The Complete Delta Force Warriors

by M. L. Buchman

  So instead, she continued talking to Sergey as she finished checking him over. Pads of his paws…tail. As always, she tweaked the tip for good luck which earned her a doggie smile. All good.

  “Maybe if the nasty sergeant promised to love me for a Kong dog toy and a crunchy biscuit, I’d deign to talk to him.” Like she’d give the arrogant bastard the time of day. He’d been an utter twit of a boy back in the blue-collar core of Baltimore—the Dundalk neighborhood being the only thing they had in common. And just because he’d grown up into a seriously handsome soldier didn’t make him any less of an SOB. She knew his dark side all too well and it was just one of the trials that the Powers That Be had placed across her path, landing her on his team after she’d rarely thought of him for a decade.

  The fates were off at a bar crawl somewhere laughing their asses off for saddling her with him as the squad leader of her first-ever deployment with Delta. It had been a rude shock when she’d arrived this morning.

  Master Sergeant Garret Conway was going to be a problem.

  “Do you think he’d like a dog toy?” She asked Sergey. To make her point, Liza bounced Sergey’s Kong toy on the wooden floor of the safehouse they were squatting in.

  The hard rubber, shaped like a five-inch marshmallow man, ricocheted in an unexpected direction, sending Sergey pouncing, missing, and pouncing again as his attack sent it off in another direction. A frantic scuffle ensued—which included a brief strike beneath the sad excuse for a bunk—before Sergey sat back, the triumphant winner of the tussle. He smiled up at her proudly with the adoration clear in his eyes. He gave her the Kong and she traded it for a doggie treat from her pouch.

  The Kong and treat were why MWDs worked so hard. They didn’t care about explosives. They just knew that when they sniffed out the explosives, they got the toy then the treat.

  She fished out another treat and held it out to the squad’s leader—that’s how she’d think of him. Not friend—never was. Not even acquaintance from Baltimore. He’d just be Master Sergeant Conway, her Delta Force squad leader.

  “Want one?” Though why she was teasing him, she didn’t know.

  Garret managed to take the small treat without touching her fingers. He eyed her as he bounced it in his palm. He’d been the lean and dangerous kid in high school and she could still see it in his narrowed eyes though he’d certainly filled out since then. Nobody had messed with Garret—nobody dared. He’d always had a circle of wannabes, but he hadn’t needed them. It was more as if he was a one-man center of dark power and the others had merely been drawn like night moths. No matter where she went in the school, it had always seemed that he was there in the background watching. He missed nothing.

  Occasionally, if she’d wanted to track someone down, she’d ask him. That was about the only time they ever spoke, but he always knew. She knew almost nothing about him. His dad was a stevedore down at the port—the kind who drank too much when he got home. Her dad was a machinist who didn’t. It bothered her that she couldn’t remember more about him.

  Garret had always had a hot girl under his arm at every school dance or block party. He’d never been picky on the last count: athlete, cheerleader, from another school (a big social crime that only he could get away with), slut… Never mattered as long as she was built. Liza once again blessed her lean figure that had served her so well in track and field, and in the Army. Surviving her three brothers had developed her strength early and she’d never let that advantage go.

  When her dad had slipped a German Shepard pup under the tree for her fifth Christmas, she’d found her calling. The two of them had played and run together until a car had killed him when she was seventeen. By then he was slow, mostly deaf, and blind in one eye.

  She’d been walking him home from the vet who had given the worst pronouncement of all—cancer, with only days to live. She often wondered if Rex had known what he was doing when he’d stepped off the curb before she released him. It had been instantaneous, merciful, and utterly horrifying. When she’d looked up from Rex’s suddenly lax form into Garret Conway’s eyes, she didn’t know whether to thank him or try to kill him.

  Liza still didn’t.

  Garret continued to watch her as he fooled with the treat. Then—with no more words than he’d offered on that horrible day while he’d put Rex in her lap in the back seat and driven her back to the vet to arrange for cremation—he held the treat out for Sergey.

