Judging by the way the dumb bastards continued to throw back the contents of those bottles, they wouldn’t have the ability to focus two feet in front of them, let alone fifty feet out.

  The grass blades poked through the Kevspa, irritating the skin on his front side. The garment deflected most caliber bullets, but was completely useless as protection against the elements.

  When they got back to HQ, he’d have a little chat with the Gadget Master, the creator of the protective uniform. TREX field agents had to have something protect them against more than bullets.

  Another hard twig nailed him in the neck. Between the grass, the sun, and the damn biting flies, his flesh was raw. He caught himself before he raised his hand to smack a fly off his face as it made a meal out of his cheek. One move like that could blow their cover and get them both killed. So, instead, he gave the little blood-sucking fuckers a free meal.

  “Approaching target,” Weber barely whispered. The state of the art mics they used picked up the sound of a flea farting in another town. They practically transmitted a person’s thoughts.

  David acknowledged by tapping his mic twice.

  They stayed low. Khalil and his men stood outside on the covered porch. In this heat? But then again, judging by the shack intel referred to as their HQ, he’d wager the place had to be twenty degrees hotter inside. Another thing to convince him these assholes living in the middle of a fucking clearing with the sun blazing down were all insane. Khalil stood in the middle of the circle, laughing and carrying on as if he had all the time in the world.

  Time’s up, asshole. David grinned inwardly as his insides bounced around like water on a hot grill, shelving his apprehension. God how he loved his job. The blood racing through his veins, the exhilaration of locating and taking out the mark made every violation of the elements worth it. He wrote off his unease to nerves, just as Weber said.

  Silently locking the bipod in place, he lined the crosshairs across Khalil’s chest. The anxiety threatened to surface again, but David pushed it down and steadied his hands.

  Time to do what he did best. “Target in sight,” he mentioned, barely above a sigh.

  “Take him out. One shot. Make it clean.” Weber paused and then added, “Not the chest. Too much of a chance it’ll bounce off the vitals. Always give them a third eye.”

  He acknowledged and repositioned the crosshairs before gently squeezing the trigger.

  Pop.

  Khalil dropped like the sack of shit he was. Because of the silencer, the goons surrounding him had no idea where the shot came from. Half of them screamed and pointed toward the brush, while the other half pointed off toward the jungle surrounding two-thirds of their compound. A few of them fell to their knees and cried out when they saw the puddle of blood forming under their boss’s head.

  “Nice shot,” Weber whispered. David heard him as if he’d shouted right into his ear.

  “Yes, it was.” He turned and followed Weber back toward their rendezvous point. The sun shone directly overhead. The sweat in his eyes blinded him. He could just make out the blurred shadow of Weber up ahead.

  He had no reason to be nervous. The unwarranted apprehension dissipated. Easy in. Easy out. He needed to learn to listen to his boss, to ignore that nagging feeling something bad was about to—

  He didn’t have time to finish his thought before Weber went still and motioned for him to flatten out. With the hand signals all TREX field agents knew in their sleep, Weber told him three men stumbled around in the grass ahead, casing the brush.

  Brush? Hardly. The men searched through the dead grass field. If they turned ninety degrees and simply lifted their gaze fifty feet in front of them, he and Weber would be toast. The grass didn’t even remotely cover them.

  Oh shit. Weber reached for his UZI as two of the men did, indeed, turn the needed ninety degrees, putting them in direct view.

  Not a noise, Weber signed. Don’t move. Don’t even breathe.

  David forced a sense of calm. Panic didn’t exist in a TREX agent. Panic equaled death. One false move, one panic-induced meltdown and they were dead.

  Weber motioned for him to slowly back up. As deftly as possible, he did. And promptly snapped the loudest goddamn stick in existence.

  Pandemonium erupted. Weber jumped to his feet and started screaming something in Arabic. David made a mental note to learn the language once and for all. Weber had been talking to the locals the entire op and he hadn’t a clue what he’d said. Very un-TREX of him.

  He sprang up and screamed nonsense, mimicking Weber. He had no idea what he said, or if he said anything at all. But, apparently it worked. The men all dropped their weapons and raised their hands to the sky.

