Shadow in the Mountain (Shadow SEALs)

by KaLyn Cooper

  Ryker followed Xena over to the wall filled with electrical plugs. Plastic cases the size of ring boxes sat on charging stands filling one shelf. She plucked the pair of purple ones from the case and buried them into her ears. “These connect directly to your helmet which connects to any helicopter, plane, tank, or other military vehicles we own.”

  He nodded and extracted the pair of beige ones. When he seated the tiny buds into his ear he smiled. “It’s amazing how well I can still hear my surroundings.”

  Xena reached over and pressed on the outside of his ear then turned her back to him. “You should be able to hear me,” she whispered.

  “These are amazing. U.S. Navy should buy these.”

  Xena laughed. “That’ll never happen. They’re made by the Russians. Turn it off for now by double-clicking.” She turned around and made sure he did it correctly.

  “Let’s go deal with our parachutes first. We might need them tomorrow night.” She was so glad they had at least another twenty-four hours to prepare since they were waiting until Serena and Ajax were in place. The dual rescue had to be precisely timed.

  As they meticulously checked their parachutes for frayed lines or tiny tears, Xena decided she needed to know more about Ryker. “I told you my story. Where did you grow up?”

  “Indiana.” His answer was so clipped she almost didn’t continue.

  Some part of her wanted to know more. “Do you have siblings?”

  Ryker chuckled. “Depends what you consider siblings.” He stopped moving his hands up the ropes and stared at her. After a long minute, he let out a deep sigh. “No, I don’t have any blood siblings…or relatives. I grew up in the foster care system after my parents were murdered in front of me.”

  “Oh, no.” She circled around the long table and pulled him into her arms. “I’m so sorry, Ryker.”

  “There’s no reason for pity. I barely remember my birth parents. I consider Frank and Nancy Holt my parents. I was only in two other foster homes before they took me in when I was five years old. They were wonderful parents.” He chuckled. “They still are.”

  “The foster care system, though, that must’ve been tough?” Xena’s heart went out to the little boy who’d seen too much by the age of five.

  “I grew up on a farm surrounded by love. I had lots of siblings. The house was always filled with foster children of all ages, backgrounds, and reasons they were in the system. The Holts lavished love on every one of them.” His attention went back to his parachute, so she went back to hers.

  “Is that where you met Ajax?” She asked without lifting her head.

  “Yeah. He came to live with us when we were twelve.” There was a smile in his voice. “We’ve been the best of friends ever since. Joined the Navy together right after high school graduation. Got accepted for the SEAL program the same day and we were in the same BUD/S class. I don’t think I would’ve made it through without him. I think he’d say the same of me.”

  “Sometimes I wish I’d had a sister rather than two brothers.” She’d never admitted that to anyone, least of all a man. She scoffed. “I’ve been surrounded by men trained in special operations all of my life. It wasn’t until I went through the JAFSOS that I ever really had girlfriends. Like you with Ajax, I wouldn’t have made it through that grueling training without their support and encouragement. Even though I’ve returned to Africa, I stay in touch with several of them. Every time I return to the United States, I hang out with them.”

  “Unlike you, I didn’t want to leave the Navy.” Ryker’s heavy sigh seemed to fill the air. “I wanted to be a thirty-year man. But that didn’t work out.”

  Trying to change the subject, Xena asked, “Before your team got ambushed and captured, had you ever been to Ethiopia before?”

  “Yes. Seven years ago, Sudanese rebels attacked a refugee camp just across the border in Ethiopia. We were sent in to rescue several American physicians and medical personnel who were there with Doctors Without Borders.” Ryker drew in a ragged breath. “We didn’t get there in time...not to rescue them.”

  A huge smile broke across Ryker’s face. “But we got the kids. The rebels kidnapped several children including the five-year-old daughter of the American doctor and his wife who was a nurse in the camp. It took us weeks in the fucking Sudan desert, but we hunted those fuckers down and killed every one of them.” He lifted his head and met her gaze. “They were selling the children into sex slavery.”

  “Were the children returned to their families?” Xena heard the desperation in her own voice.