  Sergey’s sharp snarl had him jerking his hand back.

  “What the hell?”

  “I haven’t told him that you’re a friend. He’s very careful.”

  “So tell him, Minnow.” Half the high school had gone to “Little Fish.” At least he’d never done that.

  Tell Sergey that Garret was a friend? Not in a thousand years. But the dog only knew the one word. She had no way to explain “asshole from my past but don’t attack him” to a dog. There was friend and there was attack.

  Finally, she simply said, “Down.”

  Sergey lay down immediately, but continued glaring at Garret. Good dog.

  2

  Garret didn’t know which of the two looked more dangerous: the tall slip of a blonde or her damn dog. It was clear that neither was glad to see him.

  Of all the possible soldiers command could have sent his way, why did it have to be her? Had someone seen the shared high school in their past and decided they were doing him a favor? No. They’d looked at skills and decided she was the best fit for the job based on skills and availability—meaning she’d already been in the dustbowl rather than having to be shipped in from the States.

  He didn’t doubt that for a second. She’d always been one of those overachiever types. A top student and the school’s star decathlete. After watching her win seven of ten events in a decathlon, easily winning the overall event freshman year, he’d tried out for the team. That’s when he’d discovered what an amazing athlete she truly was. The coach had kicked him loose after three events: not the first cut, but almost. Thank god she hadn’t been around that day to see his humiliation.

  The next year, he’d made it through all of the events before being cut. He’d finally made the team the year she went All-State—the football team. He was fast and knew how to take a hit—but it wasn’t enough to shine among the guys who’d caught their first pass as they were leaving the womb. He’d graduated second string and hadn’t liked it.

  Minnow was the gold standard of women. It sucked that he’d never been able to speak to her. The beautiful, popular, star athlete shone with a brightness that made his life feel even darker and dirtier than it was.

  He tossed the dog treat down in front of the Malinois. Sergey didn’t even track it to the floor—his attention remained riveted on Garret’s face, and not in a good way. His muscles remained bunched and ready for action.

  “We’ve got some chow in the other room,” he said to Minnow. “Briefing in ten. Out the door in twenty.” Then he turned his back on them and walked back to join the rest of the team.

  “It’s okay,” he heard her speak softly to the dog.

  There was a sharp snap of jaws that took all of Garret’s training not to react to. Then he heard the quick crunch as Sergey ate the treat he must have snapped up.

  The hut’s other room was just as disgusting as the sole bedroom he’d given Minnow and her dog. Their safehouse was little more than the smallest of three huts inside a massive ring of HESCO barriers and piles of sandbags. A dozen years of occupancy by a rotating stream of NATO forces hadn’t been kind to it. A small firepit, a table covered in his team’s gear, wooden pegs driven into cracks in the concrete from which their rifles dangled on their straps. Regular forces were standing security outside, so at least they didn’t have to think about that. The other four Unit operators were too quiet and had clearly heard everything.

  “Mutt and Jeff,” Maxwell and Jaffe, the nickname inevitable as they were two jokers like a comedy routine, ping-ponging remarks back and forth. They could go
all day if he let them. One tall and at least a little thoughtful, the other short and quick-witted. They were also both crack shots.

  “Both of you load up long.”

  No need to tell them twice. They opened hard-shell cases and began assembling their preferred sniper rifles. Predictably Mutt favored an old-school Accuracy International AWM and Jeff ran with a hot-rod Remington M2010 that he’d hand-modified—only a true sniper tinkered with a ten thousand dollar rifle. Both were barreled for the .300 Win Mag cartridges, so that they could swap ammo if needed.

  “BB,” Burton and Baxter on the other hand, could be addressed interchangeably. As different and distinct as Mutt and Jeff were, the BB boys weren’t. Both explosive and electronic techs, they were generally quiet but had a habit of finishing each other’s sentences. No sign of a sense of humor, it was just something they did. One from Oregon, the other from Idaho and despite three years together he wasn’t sure which one. They’d both kicked their pasts to the curb, which sounded good to him—as if he couldn’t feel the past and her dog watching him through the doorway at his back.

