by Dalton Fury
Shaft glanced at the bartender, who did not seem to have noticed the conspicuous timing of the alert signals, then turned to Cindy. “Hawk, make the call.”
Cindy popped up from her bar stool and moved away from the small crowd of happy hour patrons, and took a seat at an empty corner table. The text message contained a call-in number, which she knew would provide further information, but the fact that they had all received the alert was troubling.
An emergency recall of all sabre squadrons typically happened only when the shit hit the fan in several different places all at once, exceeding the capabilities of the alert squadron. Or when something really, really bad happened—like 9/11 bad. But when she called the contact number and listened to the recorded message—Slapshot’s voice, uncharacteristically flat and humorless—she knew this was something else.
“All personnel are to proceed directly to the following location. Prepare to copy.”
Really? An alert for a damn training exercise?
There was a brief pause, just long enough for her to dig out her weatherproof notebook and her pen. She listened intently to Slapshot as he gave an address in Arlington, Virginia.
The message went on. Travel alone under cover creds. Report within forty-eight hours. But then it got strange. Do not return to Bragg. There would be a per diem for general expenses, and reimbursements for purchases in excess of that amount would be made subject to review. Personal weapons and ammunition would not be sanctioned.
No weapons or equipment would be issued. Not sanctioned? What the hell did that mean?
But she knew what it meant. The language was intentionally vague, the message implicit. Bring your personal weapons along, but don’t get caught with them.
It was an off-the-books op.
This is training, right?
Cindy returned to the bar, grabbed her go bag off the back of the bar stool, and nodded to Shaft and the others. “I’m out, fellas, thanks for the drink, have a good one.”
Knowing her teammates would call in as soon as they were away from the bar, she headed for her room, grabbed the rest of her gear, and rang the desk clerk to call her a cab.
Forty-eight hours was more than enough time for a quick stopover at her apartment in Fayetteville to pick up some firepower—a Caspian M1911 .45 semiautomatic pistol, which she had inherited from her father. Although she had not learned of it until long after his death, Mike Leland Bird had been a Delta Force squadron commander. Her recruitment into the Unit as part of the aug cell, and her eventual selection to participate in the pilot program to train female operators, had not been a coincidence. The program was the brainchild of Mike Bird and Jeremy Webber years ago, but only Webber had lived to see it come to fruition. It was only fitting that Mike “MLB” Bird’s only daughter should be the first to blaze that particular trail. Delta was in her blood.
Although she still had a full day to burn before the deadline, she didn’t linger at home. The last thing she needed right now was a chance encounter with Troy, her Green Beret boyfriend, although truth be told, she wasn’t sure that’s what he was anymore. Their relationship had always been complicated. She had been attracted to Troy in the first place because he was part of that same elite Special Forces world her father had run in, and yet he was nothing like her father. Troy was a snake-eater, brash and hyperconfident, an alpha male. He was possessive, even jealous, and initially, that had made her feel special. Protected. But now it just felt confining. She didn’t need to be protected. She was a Delta Force operator.
And that was the real problem.
Hawk was pretty sure that Troy didn’t know that she was in the Unit. She hoped he believed her cover story, that she was a CBRN specialist with the 43rd Support Battalion. She didn’t want him to know the truth; not because of OPSEC, but because Troy had washed out of Delta selection on “Bloody Thursday,” and if he ever learned that his girlfriend had succeeded where he had failed, he would probably blow a gasket. That she had to keep her greatest personal accomplishment a secret just to protect his ego pretty much epitomized why their relationship was doomed.
She knew what she was going to have to do; she had already put it off way too long. But now was definitely not the time for that conversation, or any other conversation, with Troy.
After grabbing her .45 and a couple boxes of ACP hardball, she got in her car and hit the road. D.C. was only a five-hour drive, and she passed the time listening to the audiobook of the latest Brad Taylor novel. She had initially thought the rally point might be a satellite DOD facility or some other federal or military site, but a quick check on Google Earth showed the address to be an ordinary business park in the D.C. suburbs.
