Swift Strike (SEAL Team 14 Book 2)

by Mathis, Loren

  Swift Strike

  A Novel (SEAL Team 14 #2)

  by Loren Mathis

  SWIFT STRIKE

  All rights reserved. This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.

  Copyright © 2014 Loren Mathis.

  Cover design by Syd Gill/Syd Gill Designs

  Cover Photo by Jenn LeBlanc/Illustrated Romance

  First Printing: September, 2014.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Edition: September, 2014

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This novel is dedicated to my wonderful family for their continual love and support

  For more information about Loren Mathis and to sign up for her newsletter, new release mailing list, or blog please visit her website: http://loren-mathis.com.

  Don’t forget to follow Loren Mathis on Twitter and “Like” her on Facebook.

  Loren Mathis’ enthralling “SEAL Team 14” Series in order:

  Pushed to the Edge

  Swift Strike

  Deep Cover (Coming Fall/Winter 2015)

  Fatal Pursuit (Coming Fall 2016)

  Acknowledgements

  This book would not have been possible without the loving support of my mother, who has always been by my side through even the most challenging moments in my life. I would like to thank my wonderfully talented proofreader for her help in proofing this novel. Also, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my de facto beta readers, you know who you are. Last, but not least, I would like to extend a thank you to all of my amazing readers who have been a tremendous source of support to me throughout this journey. It is a privilege to be able to create characters that you all can get to know, care about, and see develop throughout my books. I cannot emphasize enough how much each and every one of you mean to me.

  Author’s Note

  When I began my journey as a writer, I did so facing an enormous shift in my reality. On this new adventure, my family has been a continual source of support, of which I could not do without. In addition, as a new writer, I’m finding that reviews are critically important to spreading the word about my novels. If you like Swift Strike or any of my other books, I’d like to encourage you to take a few moments to post your honest thoughts about my books on the purchase site. I hope that you enjoy Jesse and Lena’s story.

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Author’s Note

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  WG Oil HQ

  Merca, Somalia

  July 1, 2012

  “Lena! Lena, are you okay over there?”

  The deep baritone of a man’s voice called out to Lena Westlake. Her eyes fluttering open, she discovered that she was lying flat on the ground. The back of her head rested comfortably in the dirt, her palms gripping the sodden earth below, and her mud-caked Jimmy Choos pointing toward the sky. A plume of ashen gray smoke drifted around her head.

  This wasn’t right. This had to be just a strange dream. Albeit a very realistic dream, but a dream nonetheless. Any second now, she would snap out of it and wake up to the cawing sounds of the elusive, African black swifts that had made their home in the dense foliage outside of her hotel. Shutting her eyes, she quickly reopened them. Instead of finding herself ensconced in her comfortable bed in her hotel room in Mogadishu, she remained where she was. Lying in the dirt. Wisps of smoke still billowing around her head.

  All right, so she wasn’t dreaming after all.

  She took in a reflexive breath before choking on the noxious fumes. Her eyes watered as she coughed out the toxic, smoke-laden air. For a moment, the only noise that Lena registered was the jarring sound of her practically hacking out her own lungs.

  After getting her bearings, she rolled over onto her stomach and pushed herself up onto her hands and knees. For the first time, she tasted the blood.

  The sharp, metallic taste of it filled her mouth. Wiping her dirt-streaked hands on her shorts, she brought them up to her face. Somehow she’d managed to cut her bottom lip on her teeth. Wincing slightly, she traced the uneven edges of the cut on the inside of her lip.

  What had happened?

  Her breathing came in wheezing spurts, like she’d just finished running a forty-yard dash after smoking a pack of cigarettes. As she kneeled there on the ground, her arms felt shaky as if they were made of Jell-O. Clumps of dirt and mud adhered to her clothes and hair. Jagged edges of tiny rocks and gravel pierced into her palms and legs. Moments passed by while she stayed frozen in that position, like a pilgrim kneeling prostrate before God.

  The smoke was everywhere now. Instead of clearing up, it came in thicker and thicker waves. The harsh, noxious fumes singed her nostrils and irritated her eyes to such a degree that they started to water all over again. Shaking her head, Lena tried to clear the incessant ringing in her ears.

  Flashes of memory poked through the parallel mental fog that had enveloped her brain. The last thing she could recall was standing in the middle of a group of her coworkers at WG Oil. Given the close-knit community, Lena knew everyone who worked at this facility by name. Only a few of her colleagues had been present to discuss the mid-morning borehole readouts for the central production well in Platform A. But others were off busy manning different sectors.

  “Lena! Lena! Are you all right?”