  It still felt strange to be in charge of the team. Chris had just recently opted out after his wife Azadah came down with an incurable condition, becoming mother of his first child. Since when did hard-core Delta operators turn all mushy? The answer: since he’d fallen in love with an Afghan refugee during the team’s three-month deployment in Lashkar Gah and taken her home. Just because she’d helped them take down some of the top “most wanted” in southern Afghanistan was no reason to fall in love with her. At least not that he could see.

  What had been crazy was that none of them had noticed her while she’d been working as their cook and charwoman—except Chris. Yet when Garret had seen her at the wedding in upstate New York, she was so stunning it was hard to believe. High-born, fallen on hard times during all of the wars, fluent in several languages (including a soft English), she had somehow shifted from being invisible to being impossible to look away from. The woman had glowed and Chris, the lucky asshole, had never looked so happy in the six years he and Garret had served together.

  But Garret wasn’t going to have any of that. He’d finally found himself in The Unit, as Delta called them themselves. No way was he leaving except if they carried him out and that was something no operator really thought about.

  It felt even stranger being in charge with Liza aboard. He couldn’t imagine that Minnow would be any less than an amazing asset—he just wasn’t sure how he was going to survive it.

  3

  There hadn’t been time to really meet the others when she’d slipped into Wesh, Afghanistan along with the pre-dawn light. The Unit had been returning from a long patrol and had crashed into their bedrolls. Even less talkative than normal for Unit operators; which was saying something. They’d obviously been pushing hard.

  Unsure what to do or how to behave—and totally unnerved at finding Garret Conway in command—Liza had taken his gesture toward the back room as banishment and hunkered down. In the middle of the night she’d decided that there was no way he’d get the best of her and ruin her first chance with The Unit.

  So, she entered the main room as confidently as she could.

  Sergey was her envoy. She kept him on a tight lead, which was completely for show as she could command him much more accurately and quickly with gestures and voice commands.

  She greeted each one the same way, “If you’d hold out your hand for Sergey to get your scent.” As each one did, she’d clearly say, “Friend.” Each time Sergey would look up at her to make sure, then take a sniff and accept a pat on the head.

  “Don’t know what your problem is, Conway,” tall-and-lean Mutt tickled Sergey’s ears. “Looks like a sweetheart to me.”

  “Just a big old mushball, aren’t you?” Jeff, Mutt’s short-and-solid sidekick, gave her dog a neck rub.

  “I don’t know…” Baxter was more interested in checking out the vest with light and camera than the animal wearing it.

  “…looks ready for a Spec Ops mission to me,” Burton finished. Both were middle-build and Nordic blond. It would be hard not to get them mixed up except that Burton paid some attention to Sergey before checking out the dog’s military vest himself. He looked to Sergey rather than her for permission before he reached out to toy with the camera—a gesture Liza appreciated.

  The infrared and daylight camera was center-mounted on his back with a flip mount so that it could fold forward or back in case Sergey needed to squeeze in or out of a small space. It also had an infrared light to really illuminate the darkness when needed. A Lexan faceplate protected the lens. The antenna mounted close beside it was a flexible whip rather than a knockdown.

  Then they both inspected the feed to the screen on Liza’s wrist.

  “Very cool!” Baxter noted.

  “Thanks!” Burton rubbed Sergey’s head in appreciation for his patience.

  She had the feeling that she was invisible to the men, as she often did when Sergey was beside her. No complaints from her. Let them focus on the dog, she didn’t need their praise, only his.

  Then she turned to Garret…no, Conway. Everyone else called him Conway and so would she. Once more he slouched against a wall, sporking his way through an MRE—Meal-Ready-to-Eat—straight out of the bag. Shredded BBQ Beef, with black beans and notoriously soggy tortillas, for breakfast.

