“Stellar thought.” She gave him a half smile and then stopped him from moving past her, demanding a good-morning kiss. He complied, it being his duty and all.
Looking down at his curvy red-haired vixen, he said, “I just ask one thing—that there are no tears. It isn’t done.”
“Roger that,” she said with a salute.
“Where did you learn that? Your salute needs work, by the way.”
“You didn’t complain when I was saluting you last night,” she teased.
“Ha, ha.” His memory replayed her appreciation, and his body was already responding. “Aria…” he warned, wishing he could take her back to bed.
She hugged him. “Seriously, I’m learning stuff from you. You’re rubbing off on me, Chief McCullum.” She whispered. “Or should I say, Big Mac.”
“Too sexy, when you say it.” He grinned. “Well, hopefully I’m rubbing you the right way with my attentions.”
Her laughter came out in a spurt of joviality. “Yes. Again and again.”
He flipped on the outside light and then held the door for her. Aria took their hot beverages, and he hoisted his gear onto his shoulders. They locked up and left. “Check through the window before you open the doors, okay?”
“I will,” said Aria.
“Keep a log of his calls, and if he threatens you, call the police.” Dan felt uneasy about leaving them. “You and Jimmy could go stay at Caty’s house. Maybe it’d help your bonding.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” said Aria. “She doesn’t know any of this, does she?”
“No, she’s been giving us space…the whole newlywed thing.” Dan beeped the unlocking system, triggered the trunk button, and laid his bags inside. “Might be nice if you touched base sometime this week or next.”
He turned on the ignition and buckled his seat belt. He waited while Aria did hers.
“Will you be gone that long?” His wife’s face looked so young and vulnerable.
Leaning over, he kissed her again. So worth it! Her kisses were wonderful.
“I don’t know.” Putting the car in drive, he pulled away from the curb. “Trust me, I will come home as soon as I can. I want to be with you. Got it?”
She laid her hand over his as he drove to pick up his swim buddy, the other best friend he now had. Aria, through all of the hardships she’d endured, trusted him, honored him, and believed him when he asked it of her. His wife was remarkable.
***
As they pulled into the parking lot of the NAS North Island Air Terminal, JC was quick to get out of the car. He got his bag out of the trunk and hotfooted it to the group gathering by the fence.
“Guess JC wanted to give us some privacy.” Aria leaned over and gave him a big grin. “Could we get away with something sexy happening in the car before you leave?”
He smiled. “No, but thanks for the thought. Listen, JC’s pretty stressed about leaving, with his wife so close to going into labor. Could you go over there, maybe say hi or something?” Dan got out of the car and went to the trunk to get his gear.
She followed him and took the keys from his outstretched hand. “Sure, though isn’t it sort of strange…given that I’ve never met her before?”
“Actually, Jen is the one female associated with SEAL Team that I did talk to…about you.” Dan kissed her nose and then planted one on her lips. “She’s the best egg of the bunch. If you like Hannah, you’re going to love Jen.”
“That’s quite a list of social interaction you’re giving me, Dan.” She only looked slightly perturbed. When she smiled, he knew everything was all right.
“Wouldn’t want you to miss me or anything…”
“Never,” she said, entwining her hands behind his neck and kissing him with a punch that practically tented his trousers. “Get those bastards.”
“Roger that.”
“I love you.” She leaned her body against him briefly and then broke the contact. She stood tall. That’s my lady!
“You, too.” He took one last quick look and walked away. His mind was already gearing up, focusing on what was to come… Kicking ass.
***
They stowed their gear and took their seats. Ah, yes, nothing more fun than riding all day in an airplane. Well, maybe a root canal was more satisfying, as something actually got fixed. Dan knew he shouldn’t be complaining, even in his own head, because their flight was as direct as it got, flying to Asia. The C-17 was hauling ass! They wouldn’t be riding the usual big birds with the multiple stopovers in Oahu and the Philippines. They could zip over the ocean, stop in Guam for a quick refueling, and their next stop was South Korea.