It was just after dark when she arrived at the nondescript commercial building, one of about a dozen identical structures in the complex. She parked and walked the rest of the way, noticing only a single black Grand Marquis nearby, before arriving at the door to one of the business suites. There were no signs to identify the occupant, but through the window in the door she could see that there were lights on inside. As she stood there, wondering what to do next, she saw movement behind the glass, and then the door swung open to reveal the grinning face of Pete “Digger” Chambliss.
Digger was one of the good guys. A few years earlier, Hawk had worked closely with him, and Raynor and Slapshot, as part of an AFO cell looking for Libyan surface-to-air missiles in Cairo. That had been her first taste of what life would be like if she survived the training program to become a Delta operator.
Digger was in super-casual mode, wearing an O’Neill logo T-shirt and blue and white Hawaiian-pattern board shorts that revealed the DTOMMF sticker on the shin of the titanium prosthetic where his lower right leg had once been.
Hawk knew Digger had lost the limb before going through Delta selection, but it had not slowed him down one bit. Working with Digger was a humbling experience and a constant reminder that the best Delta operators weren’t those without limitations, but rather those who overcame them.
“Guess I’m in the right place,” Hawk remarked.
“I’m not sure I’d go that far,” Digger replied. “But come on in anyway. I’ll get you checked in and then you can go find a hotel or Airbnb or whatever.”
As she stepped inside she saw a large and mostly empty room, with bare concrete walls and a sealed epoxy floor. The only furnishings were half a dozen folding tables arrayed in a horseshoe pattern, and enough folding chairs to seat forty or fifty people. The tables were all empty except for one, which sported a large pizza box, a half-emptied bottle of Naked Juice, and an open laptop computer plugged into a wall socket. As she rounded the corner, she saw that the computer screen was displaying video of an MMA fight.
Digger gestured to the pizza box. “You hungry?”
Hawk shook her head.
“The boss and Slapshot are still back at the house working out the details, so I’m ADVON-slash-CQ.” He pulled a chair out for her and then sat down in front of the computer, minimizing the video player and bringing up a spreadsheet with the squadron roster. Digger was the squadron master breacher and part of the headquarters element, which was probably why he was here, minding the store. “Almost everyone else is still in transit. You’re only the fourth person to check in.”
“So what’s going on?”
“Dunno. Some kind of urban training exercise. That’s all I really know. The boss says he’ll brief us up when everyone gets here.”
“Everyone? The whole squadron?” Hawk shook her head doubtfully. “He pulled us all out of training that we absolutely need to get checked off on to do more training we don’t need? Not buying it.”
“C’mon, Hawk, did you really need to get certified to captain a forty-foot yacht?” Digger said. “Besides, it’s just your troop, everyone else is still at their team training.”
After what was clearly a long pause for dramatic effect, he leaned close and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “So this is just between you, me, and the fencep
ost, but it sounds like the boss thinks that the guy who sniped the Greek PM is going to come after POTUS.”
Hawk recalled the human jigsaw puzzle she had seen at the hospital in Athens. “The dead guy? Shaft and I went with Racer to PID the body.”
“Not dead after all, at least not according to Racer. You know how he can get.”
“Yeah. He’s usually right,” Hawk said. “That sixth sense nobody can ever explain.”
Digger conceded this point with a tilt of his head. “I think he’s afraid the Secret Service won’t be able to stop this guy, so we’re going to be providing an additional layer of security. Unofficially, of course. Because it would be illegal for us to go hunting for this guy on U.S. soil.”
“So we call it a training exercise, and if we happen to get lucky … ‘Aw, shucks,’ right? Is Colonel Webber in on this?”