  She stopped Sergey two steps from Conway. Sergey didn’t strain on the leash, but she could feel his tension vibrating up its length. Or maybe her tension vibrating down it.

  The dog always knows what the trainer feels, she repeated her trainer’s prime axiom. Always. So only feel what you want the dog to feel.

  Liza took a deep breath to calm herself.

  “Friend,” she managed. Though it was harder than she’d expected—and she hadn’t thought it would be easy.

  Sergey and Conway both looked at her in surprise. Here was one man who saw her clearly behind the dog. He lowered his hand for Sergey to smell, but didn’t look away from her.

  She could feel her dog still looking at her in question.

  “It’s okay,” she repeated, though she wasn’t sure for whose benefit.

  4

  Last night’s patrol—and the five nights before that—had narrowed down their mission. Narrowed it down enough for Garret to know they’d need all the help they could get, specifically from a MWD. He’d sent the request up the chain of command and they’d sent back down Sergey and Minnow.

  Time to just live with it. Just this one assignment, then she’d be gone back into the vast world of US Army Human Resources Command and wash up on someone else’s shore. That knowledge, like so much in the military, was both a relief and a knife to the gut.

  He unrolled the map of Wesh, Afghanistan, and the near edge of Chaman, Pakistan, separated by the towering, dual-arched Friendship Gate.

  “The Durand Line, the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, is over two thousand kilometers long from Iran up to India. It is generally named as the most dangerous border in the world—which if you’ve done time in Korea you know is saying something. The two countries have been fighting over it ever since the line was first drawn in 1893 by the Brits and the Afghan Amir. Oddly, Pakistan is fine with the line, it’s the Afghanis who say they’ll never accept the border.”

  “Whoever would want this stretch of desert is welcome to it.”

  “Pashtuns, dude.” Mutt and Jeff were at it again. “The Pashtun tribes cover thousands of square kilometers on both sides.”

  “Then why are they killing each other if they’re all Pashtuns?”

  “Not our business,” Garret cut them off. Because there were a hundred layers of answers to that question: some historical, some religious, some about power, and none of it good for the locals.

  He could feel Minnow assessing their group dynamics. It made him see himself and all his flaws as a commander as if seeing himself through stranger’s eyes. Too rough? Or just holding the team’s fo
cus? He couldn’t think how to change the patterns even if he understood what they were. Chris had always made it look so easy. How was he supposed to know that leadership was such a pain in the ass.

  “Our business is that Wesh-Chaman is the only crossing for hundreds of kilometers in both directions. All through the Afghan War—”

  “Which one?”

  And again it spun out of his control before he even—

  “The one that started with Alexander the Great. That was like three hundred AD or something.”

  “Three-thirty BC, dude, learn your history. And no, he’s talking about the one that started in 1978 with the Communist Insurrection and hasn’t stopped since. Next came the Soviets, the communist collapse, the Taliban, and then us. No wonder this place is a disaster area. Did you know—”

  “Shut up, Jeff,” Garret shut them down harder this time. “I’m talking about the US War in Afghanistan and you assholes know it so give me a goddamn break. This Wesh-Chaman crossing has been our major supply route since Day One for all of southern Afghanistan. Still is, since we haven’t really left, and it’s coming apart, again. Tonight we’re going to put some of it back together, again.”

  “Good. I was getting bored. How about you, Sergey?” Mutt rubbed the dog’s neck where he lay between Mutt and Liza. Sergey just scowled up at him, Garret-radar on red alert. The dog wasn’t having anything to do with the “friend” instruction no matter what Minnow commanded.

  Garret continued. “They sent in a reinforced platoon of over sixty regular Army, and they found squat. Now it’s Delta’s turn.”

  The five of them, a woman, and her dog.

  “The US has had constant problems with the Paki gunrunners supplying the Afghanis. In turn, the Pakis have been getting nailed by the Afghani militants who think shelling civilians across the border during a census-taking makes some kind of sense. Just last week they blew up another pair of fuel tanker semi-trucks. Not like the sixteen they got at once back in 2009, but—”