  Fuck, yeah.

  He checked his peripherals, confirming the men all, indeed, had thrown down their weapons. He blinked the burn back, the damn sweat blurring his vision. His unease grew to anxiety, which grew to full-blown fear. This right here explained why he had such an uneasy feeling. Two men with guns jump up and disarm an entire army after taking out their leader? It didn’t make sense. The men should be pissed, ready to shoot the bastards who killed Khalil. They’re trained to kill, not to give up at the first sign of a fight.

  No. This didn’t fit. It had to be a trap. He attempted to get Weber’s attention with hand signals, but his mentor wouldn’t acknowledge. “Weber,” he whispered into the mic when the hand signal didn’t work.

  Weber ignored him.

  “Weber,” he pushed. “This is wrong.”

  “Mirror my lead,” Weber responded. He then yelled something in Arabic and moved forward, herding all of the men together.

  David blinked again in an attempt to clear his vision. Fighting against his body’s need to keep them closed, he forced them open. The dirt felt like eighty grit sandpaper scraping his eyes instead of his lids.

  Every internal alarm screamed to life. Behind you, his instincts shouted. He spun around. A man with a big ass gun had Weber in his sights. The man darted his gaze at David when he realized he’d been spotted.

  Time moved in slow motion. The man cocked his 8mm. David cocked his UZI in return. As he looked into the man’s eyes—black as coal and windows to a soul just as black—he realized what was about to happen.

  Oh Fuck. No!

  He broke into a sprint as the rapport of the gun echoed into the hot afternoon. He jumped and pushed at Weber, taking the bullet meant for his mentor, his director, his best friend.

  The bullet ripped through his right shoulder. The sharp explosion of white-hot pain stabbed into his flesh. The Kevspa couldn’t deflect an 8mm at this range. Nothing could. Instead of more rips of agony as the bullet tore out the other side of his shoulder, the jarring sensation of something blazing and very pissed off bounced down his ribcage.

  “Shit!” He spun and lost his balance. He tensed and involuntarily released his gun. Weber fired for cover as David crumpled.

  Shaking to control the pain as it drove to consume him into darkness, he rolled, found the gun on the ground, and came back up with it in his left hand. He took out the front line, while Weber took out the next row.

  Stay conscious. Stay conscious.

  His legs wouldn’t hold him. His vision blurred. The excruciating sensation of a fireball shredding his torso kept him down. His lungs refused to pull in oxygen. He tasted blood. Forcing himself up, he made it to his knees. When he tried to stand, the pain blinded him, nau
seated him, weakened him. He doubled over, holding himself up with his elbows, and shook uncontrollably.

  No, no, no! He refused to go down. Weber wouldn’t be able to take out all of those men alone. David was his back up. Weber needed him. Wait. He took the lead on this, didn’t he? Ah, nothing made sense. His brain wouldn’t clear, the pain leaving room for nothing else.

  Open your eyes, Snyder!

  More shots. They sounded so distant. He fought against the urge to close his eyes. He couldn’t see, the focus simply not there. Pushing himself to his knees, he blinked and spotted two men jumping off the porch.

  He raised the gun and fired until they both dropped. The air smelled like gunpowder as it fell silent. He panted against the pain, wanting to scream and give in to the all-consuming torture. He’d been shot before, that time only in the arm. Clean exit. A little patch job and he was as good as new.

  Something told him he wouldn’t get off that lucky this time. He tried to stand, but his legs had other plans. Leaning on the stock of his gun, he took a shallow breath. The distinct gurgle only confirmed his bad fucking luck. The bullet had punctured a lung.

  “Can you move?” Weber pulled him up, held him until he stood on his own. He swayed and shook harder.

  When did he start sweating again? A cold sweat that delivered with it chills stemming from his bones. He squinted to remain focused as the trees in front of them lost some their sharpness. He just made out their guns.

  Guns? Since when did trees have guns?

  “We’ve got company. Stay with me, buddy. You up for another round?”

  “Yeah,” he mumbled. His gun was like a lead weight in his useless arm. He had no idea how much blood he’d already lost. From the way he felt like he just woke up from a seven-day drunk, he’d say he had another two minutes before he passed out.