“That’s between him and Racer, but I would guess so. Wrangler did something like this a few years back. He scheduled a training exercise in Panama, but had the squadron deploy with live ammo, so they’d be in position if the powers that be decided to send them into the jungle to hunt narcos. It was a real cluster. One of the helos had a hard landing and there were some injuries. I don’t think Racer’s expecting anything that extreme, but he’s smart enough to cover his ass with the colonel.”
Hawk nodded. Racer’s plan embodied the sort of outside-the-box “how to think, not what to think” mentality that had long been a defining characteristic of Delta Force. “How long are we going to be doing this?”
“I guess as long as it takes. Or until we go on alert. Whichever happens first.”
Six weeks, Hawk thought. She wasn’t in any hurry to get back home, but that was a long time to spend living out of a ruck. “Wait. So we aren’t coordinating with the Secret Service this time?”
“That’s the impression I get. Strictly a shadow op. If nothing else, it will be a chance to dust off our urban tradecraft.”
“How do we fill in the gaps in their coverage if we don’t even know what they’ve got covered?”
Digger shrugged. “I’m sure the boss will think of something.”
“Yeah, right. He’ll say that’s our job. A training objective.” Even as she was saying it, the solution came to her. She took out her phone and brought up the contact list. Without a word of explanation to Digger, she scrolled down to a listing that had only a first name—Matt—and a phone number with a Maryland area code. She expected the call to go to voice mail and was mentally composing the message she would leave, but to her surprise the call connected on the second ring.
“Ah, hello?”
Hawk recognized the voice, but not the hesitant tone. U.S. Secret Service Special Agent Matt “don’t call me Matthew” Murphy had not struck her as the type of person to approach anything cautiously. He certainly had not held anything back in Athens when he had almost relentlessly tried to persuade her to “Netflix and chill.”
“Oh, hey, Matt. It’s Cindy Bird.”
“I know. What’s up?”
What’s up? Hawk felt her ire start to rise. What’s up? You chased me for three days, and now all you can say is “What’s up?” She noticed Digger grinning at her and half turned to avoid his gaze before answering. “Well, I just found out that I’m TDY’d to the Pentagon for the next month or so, and I thought maybe you could … I don’t know … show me the best place in this town to get a dirty martini?”
“Yeah. Look, that’s not really gonna work for me. Sorry.”
“Well, maybe—” There was a distinctive beep-beep as the connection was severed. Hawk held the phone at arm’s length, staring at it in disbelief. “What the actual fuck?”
“Matthew Murphy just blew you off?” Digger asked, still grinning. “I guess his wife won’t let him out to play.”
She swiveled back to him. “No. Seriously?”
“Yup. What happens on deployment, stays on deployment.”
“What an asshole.” It occurred to Hawk that her indignation was misplaced. It wasn’t as if she had been serious about returning his attention, after all. “Okay … delete. Lots of other names here.”
“Who?”
She scrolled down her contact list. Not counting Murphy, there were three names from the presidential protective detail—the guys whose job it was to take a bullet for POTUS—and two from the CAT—the special reaction unit that hid in the shadows but was always ready to lay down a mad minute of cover fire in the event of a large-scale attack on the commander in chief. These were only the guys who had insisted on sending her their contact info during the brief partnership between Delta and the Secret Service. She had been very popular, and even though hooking up had been the last thing on her mind, she had enjoyed the attention.
“Jim?”
“Vaught? Married,” Digger answered. “But he says they’re only staying together for the kids.”
“He’s got kids?” She rolled her eyes. “Well, he still might be willing to go out for a drink.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it. These guys are under a lot more scrutiny at home.”
“Curt Johnson?”
Digger shook his head. “Not sure about him.”
Hawk made the call, got voice mail. She considered leaving a flirty, even suggestive message, but thought better of it and simply rang off without saying anything. “It seemed like a good idea.”
“It is a good idea,” Digger said, looking serious for the first time. He drew out his cell phone, and after a second or two of scrolling through the contacts, held the phone to his ear. “Hey, Todd? It’s Pete…” He laughed. “Yeah, that’s me.”