Turbulence bounced the plane. The ride might be fast, but no one said it would be smooth.
Closing his eyes, he thought of Sandra Niang and the circumstances surrounding her life. At the bar, GG had spoken of a woman who had changed his life. Why GG had traveled halfway around the world to get her, he understood. Love mattered. If only GG had gotten her out of the country faster…well, she probably wouldn’t be dead. Damn it, why had the CIA made Sandra into an asset in exchange for a crappy deal? Hadn’t they realized she would have had to commit a criminal act, probably several, to be accepted into the terrorist group? He wondered what she had done.
A meaty palm landing on his shoulder startled him. Dan’s eyes sprang open and his sight was filled with Hammer, leaning down. The man’s breath smelled like egg salad. “Listen, I heard…about the sepsis. I shouldn’t have ridden you. I thought you were hungover or some kind of crap like that. I should have known you wouldn’t go up and jump unless you were in top form.” He rubbed his chin. “Are you good to go?”
Dan looked at JC, who shrugged. His swim buddy had probably spilled the beans defending him. How could he fault the guy? Damn it, secrets were so easy to keep in the Teams. You practically couldn’t take a leak without everyone knowing how much and what color.
Whatever. Dan nodded. There wasn’t much he had to say to Hammer. He understood the reason that his Teammate called him on the crap surrounding the HALO jump. This shit is dangerous!
“Mac, I’m not good at this stuff. Sorry about the—” Hammer looked as if he were in pain, as if someone had stabbed the soft tissue between his legs with a tack.
Raising a hand, Dan stopped the CPO. “It’s fine. You did a good thing. I would have called you on the same shit. We’re good.”
Hammer stared at him.
JC said in a mocking voice, “I love you, Hammer. I love you, too, Mac.” He yawned. “Aw, shucks, thanks! Can you two kiss and make up later? I’m trying to get some shut-eye.” JC shifted in his seat, obviously trying to ignore them both. But JC wasn’t done. When he began making kissing sounds, all of them laughed.
Hammer swatted JC on the top of his head and retreated to the front of the plane. Dan watched him go. If a friend can’t call it like it is…that wasn’t someone who honored your energies. The Hammer, he was definitely a bud.
JC shoved his elbows under Dan’s ribs. “Never enough space on these things. I’d like to see a plane with beds on it.”
“I heard they had that kind of thing in first class.”
“No way!” JC kicked his legs out and then crossed them again. “My knees feel as if there are pins in them. I hate the flying part.”
“But you love to jump,” said Dan, teasing his buddy. “Maybe you should have feathers instead of all that hair on your back.”
JC sniffed.
“What?” Dan looked over his shoulder at his swim buddy.
“I feel like you have a new boyfriend.” JC scratched his balls. “It hurts me, my brother.”
“Give it a rest. I’m going to get some shut-eye.” Dan murmured, “Fuck you, JC.”
JC sighed, “If only I could fuck… I miss my wife.”
I second that, thought Dan. I miss Aria already, too.
***
The jet touched down smoothly.
Everyone on board was prepped and ready to go. Two hours from their
destination, the Team had chowed down and gone over the strategy. The part that stuck in Dan’s head was the lack of options. Usually they had a few alternatives if the shit went sideways or all out hit the fan. In this case, there weren’t a whole hell of a lot of options.
Dan pursed his lips. One of Gich’s preferred quotes—the British Army adage “Proper planning and preparation prevents piss-poor performance”—kept coming to mind, and that little gem raised an instant red flag for him. He brought up to the Team those things that didn’t set right. “What if our path is blocked?”
“We wait,” replied LT.
“For how long…forever? It’s like being stuck in a bottleneck.” Dan was not thrilled.
They’d looked at the map, but there was only one other option, because there were known minefields on either side, all around the compound.
