Now they were all piled in the family Toyota Highlander. The women were both in the backseat, fully covered by robe and veil. The man was in the driver’s seat, convinced to behave by the HK416 pressed into his ribcage from inside Hal’s own voluminous robe and veil.
“How do you see while wearing this?” The narrow slit at his eyes, covered by a fine mesh to block any view in, might be ideal cover but every time he moved his head what little view he had disappeared behind some fold of fabric.
“Careful,” Teresa warned him, “or we’ll make you wear nylons for a day. And don’t think I can’t make you do it.”
There wasn’t a chance she’d succeed, but he’d wager it would be fun if she tried.
The other woman laughed aloud, then the sound was suddenly muffled as they rounded a corner and pulled up to a military checkpoint.
With a careful prod of the HK, the man behaved.
To Hal’s ear he didn’t have the proper amount of complaint in his tone for being on the road at three in the morning to drive his wife and sisters to aid a sick aunt in the next town over.
Teresa leaned forward and whispered something in the man’s ear. His voice faltered, then he found his stride and they were soon pulling away from the checkpoint. Soon, they were rolling down an empty stretch of highway.
Hal pulled out a satellite phone and dialed the number he’d been given. Twenty minutes later there was a roar close overhead as if the storm, which had been abating, was now hammering back down on them.
Then in the headlights, he could pick out an all-black Night Stalkers Chinook helicopter landing in the middle of the road with its rear ramp down.
They drove straight aboard. After some jockeying, the Loadmaster signaled for lockdown and they were tied into place. They were aloft within two minutes of the helicopter’s arrival.
“Let’s switch seats and I’ll tie him back up.”
“Oh, he’ll behave,” Teresa said with utter confidence.
“What makes you say that?”
“I told him what I’d do to his manhood with my knife if he didn’t do everything perfectly. I gave him every reason to believe me.”
Even if the man didn’t speak any English, he was glancing over at Hal nervously as if guessing the conversation and seeking protection.
Hal grimaced in sympathetic pain. “Maybe I won’t take your nylons bet.”
“Pity,” a woman’s voice spoke from close beside him. The Loadmaster—a woman—was leaning against his lowered window. “I bet you’d look cute in them.”
She walked away, humming the tune to a Gypsy Rose Lee stripper song.
“Not a chance,” he called out after her, but she just broke into song. Strangely enough the other members of the Chinook’s crew joined in as they banked hard, racing back toward friendly territory.
He turned back to face Teresa in the backseat, “Not a chance.”
But he sure wouldn’t mind seeing Chief Petty Officer Teresa Mann in a pair—a flawless soldier with an amazing body. That was a deadly combo indeed.
9
Hal didn’t see anything of Teresa Mann after their first few minutes back on the ground. By the time he’d gone through debrief and delivered his two charges, she had faded into the dawn and was already gone back into whatever invisible Coast Guard fog bank she’d popped out of.
Searching for her hadn’t helped, not that his operational tempo allowed a lot of time to do so.
An inquiry to MSST was returned with a: The United States Coast Guard does not respond to requests for information about the Maritime Safety and Security Team.
A follow-up to the USCG itself simply addressed to CPO Teresa Mann was returned with the puzzling endorsement: No longer with the service.
A Google search returned 23,880 hits, and none of them were her as far as he could tell—except for a seriously cute high school yearbook photo from some unpronounceable high school in Poughkeepsie, New York.
Pounding his head against the wall hadn’t helped either.
By mid-summer he’d decided that he would give it one more shot. He’d been rotated back to Fort Bragg, North Carolina for some Unit refresher training. He didn’t even know where to begin to look for her now that he was stateside, but there had to be some lead he could pick up. If not, he promised himself he’d stop being pitiful about a woman he’d known barely thirty-six hours six months ago…and he’d do that very soon.