Hawk remembered Todd Kearney, an earnest young special agent—the youngest in the PPD—mostly because he had not tried to flirt with her. He had actually seemed a little bit afraid of her.
“So, yeah. I’m working in D.C. for a few weeks and I was wondering if you wanted to grab some beers one night … Uh-huh. That’s perfect. Cool, bro. Text me the address. Right. Later.”
He ended the call and flashed a triumphant grin at Hawk. “I’m in.”
“Bastard,” she muttered.
“Hey, it was your idea. I’ll make sure the boss knows. You deserve the credit.” He stood and pushed the computer toward her.
“Where the hell are you going?”
“Didn’t you hear? I got a date.”
“Tonight?”
“Yep. It’s his night off. I should be back in two or three hours. Thanks for covering CQ for me. Make sure everyone grabs their pocket litter and cover business cards from that box, and help yourself to the pizza.”
So much for being one of the good guys, she thought. But then she realized that there were worse ways to spend the evening. Like enduring the company of Matt “don’t call me Matthew” Murphy.
She pulled the computer to her and clicked on the video player, wondering if the MMA fight Digger had been watching was one she had already seen.
* * *
Kolt Raynor did a quick head count to verify that everyone was really there. He had only alerted a single troop for the mission, the one whose teams were closest to the East Coast, in order to recall them quickly. Kolt would bust the squadron budget for any more than a troop, which would bring Webber into the picture, something Raynor wasn’t ready to do just yet.
The room looked empty, but Noble Squadron’s assault troop two was fully present. The real problem wasn’t empty chairs in the room, but empty slots in the roster. Stitch’s absence was conspicuous, but it was only the most recent loss.
At full strength, there would be upward of twenty-four operators in the troop, along with a half dozen or so in the headquarters element. They were down to twenty-three total, and Colonel Webber had told him not to expect replacements anytime soon. The squadron—the whole Unit, really—was dangerously understrength, and had been for a while. Combat losses, career-ending injuries, burnout—there were a lot of ways to leave Delta. Selection and training simply couldn’t keep pace with attrition, not after a d
ecade and a half of constant war and high-stress operations. The problem had gotten so bad that the previous administration had floated the idea of rolling Delta and SEAL Team Six into a single joint special counterterrorism unit, a typical bullshit bureaucratic solution that would have done nothing to address the real problem.
Raynor cleared his throat. “Okay, first, I owe you all for cutting your team training short, and on short notice.
“In light of recent events, which to some extent we were all involved in, Slapshot and I decided to shake out our urban training and personal protection standard operating procedures. We’re on the bubble for the next POTUS protective detail, and other VIPs, so your sergeant major and I have designed a training scenario that will challenge us all and sharpen our threat assessment and reaction skills.
“Big picture, our cover for status is employees of FTP Security Consulting Services. Cover for action is your unit creds.” He made a sweeping gesture. “Welcome to FTP HQ.”
“For those that don’t habla,” Slapshot broke in. “For. Training. Purposes.”
“Task and purpose,” Raynor continued. “We’re going to be discreetly shadowing the Secret Service presidential protection detail, looking for gaps in their coverage that a terrorist or assassin might be able to exploit.”
“Are we penetration testing the Secret Service?” asked Barnes.
“No.” Raynor shook his head. “We aren’t going to be probing or testing. In fact, we won’t be interacting with them at all.” He threw a knowing glance at Digger. “Not officially, anyway. We’re just going to observe and collect.”
Kolt picked up on the shift in Slapshot’s body language. “In fact, if we are burned by the SS, consider that mission failure.
“POTUS’s public itinerary, including scheduled public appearances outside the White House, is available online to anyone with an Internet connection. He’s in D.C. for the rest of this week, but that could change at a moment’s notice. We have to be ready to go wherever he goes.