“What happens if we run into booby traps or IEDs and over half the Team is wounded? No helos can enter the area without starting a war.” Hammer pointed out those lovely problems.
Anyway they laid it out, it was a crapshoot. Nope! Dan wasn’t thrilled with this plan—at all. Felt like a suicide mission, unless they were very, very smart.
Resigned to some degree, they hashed it out among themselves—the eight of them—and settled on who was taking what position as they patrolled in and out.
The plane door opened and they grabbed their kits and put boots on the ground. Vehicles were waiting to take them to their quarters. It was an old Quonset hut with a stack of cots and a couple of hammocks. They dumped their duffels and went through their packs, making their kits as light as possible.
No one spoke. If someone was listening, all they’d hear were men scuffling about. Nothing would be said to give anything away, but that was just SOP—standard operating procedure.
Hearing a single honk, the XO nodded to them, and Dan’s Team grabbed their gear and exited the building. The second Team, an Intel Officer, and the XO stayed behind. That was the backup option. If things went sideways, the sailors who handled the crap took the fall. The whole Charlie Foxtrot—or Cluster Fuck in civilian parlance—is transitioned to those higher up the food chain, if it turned into an international incident.
Who else knows? Are the Navy brass the only ones, or does it go all the way up to the president? It was hard to judge what the consequences of this mission would be…but they were committed now. According to their protocol, there were some points where they could bug out, but personally Dan wanted to go all the way. Seeing the image of Sandra in his head one more time, he relished the anger pumping in his system. Turning that heat into fuel, he smiled.
Bastards, he said to himself. We’re coming for you.
***
Taking half a day to reach their location wasn’t bad. The trucks had dropped them off at a heavily wooded location close to the border. The driver had made sure no one was looking and nothing was in the area when he stopped, and he’d made a show of looking under the hood and cleaning his windshield.
The Team slipped out of the vehicle and took cover in and around the bushes and trees, waiting in the thick foliage until the truck left…making sure there was no one and nothing going on. Then they ghosted their way over the border, past the guard patrols to the planned destination.
The SEALs watched the guard outpost building for an entire day. With its number and decal, it was easy to identify, and nothing had occurred. No one went in and nothing came out.
This is where the Intel led us! How could this crappy place have anything to do with Sandra’s killing? It has to be hoax.
Their mics were silent. If necessary, they communicated with hand signals.
Finally, they began to move. As they neared the small guard building, Hammer held the Team as he inspected something suspicious. Sure enough…it was a bomb.
Pointing to the entrance and exit of the building, Hammer and Dirks defused them quickly using an easy-to-find dismantling point outside. Those guys had been EOD, or Explosive Ordnance Disposal, before they joined the Teams, and they had a knack for playing with C-4 and shit like that. It was a skill Dan wished he had.
“Whoever set the charges was planning on returning. More like they were keeping something in, rather than someone out.” Hammer spoke softly to Dan. They had been able to ascertain from the windows that no one was inside, and as they entered the building, Dirks took up a spot at the door and JC was farther out in the bushes, keeping lookout. The rest of the Team had taken positions elsewhere, in case this was an ambush.
Dan’s eyes scanned the room. An old table, cracked and scarred, sat in the center of the room with two mended chairs. A stool sat next to an ancient wood-burning stove, and a teapot was on top of it with the lid ajar.
Dust matted the molding around the ceiling and floor.
Three mugs were sitting on a drying rack next to a large jug of murky water. There were jars of loose tea and something that smelled foul, some kind of root, next to it.
The place looked abandoned, but only for a couple of days. There was no telling when someone would return. Hammer paced the length of the room and frowned.
Dan nodded. His eyes scanned the molding again. Yes! There was a clean spot. How had he missed that the first time? He spotted a paneled portion of the wall toward the back of the room and walked over to examine the worn edges.
He pointed it out to Hammer. The EOD genius examined it, gave it a thumbs-up, and then they pulled the panel. It was a closet with a darkened hole at the bottom.