The squad he’d spent a long day simulating room-clearing with dragged him out on the town. Hal wasn’t really in the mood for some dive bar, but you just didn’t turn down seven other grunts who’d fired a thousand rounds each together.
They were three bars into Bragg Boulevard before he gave in and just went with the flow. Tomorrow was a “dark” day—an actual, honest-to-god, stateside day of rest. By the fifth bar they were down to three others plus himself. The other four had been peeled off by some of the bar bait with long legs and bottle-blond hair that always flowed around Fort Bragg.
At the seventh bar, he ended up alone. Hal kind of remembered the other three saying they were moving on, but he’d ground to a halt here. He wasn’t drunk, hadn’t finished a whole beer in any of the places, but he was slowing down.
An hour later and half a beer in, he wondered if this was where he’d be sleeping tonight. It was a good spot: back in the corner, a band that was just loud enough to turn his brain into tapioca pudding without beating him to death, and a pleasant enough flow of female scenery to keep him entertained. None of them really grabbed his attention but they were fun to watch. And none bothered to gun for the solitary drinker in the corner. When on assignment he usually slept in far worse places.
He knew how he must look. The slight shell-shock of someone fresh back from the front suddenly surrounded by the bounties of America. Unless they were one of your buddies, you just left guys like him alone until they were back up to speed.
The room shifted.
The noise level didn’t change.
But there had been something. It was the sort of thing that only a trained operator would probably notice; the feel had altered.
He started hunting for the source and it didn’t take long to spot. Nine new arrivals—soldiers who moved like operators. But it wasn’t just that they were Special Ops; you couldn’t get a drink within fifty miles of Fort Bragg without running into some form of top soldier.
Hal blinked a couple of times to bring them into sharper focus.
It wasn’t just that they were Delta, though they were unquestionably from The Unit.
There was also a strange energy about them, as if every step they took was suddenly their first.
A new class had graduated from the Operator’s Training Course. Nobody else moved that way; that impossible bravado generated by finally knowing that for a fact, you are one of the very best warriors on the planet. There was an electrical charge that sizzled off their every step.
He should go over and buy them a round, but he hated giving up his corner table.
He should…
A tenth soldier walked in, moving with that same impossible confidence.
The only woman among them, he’d know her anywhere even though her hair was shorter, because only one woman possessed the finest ass in the military.
And when she turned and spotted him? That smile lit him up like one of those lightning bolts had finally caught him.
That’s why she’d disappeared off the grid and out of MSST; she’d gone for Delta Selection and made it through the six months of OTC.
He could feel the smile on his own face. Unit Operator Teresa Mann looked as if she too had been struck by lightning and it looked damn good on her.
Love in the Drop Zone
Cindy Sue Chavez rocks Delta Force training. However, this time the instructor drives her more than a little crazy. Almost as crazy as being called Cindy Sue.
Master Sergeant JD Ramírez believes in pushing his squad, male or female, as hard as he pushes himself. But Cindy Sue? Her
he pushes the hardest of all.
When the mission calls for the sharpest Delta Force can offer, they discover Love in the Drop Zone.
Introduction
This tale perhaps belongs in the sniper anthology, but as all Cindy Sue shoots is a metal target, it seemed more appropriate here.
As far as I can tell, all Delta Force operators must be more than just exceptional shooters. They have to go through an intensive sniper training.
There are two major and distinct skill sets involved here. Or perhaps three.
One is the actual shooting. Firing accurately over great distances is an incredibly challenging task.
At a thousand yards, a standard round travels for over a second. (The world record kill made in 2017 traveled over four seconds to kill its target 3.5 kilometers away.) In that time and distance, wind can blow it aside, cooler-denser air can cause it to slow and fall more, even the Coriolis effect of the Earth’s spin can have an affect.
This last may seem odd, until you realize that the Earth is spinning at a thousand miles an hour at the equator and zero at the poles. When firing to the north or south, the shooter and the target are actually spinning at different speeds—even if they are just a mile apart. A difference of almost two feet per second if directly north or south.
