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  “It looks like they’re pinned down in the center of the open area. There are shooters on three sides at this stage.”

  Bluey poked his head around the corner then ducked back. “Reaper One? Bushranger One. Copy?”

  “Copy.”

  “We’re coming in.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Dingo Four-One, come in.”

  “Got you, Bushranger.”

  “I need you to lay down fire to the north of the target area. Keep their heads down.”

  “Copy, Bushranger.”

  The Black Hawk came in over the target, and the minigun sprayed more hot lances. The iron structures of the slum were ripped apart under the torrent of lead. Bluey said, “Now!” into his comms and the SAS team broke cover.

  On entering the exposed area, they fanned out, taking down targets of opportunity. Bluey directed Jacko and Red to move left. “Clear that side!”

  The Australian took the others to clear the right. He noticed the Americans come to their feet and join the battle. With the two forces combined and the air support overhead, the attackers fell back, and the firing died away. Soon the only thing to be heard was the whop-whop-whop of the helicopter.

  Bluey approached Kane who by this time looked more than a little worse for wear. He spoke loud enough to be heard over the Black Hawk, “Are you Reaper?”

  Kane nodded. “Bushranger?”

  “That’s me, cobber. Gather your people together, and we’ll get the hell out of here.”

  “Copy that. Glad to see you.”

  “Glad you’re all still alive. Buy us a beer when we RTB.”

  “Roger that.”

  Bluey pressed his talk button and said, “Dingo One, this is Bushranger. We’re moving to extract, over.”

  “Copy, Bushranger. See you on the ground.”

  Axe appeared beside Bluey, covered in grime and more than a few cuts and scratches. “Thank God for the Australians, huh?”

  Bluey gave him a smile. “What the hell were you guys doing in here anyway? Didn’t you know about the al-Qa’ida camp?”

  Cara stopped beside Axe. She looked just as bad except she had a bloody tear in her top just below her tactical vest, revealing a nasty-looking gash against a white background. “We were told,” she allowed, “but it wasn’t until after we were already engaged.”

  “Bugger.”

  “You’ve got that right.”

  “My people, move out!” Kane barked in frustration. Then into his comms asked, “Zero? Reaper One.”

  “Copy, Reaper One. Good to hear you.”

  “The cavalry has arrived, and we’re heading to extract now.”

  “Copy. See you when you get back.”

  “You ready?” Bluey asked Kane.

  “Yeah, more than ready.”

  The Australian pressed his talk button and said, “Jacko, on point. Let’s go.”

  They walked towards the sound of the helicopter, past the fallen jihadis the Australians had killed on their way in. A few minutes later they broke out of the corrugated maze and into the open where the Black Hawk waited, and the crew chiefs stood guard with their own M4s.

  Bluey pulled Kane aside and said, “You all get your asses on the bird. They’ll take you to where you need to be.”

  Kane was confused. “What about you guys?”

  The Australian gave him a big shit-eating grin and said, “We’re going for a little walk. Check out that al-Qa’ida camp.”

  “Just the five of you?”

  “Once they hear us Aussies are after them, they’ll run away.”

  Kane held out his right hand. “Thanks for saving our asses.”

  Bluey took it in a firm grip. “Anytime. Keep your heads down.”

  “You too.”

  U.S.S. George H. W. Bush

  Gulf of Aden

  “That was a major fuck up, and you both know it! We were lucky to get out of there without losing anybody!” Kane seethed. He winced as the medical officer tended his ribs, having already put half a dozen stitches in his leg.

  “I’d say you’ve got at least one that’s busted, sir,” the middle-aged man said, turning away to put down the tape he’d used on Kane’s ribs.

  Kane ignored him as he stared heatedly at his two commanding officers. “How the hell did we miss an al-Qa’ida training camp?”

  “I don’t know,” Thurston said, her manner abrupt, letting him know she wasn’t happy with the way he was speaking to her.