  Ryker shook his head. “Not all of them. Dani, the five-year-old American girl, had no one. She ended up in the foster care system in California because that’s where her parents had joined the DWB.”

  Xena’s heart broke for both the little girl and Ryker. Their parents had been killed in front of them at such a young age. That had to be devastating. Then to be thrown into a government-controlled system where they had no say in what happened to them.

  He glanced away before returning his gaze to her. “I don’t let many people know that I’m part of the Big Brothers, Big Sisters program in southern California and she’s my little sister. We’re not supposed to have contact with those we save but I hunted her down. I wanted her to have the same wonderful experience I had in foster care. I make sure she has presents at Christmas, her birthday, and just because any other time. Mom and Dad are working to get her transferred to Indiana so she can go live on the farm.”

  Xena fell more than a little in love with the man leaning over the parachute on the table next to hers.

  Ryker carried gear to the helicopter as Blade walked around the AH/MH-6Q. “We used these while training with the Army Special Forces. These are fast.”

  “I’m quite sure you didn’t use one like this. It’s an experimental model we’re testing for Boeing. Not only is it a light attack aircraft with all the improvements they’ve made for Special Forces, but it’s also been enhanced with several stealth modifications.”

  Ryker noticed Blade was limping and pointed to his knee. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. The weather’s changing.” Blade looked up at a perfectly blue sky. “Storms can blow in pretty quick around here.”

  “How did you hurt your knee? In the Army?” Ryker was just trying to make conversation while he waited for Clint and Xena.

  “Yeah. That’s why the Army and I parted ways a few years ago. I had a hard landing.” Bitterness filled Blade’s words.

  “I don’t know about the Army, but in the Navy, that means it crashed but they were able to salvage the bird so it could fly again.”

  Blade chuckled without mirth. “The bird was still salvageable. My knee, not so much. I broke several bones, saved every life I was carrying and the chopper, but the Army decided they didn’t need another broken-down pilot. Clint, on the other hand, called me before I was out of the hospital offering me a job here.”

  The two men watched as Clint and Xena walked across the wide landing strip to the helicopter hangar.

  “I’d follow either of those two into hell…because I know we’d come out the other side after kicking ass and taking names.” His admiration for the Riggs was written in his body language toward them.

  “Is that why you’re on Xena’s team?” Ryker asked, curious for personal reasons.

  “She’s very well-trained and has the best analytical and tactical mind I’ve ever seen. She knows Africa inside and out. She doesn’t hesitate to kill the enemy but has the most compassion and caring for human beings, unlike I’ve ever seen in a military officer.” He stared at Ryker. “I’m not sure you’re good enough for her, but I know you’ve chosen her now.”

  “Are you warning me off?” For yourself was implied.

  “Xena is far too good for an old, disgruntled, disenchanted, Green Beret. But I will protect her like the sister I never had.” There was a warning in his dark brown eyes. “She’s one hell of a woman. Truly a warrior princess. It’s going to take one hell
of a man to capture her heart…and keep it.”

  Blade stood as they approached but were still out of hearing distance. “Good luck. You’re going to need it.”

  “No, I’m not,” Ryker countered. “We both know the endgame.”

  “Hurt her and I’ll hunt you down.” And kill you didn’t need to be spoken.

  Sitting on the side of the open-doored helicopter, his legs dangling over the skids as the fast Little Bird approached the landing zone, Ryker felt the excitement he’d missed since being on the teams. Damn, he missed his job.

  They fast roped down twenty feet and ran to the rocks and bushes they’d picked out as they passed over the area the first time. Infiltration took less than two minutes. From their hiding spot, they watched Blade land the helicopter and quickly shut down its powerful engine and six rotors.

  “We need to make this as fast as possible. There’s a storm moving in. Weather guessers are giving us an hour before the wind starts to really kick up.” Blade’s voice came through loud and clear in Ryker’s ear.

  “Drones don’t like wind, in case I forgot to tell you that. The bees are going to be hard to handle.” Dell warned.

  “Fucking great.” Clint spoke for all three of them as they lifted the tiny drones from their foam nest.