Dan shined his flashlight down into the darkness, and American faces looked up at him. “Damn,” he said. Touching his throat, he said, “LT, we’ve got hostages.”
The Team switched positions as LT made his way into the building. They lowered ropes and hoisted the four men out of the hole. They’d been tortured. They were dehydrated, and a couple of them were badly hurt. Their Corpsman, Zankin, was itching to come in, but there was no way the room could hold any more people. And, Dan and Hammer were getting more antsy and spooked by the minute. “We need to ‘shit and git’…” said Hammer, hefting one of the men onto his shoulder.
Dan agreed and the others complied. They lifted the other men and moved out, leaving Dirks to hook up the trigger for the explosives again, and then made their way back to their hiding spots. Darkness fell as they hightailed it off of the small exit road seconds before two trucks came over the horizon.
In the clear, they double-timed it up a small incline, where Dirks offered to bring up the rear. LT agreed and Dan hung back with him.
He gave the EOD Specialist a questioning look, and Dirks pointed at his eyes with two fingers and then at the small guard-outpost building below. Three guards dressed in local patrol attire were on the ground, bowing to someone obviously higher up the ranks. The man standing in front of them was yelling, if Dan’s Korean was correct, about his time being wasted.
The smallest one undid the explosive device, and the higher-ranked man entered along with two others, then closed the door.
Dirks counted on his fingers. One…two…three…
The building exploded, taking over half the group with it.
The others—only two or three—were shouting and pointing. It was obvious they thought the local guards had screwed up with their explosive entrances.
“Now, that’s art,” said Dirks.
Dan nodded, and they double-timed it to catch up with the rest of the group.
About twenty miles away from the guard building, or more accurately, what was left of it, they’d found a good place to stop briefly. Zankin gave the wounded men a once-over, added some pressure bandages for wounds that had opened, policed the garbage, and they were on their way again.
They traded off carrying the wounded men.
Circling around one of those country patrols, they slipped over the border and were safe on the South Korean side. Thomas radioed for the truck. Brock was on his six, as usual.
They waited, hidden, for the pickup and watched the traffic pass by.
/>
JC and Dan were hunkered down next to the Marine who was the most alert of the bunch. Unable to resist the opportunity, Dan asked, “Did you learn anything…”
“Buck Brandwinde. Yeah. They talked about the number-three leader of the party coming from the lakeside, somewhere only a few hours away. I think…they mentioned mountains and a hot spring.” The Marine’s whisper was soft but hoarse.
Dan handed him a non-scented cough drop, keeping his hand out for the wrapper. He pocketed the waste and then closed his eyes. He could see the path clearly…how to get to the described location. There were only three like it in North Korea. The one he was thinking of was the single hot spring in the southern part.
Brandwinde sucked his candy quietly, enjoying the opportunity to relish it. Every now and then he twitched, his muscles obviously still cramped from his imprisonment.
A wizened man holding a staff took goats down the road. The sound of the goats’ discontent at being herded filled the woods.
Dan took the opportunity to whisper with JC. “I know the place…there’s only one possibility near mountains and a hot spring. I can get us there.” He had spent hours studying the topography of the area. His mind could visualize every bump and hill.
“That’s crazy. We’re not prepped.” JC wasn’t buying into it.
“This might be our only chance. What if the terrorist cell moves?” His body was alive with anticipation. He was already making mental notes of the best direction to take and all of the options available to them.
For a time the sound of bleating goats was all they heard. It eventually faded.
A man in white pants and a shirt with a traditional straw hat led eight children of various ages past their position. They sang a song about butterflies in the sky. Before they made it all the way past, several scooter-type motorcycles buzzed by with couples perched on top. One child came dangerously close to Dan, JC, and Brandwinde.
Clapping a hand over Brandwinde’s mouth and nose, Dan held tight as the child paused and then ran to catch up with the rest.
Once a SEAL Page 19