  “Well, someone sure as shit should have.”

  “Reaper! Cool down,” Ferrero cautioned him.

  “The hell I will. We all nearly got killed today.”

  Thurston’s eyes flared. “Enough! I’m sorry you all nearly got killed today, Gunnery Sergeant. And I’m sorry that the intel was all fucked up. But I won’t have one of my subordinates speak to me that way. Do you understand?”

  Kane glared at her defiantly.

  “Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “Now, what’s the report on your team?”

  “Few cuts and bruises. Nothing a little rest and treatment won’t fix.”

  “OK, when we get back home, everyone gets a week off to mend a little. Except for you. You get three weeks to let that rib heal.”

  Kane opened his mouth to voice his protest at what he figured was punishment for his insubordination, but Thurston was having none of it. “Not negotiable, Reaper. It’s an order. Cara will be in charge while you’re laid up.”

  “Yes, Ma’am. Is that all?”

  “Yes.”

  Kane put on his shirt and left the room. Ferrero looked at Thurston. “He’s pissed.”

  “And damn right he should be. That should never have happened. They were all lucky. She looked around the small gray-painted sickbay. “We could have been using this place to store bodies. From now on, I want all intel double-checked no matter the source.”

  “There was something else?”

  “What?”

  “Slick managed to track the drug shipment. Whoever is doing it has a set-up in the U.S. as well as Europe.”

  “Where in Europe?”

  “Belgium.”

  Antwerp, Belgium

  Middle-aged Dorian Janssen took the news about his lost drug shipment so well that he shot the man who’d delivered the news. He had obviously never heard the saying ‘Don’t Shoot the Messenger’ and now stood over him, a Walther 9mm PPQ M2 in his hand, watching him bleed all over his five-thousand-dollar rug.

  The door to his ornate library flew open, and a large man with a black beard entered, a gun in his hand. Janssen looked up and said, “Get this piece of shit out of my fucking sight, Sander.”

  Sander had once worked for the Belgian SFG – Special Forces Group – but private sector work paid better, namely Dorian Janssen, Belgium’s richest drug supplier.

  “Is there a problem, sir?” he asked in a deep voice.

  The lined face darkened. “I lost ninety million dollars’ worth of ecstasy in fucking Somalia. Someone found out about it and took it upon themselves to blow it up. At which time some al-Qa’ida assholes decided to make open warfare on them. It was just a complete shitstorm. Now I’m a shipment short and out all that money, not to mention down a supply route.”

  “Do you know who it was?”

  Janssen shook his head. “I need to contact Dries and warn him. If they knew about the Somali part of the operation, then it’s possible that they know about the other in America.”

  “What will you do now?”

  “Back to the old routes. Through Europe, to Spain, then on to America, down through India then into the Philippines and Australia. It is more expensive that way, but what choice will I have? At least the Somalis did it for peanuts.”

  “Perhaps once things calm down, then you can open up the route again?”

  Janssen grew angry again. “What I want to do is find out who leaked the information and kill them. See it done.”

  “Yes,
sir.”

  With a scornful look on his face, Janssen indicated the corpse on his rug. “Right after you get rid of this.”

  Chapter 3

  El Paso

  Texas

  Kane felt a hand on his shoulder and turned around on the barstool to see Cara grinning at him. “We thought we’d find you here. Drowning your sorrows … again.”

  He looked past her at her companions; Brick, Arenas, and Axe. All were smiling as though they’d just received overwhelmingly-good news. “Pull up a stool, grab a beer.”

  With mock salutes, they did as he said and all ordered beers. The bar was relatively smoke-free, which was why the team frequented it. Sure, it was noisy and the music loud, not to mention the occasional fight, but hell, this was Texas. The beer was cold and the steaks at least an inch thick—all the comforts of home.

  “What do I owe the pleasure?” Kane asked.

  “We’re leaving on a mission tomorrow,” Cara told him.

  “Where?”