I explored much of this in the first Delta Force novel, Target Engaged.
In this story I wanted to look at the second (and third) challenge that a sniper faces—getting there (and getting away afterward).
They must arrive in a position to take out the target without being detected. And they must be in such a place that they can also remain undetected after they’ve taken out their target.
Of course, Cindy Sue Chavez finds a solution that’s entirely her own.
1
A shadow loomed over her, blocking out the heat blast of the early morning sun striking across Fort Bragg, North Carolina’s Range 37 training area. No question who it was—he blocked out everything good about the quiet morning. Even the chatty cuckoos and the dive-bomber buzz of passing hummingbirds seemed to go silent in his presence.
“Staff Sergeant Cindy Sue Chavez.”
“Yes, Master Sergeant JD Ramírez?” Could the man be a more formal pain in the ass? She hated being called Cindy Sue and he damn well knew it, but it wasn’t a good idea to talk back to a superior rank—not even when he was being a superior asshole.
Her mother, coming from Guadalajara, had thought Cindy Sue sounded American. But Cindy was Bangor, Maine born-and-buttered and no one in Bangor was named Cindy Sue because it was just too ridiculous—doubly so with her Mexican features and long, dark hair. Her parents had slipped across the border as two starry-eyed sixteen-year-olds seeking the American Dream. They hadn’t known any better, but it still rankled. She sighed. America wasn’t big on giving out guidebooks to help immigrant dreamers along the way. She should damn well write one, at least on how not to name your kids.
Cindy’s personal mission to eradicate her middle name had been a success with most of her fellow Delta Force operators. Being a woman in Special Operations did have a few perks. Women were a rare commodity inside The Unit, as well as a reminder of home, most grunts were inclined to treat her nicely and drop the “Sue” after the fourth or tenth time she asked. A rifle butt in the gut often helped the slow learners.
She wasn’t about to try that on Master Sergeant JD Ramírez whose dark eyes followed her every move. He positively relished how much she hated her extended name, but he was far too dangerous to risk attacking, at least directly. She loved Mama, so rather than indulging in a bit of matricide for giving her the name in the first place, she was leaning very strongly toward offing Master Sergeant JD Ramírez—from a safe distance.
The heat on Range 37 was already climbing toward catastrophic despite the early hour. Low trees struggled upward to either side of this section of the range. Today’s training course lay along the low grassy hillside with scattered scrub and dotted with cheery flowers in yellows, blues, and purples. No hint of real shade anywhere.
Ramírez wore boots, camos, and a tight black t-shirt that had clearly been thought up for men like him. He wasn’t exactly Mr. Handsome, but if it was what lay under the clothes that counted, he had Mr. Buff down. His skin had the same liquidy perfect genetic tan as hers, blemished by only a few visible battle scars that served to enhance the image. She’d never dated another Latino and—
Crap!
Some psychotic, “Cindy Sue” personality needed her head examined if she was thinking that about the master sergeant.
The fact that he was a Delta Force instructor standing on a Fort Bragg practice range—perfectly in his element—did help the image right along but she wasn’t dumb enough to fall for any girlie, daydreaming trap. Master Sergeant JD Ramírez was magnificent in more than just his looks. He was a hundred percent superior soldier. That was what she aspired to. Which was ridiculous for a woman half his size, but it didn’t matter. She’d known JD almost as long as she’d been in Delta Force and he was the finest warrior she’d never fought with. They had yet to be assigned to an action team together—merely “rubbing shoulders” in situations like this refresher training.
Ramírez still hadn’t spoken, but she was going to wait him out. She wasn’t even going to give him the satisfaction of looking up at him. Instead, she began preparing for the day.
His boots took a step away. Hesitated, then took another, unveiling the sunrise’s full glare. None of the birdsong she’d been enjoying returned. His attitude had cleared the entire zone.
“Do me a favor,” his voice was rough.