  Waiting was always the worst part for Ryker, especially when they were on a clock that he couldn’t control. Clint had taken the east end of their hide and Xena the west. Javier found a better sniper blind twenty feet up the mountain. Until Dell gave them the word, they couldn’t deploy the bees.

  “I’ve sent the drones to the coordinates the CIA gave us, but we all know how reliable they are.” Dell immediately changed his tune. “Fuck me sideways, they were correct for the first time I’ve ever dealt with them.”

  Xena giggled lightly. “You just haven’t dealt with Charley like this.”

  “I might just be in love,” Dell snarked back. “Pictures coming in now.”

  “Fuck.” Blade made two words out of the curse. “They’re not just setting up camp, they’re settling in. Obviously, someone with a military background has taken control. The tents are lined up, they’re clearing lines of fire.”

  Ryker felt a breeze across his face, slightly cooler than the air. He welcomed the feeling until he realized its significance. “Wind is picking up.”

  “Dell, can we send in the bees?” Clint pushed.

  “Yeah. Sending the coordinates now.”

  Working as a team, the three of them placed their tiny drones in front of them and donned the special goggles.

  “Javier, we’re going blind. Now.” Clint’s was the first in the air. “You ain’t shittin’; they don’t like wind.”

  “Give them full power until you reach the tree line. The valley between us fucks with the wind.” Dell explained.

  Once Ryker’s bee was in the air, he pointed to the camp. It screamed over the valley then nearly ran into a tree before he slowed down. He circled the perimeter as they all searched for the captured SEALs. Since they’d been tied to trees the last time, he searched just outside the camp in an area that seemed to get a lot of traffic.

  “Oh, Jesus. No.” His words were just above a whisper.

  “Did you find them?” Xena asked.

  “No. It wasn’t the SEALs tied to the trees,” Ryker said through clenched teeth. “It was the girls.”

  “What are the coordinates?” Clint demanded.

  Ryker read them off the bottom of his goggles.

  “We’re rescuing those girls, too.”

  Ryker turned his tiny drone and scanned the section of camp he’d been assigned.

  “I think I may have them,” Xena said excitedly. “I’m going to try to get closer.” She then gave the coordinates and Ryker pointed his drone that way. It was his job to identify the prisoners to be sure they were the SEALs they were looking for.

  “Are you sure those are the right coordinates?” Ryker was looking at the mining truck.

  “Somebody just went inside it with a stack of bowls and a bucket. The door won’t be open for long so we need to get as much video as we can.” Xena explained what she was seeing so Ryker moved a few feet to the side.

  “I’m approaching from the east. I’ve got your back.” Clint went on to explain, “With all three of us this close together, the noise will be noticeable, and we don’t want to attract attention.”

  “Clint, move yours over top the truck facing the camp,” Dell suggested. “People don’t look up.”

  “I do,” Blade, Xena, Clint, and Ryker said at the same time.

  “I understand what you’re saying. In that position now.” A few moments later, Clint cursed. “Fuckin’ A. Hello Nebil Yared. Or should I call you General Yared? Let’s see if we can get a close-up so there is no doubt that you are in charge.”

  Ryker held his bee pointed at the back doors.

  “Move up a few feet and spread out,” Clint warned. “Yared and his staff are heading straight for you.”

  A slight push of his thumb and his bee rose straight up.

  “Careful, Xena. If you go back any further, you’re gonna hit that tree.”

  “Thanks, bro.”

  The doors to the back of the box truck opened and Ryker’s heart hit the ground.

  His teammates—his friends—were chained to the walls. Larson Aldrich, Heath Kubiak, Kenner Lane, Holden Billings. Four of the six SEALs were there.

  “It’s them,” Ryker managed to say around the huge lump in his throat.

  They were naked, dirty, and blood-caked. Each sported several large bruises. Their short chains would not allow them to touch each other. They sat on the floor holding a bowl, eating with their hands, which seemed uncoordinated.

  “I’ll bet they’re keeping them drugged.” Xena was probably right. They were Navy SEALs and would never stop trying to escape. “Compared to you, Ryker, they’re extremely thin.”

  Shame rushed through him. His friends had been held prisoner while he was home eating and drinking away his sorrow and disgrace. He wanted to throw down the drone controls, rip off the goggles, and charge in there to rescue his team.