  “North Carolina. Wilmington. There’s a warehouse at the port, which we believe is tied to the drug smuggler in Belgium.”

  Kane asked the obvious question, “What is the intel like?”

  “It’s good. I checked it myself.”

  He nodded. At least they were being safe. Axe leaned forward onto the bar so he could see his friend past Arenas. “Don’t worry, Reaper. Since you’ve been on holiday, she’s been working the asses off us. I swear I’m running assault courses in my sleep.”

  Brick elbowed him. “There’s only one thing you’ve been running in your sleep. What’s her name? Elvira?”

  Cara smiled. “That’s her. The mistress of the dark.”

  The ex-SEAL snorted. “Mistress of the dark, bullshit. You need to move your bed away from the wall. Like right away. I swear, at the rate you two go at it, all that banging and screaming. If it keeps up, I might have to put a couple of 5.56 rounds through the damned thing.”

  “Bit of a screamer, is she?” Kane asked with a wry smile.

  “Shit no, it’s fucking Axe who makes all the noise.”

  Axe gave him an indignant look. “Now, why did you have to go and say that for?”

  “Because it’s true.”

  “Shit.”

  “Are we talking about the mistress of the night?”

  The team turned and saw Thurston standing there with a smile on her face. Kane had to admit, dressed casual, hair down, his commanding officer wasn’t half bad to look at. He nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Double shit,” grumbled Axe.

  “Get you a beer, Ma’am?” Brick asked.

  She shook her head. “Thanks, no. I just came to see Reaper.”

  “Well, you found me.”

  The others moved along the bar to give them some privacy. “How are you doing, John? Ribs healing fine? Haven’t seen you around.”

  “I’m OK.”

  “Did the others tell you we’re leaving on a mission tomorrow?”

  Kane drank the last of his beer and put the bottle on the bar in front of him, trying to remove the label. “Yeah, they did mention something like that.”

  “I want you to come with us.”

  “And do what exactly?”

  “Run operations. Luis is sick, and I need someone I can trust to do it.”

  Concern flitted across Kane’s eyes. “Is he OK?”

  “He’ll be fine. But like I said, I need you.”

  A waitress came down the bar and took Kane’s empty bottle. Dressed in a white singlet top with cut-off jeans, she smiled at him. When she turned and walked away, he could see the wing tips of her angel tattoo, visible at the point of each shoulder. “Unless you’ve got something else, you’d rather be doing?”

  For a moment, Kane thought about saying no, but these were his people, his responsibility. “All right. I’m in.”

  “Be at HQ by six-thirty in the morning,” Thurston said. Then before she walked away from the bar, added, “She’s not your type,” nodding towards the tattooed waitress.

  Kane stared after her and called out, “How do you know what my type is?”

  Her only response was a wave.

  Biggs Airfield

  Outside El Paso

  An F-15 thundered down a distant runway before picking up its nose and clawing its way into the clear Texas sky. Kane stood watching it go, a clipboard and pen in his hands. It quickly faded to a speck, and he turned and began to walk up the ramp of the HC-130.

  Cara was coming the other way, and he asked her, “Do you have all you need?”

  She was wearing jeans and a khaki T-shirt which hugged her form in all the right places. In a thigh holster, like the rest of the team, she had her SIG M17. With a nod, she said, “I think so.”

  “NVGs? Battery packs? Tac gear? Comms sets? Extra ammo? Spare weapons? Tac –”

  “Yes,” Cara said, cutting him off. “I’ve got this, Reaper.”

  Kane nodded. “Of course, you have. Listen, I’ve got intel and pictures for you to study on the way up. Work out a mission plan and let me know.”

  “You don’t want to figure that one out?” she asked, surprised by his willingness to hand control to her.

  “It’s your team this time out. I’m sure you’ll make good decisions.”

  Thurston approached the pair. “Have we got everything?”

  Kane nodded. “Gear’s all stowed, and everyone is on board.”