She squinted up at him. All she could see was sun dazzle, but she knew from experience that he never quite looked at her when speaking.
“What, Master Sergeant?” Not choke you to death for being a personal thorn in my backside? That was almost too big a favor to ask. And why was he haranguing her rather than the other seven operators sitting in the dirt and gearing up to survive today’s test?
JD had been on her case since the first moment of the course. She didn’t expect him to ease up just because she’d survived her first six months in Delta, hunting Indonesian pirates, but it was way past just being a “thing.” His un-favoritism was so blatant that the other operators had unwound from their arrogant male smugness of innate superiority enough to comment on it. None had offered to protest on her behalf, of course, but that was fine. As a Delta operator she could take care of herself.
And JD Ramírez was now topping her list of things to be taken care of. Not in a good way. She’d start by stuffing his head inside The Foo Fighters kicker drum. Then have Beyoncé strut her stuff up and down his back while wearing her gold-flecked spike-heel boots. If only.
Today was the final sniper stalking test. It was the last day of a month-long skills refresher. Not a lot of field stalking involved in hunting Indonesian sea pirates. Her shooting precision from a moving platform like a boat or helicopter had certainly been honed, but Delta didn’t believe in letting any skills go stale. If that meant every deployment ended with a month under the ungentle thumbs of the trainers—who were fellow operators—it was fine with her.
But she was getting a real antipathy for that trainer being JD.
“Don’t fuck up, Cindy Sue,” he finally managed to grunt out.
“Thanks, Master Sergeant. That’s real helpful.” She didn’t need advice on how to get through today’s sniper stalking test—especially not from JD Ramírez. She wished she had a few rounds in her rifle to deal with him. Maybe pepper the dirt as his feet to make him dance to her tune.
“I’ll be your spotter.”
Perfect! “Yes, sergeant. Glad it’ll be you.” So perfect that if she had a spare live round, she just might shoot herself in the foot to get out of it. She could feel the other seven of her teammates risking glances at the friendly little tête-à-tête she was having with the master sergeant. Why wasn’t he giving them any beef? They’d been working quietly together, prepari
ng for the day.
In stalking tests, spotters were definitely not the helpful guy looking over your shoulder and calling out range-to-target, wind speed, temperature, and all of the other factors required in long-shot marksmanship.
She’d aced the shooting part of the course days ago.
Now, his job was to sit in the target’s position with a high-powered scope and try to spot her crawling through the brush to kill him—with a single round. If he could pick her out, catch her even bending a stalk of grass the wrong way, she’d flunk the test and have to start over. Three fails and she’d be bounced back to a full week of stalker training.
In other words, not a chance was she going to let anyone spot her. Especially not Mr. Perfect Soldier JD Ramírez.
She continued preparing her ghillie suit. An itchy mesh of burlap and tattered string, it broke the unnatural shape of a sniper slithering toward their target. Once interwoven with local flora, it would drape like a cloak over her head and body, making her into a small patch of slow-moving landscape. An extension of the ghillie would wrap around her rifle. She began lacing in bits of foliage that were native to this particular range. New Jersey tea and sweetfern grew well here. A small selection of the summer grasses, even now shifting from flexible green to August brittle brown, would add to the suffocating layer she’d be spending the next four to five hours underneath.
There was a certain...stench to a well-prepared ghillie suit. It reeked of everywhere it had been. Dragging it along a dirt road for a 10K run had impregnated it with Fort Bragg dust and grime. Trips through reeking mangrove swamps, snorkeling across cow manure ponds, and crawling up the insides of large sewage pipes had added their own head-spinning miasma of awful.
The Marine Scout Sniper Course had a “pig pond” to teach their snipers to go through anything to reach the target. The Delta trainers were far less kind. The old Maine saying, “Cain’t get the’a from he’a” simply wasn’t in a Delta vocabulary.
The Complete Delta Force Warriors Page 3