  Over a decade of training calmed his mind. They needed complete reconnaissance. That’s why he was there.

  “Yared is going in,” Clint announced. “Be sure you get this.”

  “He’s facing away from our cameras so I can’t tell what he saying,” Xena told the others.

  “Zoom in on his face as he exits, Xena. He’ll be talking to his staff, most likely about his prisoners.”

  Ryker zoomed in on each man, hoping to catch as much as he could before they closed the doors.

  As soon as Yared was on the ground, the doors closed.

  Ryker’s heart squeezed.

  “I’m going to get as much footage as I can from in front of the truck. Dell, they have to be moving in and out of this camp. Find the road. They’ll also have a back way out. Find it. Xena, go back to your end of camp and film as much as you can. We’re going to need to develop a map of this whole place. Ryker, make a slow sweep of everything in your area then expand the circle.”

  Ryker felt a drop of rain.

  “Great plan, Clint, but no can do.” Dell sounded hurried. “Signal for the bees to come home. These things are so tiny that a raindrop can come out of the sky and fry all their electronics.”

  “Shit!”

  “Fuck.”

  Ryker made the quick trip around that area of camp before he maneuvered his bee out of the woods. As soon as it hit the clearing, the wind almost knocked it to the ground. He flew it up to fifty feet hoping to find calmer air but no such luck. Punching the power helped some. His poor little bee fought its way to him, landing a few feet away. He quickly grabbed the small drone and put it back in its designated slot next to Clint’s.

  “Mine’s almost here,” Xena announced as it started to sprinkle.

  “Little Bird is ready. We’re taking off. Lineup for SPIE.” Blade ordered.

  They�
��d agreed to hook on according to weight. Xena was first, Javier was next, then Ryker, with Clint as anchor. Ryker opened his carabiners then slid on his gloves. Blade appeared overhead and Dell threw out the rope to Xena who immediately started passing it back.

  Clipping into the rings embedded in the thick rope, he screwed the carabiner closed. Arms out. Thumbs up. “Ryker ready.” He was the first but everyone else followed quickly.

  “Lifting off.” Blade smoothly pulled the Little Bird into the air, gently lifting the four of them off the ground. The rotor downwash was nothing compared to the winds that preceded the storm. Dangling in the air hundreds of feet above the treetops, they flew over the top of the mountain range.

  Ryker got a bird’s eye view of the gently sloping green hills with tall columns of solid rock jutting out of the top, some as tall as a thousand feet.

  Blade finally found a place to land. He slowly set the four of them on the ground first, so they could unhook. They ran to the little helicopter, SPIE rope in hand as they jumped inside and closed the doors.

  “Did we get enough data to map the camp?” Ryker asked as soon as he buckled in.

  “I think so.” Dell never looked up from his computer.

  Chapter 19

  “Some of the feed is really good and some of it really sucks,” Dell told everyone gathered around the computers at the operations center. “The good news is, that while the bees were in the woods, the video is pretty good. The bad news is that the bigger drones’ cameras got wet, so everything seems contrary blurry after it started raining. Somehow, water also corrupted the many SD drives inside all four big drones.”

  “What you’re saying is that we don’t have enough to accurately map out camp.” Clint rubbed his temples.

  Xena approached the biggest flatscreen that held a bird’s eye view of the area they knew was the camp. “This is going to take time, but we can do it. If we have to, we can do another recon mission tonight.”

  “Van will be flying over the area a few hours after dark.” Her dad, with his ever-present coffee cup, reminded everyone. “His plane has IFR. I’m not crazy about the idea of sending in another recon team. Now that General Yared is on-site, he’s going to be much more vigilant about camp security. He’s fought dirty wars all his life. When his political party was in power and he was a high-ranking officer in the Ethiopian Army, he spent a lot of time in U.S. and Russian advanced military schools. I know for a fact he attended the U.S. War College in Pennsylvania. Clint was a senior at West Point that year. Yared bragged during the diplomatic flight about how much top-secret techniques and technology the U.S. openly shared with him during these classes. Don’t underestimate him.”