  “OK. Let’s get this show on the road. Reaper, sit with me. I want to go over the intel we have.”

  “Roger that.”

  They all walked up the ramp and into the plane.

  On Board

  HC-130

  Kane and Thurston wore headsets which enabled them to converse easier against the loud hum of the plane’s engines. Thurston had satellite pictures and other written intel all in duplicate. The second set went to Cara, who was working on a plan of attack.

  The general passed Kane a black and white picture which had been taken from a UAV. The warehouse was set back off the Wilmington port area with a large paved apron in front which catered to the size of the eighteen-wheelers that frequented it.

  “That’s the warehouse,” she said. “There are two ways in and out. The DEA have had it under surveillance since we alerted them to it. At any one time, there are six or more guards. We’ve also received intel that there will be a shipment delivered tonight.”

  “So soon after we broke up their operation?”

  “The Seattle Rover has come from Somalia. The pirates took it, and the owners paid the ransom. That’s how we know there will be ecstasy on board. We assume that it will be unloaded after dark and then transported to the warehouse. We’ll wait for the shipment and then move in.”

  Kane pointed at the picture. “What’s this here?”

  Thurston frowned. “It’s an SUV.”

  “What’s it doing there? Is it the DEA?”

  “No, the DEA are in a building out of shot.”

  “Have you got other pictures?” Kane asked.

  The general showed them to him one at a time, and the same SUV was in every shot. Kane checked out the time and date stamps. All had been taken at different times over the past few days. He said, tapping his finger on the vehicle in the photo, “Someone else is watching the warehouse, and we need to find out who.”

  Wilmington, North Carolina

  Set up in a large warehouse two minutes’ drive from their target building, the team gathered around a table for their briefing. The warehouse, previously used to store furniture and other imported products, now played host to mice, rats and Team Reaper. Spread out on the battered tabletop was everything they had by way of pictures and intel.

  Kane stared at Cara. “You worked out a plan?”

  She took a deep breath and said, “We’ll go in with two teams. Carlos and I will go in the front and Brick and Pete, the rear.”

  Kane glanced at Traynor. It made sense to use the ex-DEA man since they were a member down.


  “Axe will be here,” she said, stabbing a finger at one of the photos. “There’s a shipping container over here which will make a good sniper nest for him. He’s not too close but in saying that, not too far away either. Once we cross the perimeter, we’ll take out the guards, and both teams will breach simultaneously. From there we’ll clear the building and secure it. Hopefully, we’ll find our HVT. Once that’s done, the DEA can come in and take over.”

  “Sounds simple enough, except that we might have another issue.”

  “What’s that, Ma’am?” Brick asked.

  Kane said, “When we were looking over the pictures from the UAV, we noticed an SUV which had been staked out over several days. We can only assume that they, too, were watching the target. When we had the DEA check it out, it was gone and hasn’t been back.”

  “So, be aware, people,” Thurston said, “and be prepared. Once that shipment arrives, then you’re good to go. Cara will have final call whether the team breaches or not. Understood?”

  They all nodded.

  Swift said, “Once you give me the word, Ma’am, I’ll kill the lights.”

  “The drone overhead will give us all the coverage we need,” Reynolds said. “Teller will make sure that no one sneaks up on you.”

  Thurston glanced at her watch. “All right. We have two hours until we deploy. Check your equipment and get some rest.”

  “Reaper Four in position,” Axe said as he settled in behind the M110A1 with the night scope on top. The cold steel of the container surface was hard, but he had been in more uncomfortable positions over the years.

  “Reaper Two and Three in position.”

  “Reaper Five and Bravo Two in position.”

  “Copy that,” said Kane as he watched the big screen before him. “All callsigns in position and ready to go. Now we have to wait for the drugs to show.”

  “Hey, Reaper?” Axe asked.

  “Yeah?”

  “How does it feel to be all tucked up in bed, watching this go down?”