  The distinctively gruff cadence belonged to Steven Cutler. Lena would recognize his voice anywhere. Steven, a senior petroleum engineer, was one of her closest friends at WG Oil. Being close to thirty years her senior, he had morphed into something of a father figure to her.

  The underlying urgency in his voice sent chills down her spine. She couldn’t help but respond as Steven’s fear spread as quickly as a contagion throughout her own body. The warning that infused his shout propelled her into action, forcing her formerly paralyzed limbs to reanimate.

  Brushing back long strands of her waist-length strawberry-blond hair away from her eyes, Lena staggered onto her feet. Swaying slightly, she took a moment to re-balance herself. Usually, it was a simple task, but this time it wasn’t an easy thing to do. Her legs felt heavy as if her normally lightweight ballerina flats had magically been transformed into cinder blocks. Clumsily walking forward like a baby taking her first wobbly steps, Lena kept her hands outstretched in front of her. Hopefully, this precaution would prevent her from crashing face-first into a wall.

  As much as she tried to flee from the thick vapor, it seemed to relentlessly pursue her. She could barely see a foot ahead of her. Her heart thudding painfully in her chest, Lena stumbled in the direction of Steven’s voice—or at least where she believed his voice was coming f
rom.

  God, she could barely hobble—her legs were stiff, her right knee hot and throbbing. A long laceration extended from the top of her knee to her lower calf. Her shorts were a dirty mess and her newly purchased marigold Burberry blouse was torn across the middle. She looked like she’d been in a fight. And had lost.

  Her ice-cold hands trembled slightly. Attempting to bring some warmth back into them, she rubbed them together rapidly, willing the tremors away.

  Calm down. You’re fine. You’re in one piece. Everyone else is probably all right as well.

  There’d been an accident of some sort, obviously. Maybe one of the oil wells had caught fire? The production facility had passed its most recent safety inspection, but last year WG Oil had had an explosion in one of their newest oil fields due to an oil leak caused by siphoning from an illegal tap.

  Or perhaps there’d been an earthquake that had caused one of the pipelines to explode. It wasn’t uncommon to experience high magnitude earthquakes in this part of the world. Just three years ago, a 6.5 magnitude earthquake had started in Ethiopia, but still managed to destroy a large amount of property, uproot water and power lines, and kill thousands in Somalia.

  Whatever the cause of the disturbance, they would be able to handle it. WG Oil had a top of the line disaster response program in place. Soon, she was sure, she’d hear piercing sirens of the police and rescue squads. Help was on the way, it had to be. She just needed to stay calm and assist others who may have been injured.

  “I’m okay, Steven! I’m over here,” she yelled. If she was having this much trouble seeing, odds were that Steven could not see that well either. They would have to find each other by following the sound of each other’s voices.

  She made it about fifteen feet before falling back onto her knees. Hard. She wasn’t sure what she’d tripped over, probably a piece of debris from the accident. Grabbing onto the object, she used it as leverage to push herself up once again.

  “Lena!” Steven’s voice was closer this time, maybe only a few yards away from her.

  “Over here, I fell down.” Casting a frantic glance around, she saw that the smoke was finally starting to dissipate. Re-orienting herself, she realized that she was now standing near the left wing of the oil production facility. Or at least what remained of it.

  Never had she seen this type of damage in an earthquake before. One whole section of the building was completely destroyed. Fortunately, this part of the facility wasn’t busy in the early morning hours.

  “Steven, what happened? Where is everyone else? Was it an explosion at one of the adjoining wells?”

  A strong hand clasped her shoulder. Whirling around, she looked up into Steven’s somber, dirt-streaked face. She barely recognized him. A long, jagged gash marred the side of his face and was accompanied by a walnut-sized contusion on his forehead. His formerly crisp, blue linen shirt and jeans were just as dirty and tattered as her own clothes. Worry wrinkles creased his forehead, and his normally carefree smile was now a tight, grim line. In all the years she had known him, she could not remember ever seeing him look so frightened.

  “Thank God you are okay. Thank God…Lena, it wasn’t an accident.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “It wasn’t an accident,” he wheezed out, pointing down at her feet.

  Earlier she had missed it. It had been too smoky and she’d been too disoriented, too pumped up with adrenaline to notice. What she had grabbed onto was not an errant beam or other piece of debris from the fire. It was a leg. A human leg. A man’s leg.

  She was staring down at the body of Allen Thomas, one of her coworkers. The bullet-riddled body of Allen Thomas.

  Bullet-riddled.

  Lena’s mind raced as comprehension was slow to dawn. She was still attempting to process the ghastly images in front of her eyes when Steven grabbed hold of her arm. He hauled her with him behind a makeshift shelter—formerly the RVC conference room, now a singed, hollowed out shell with only the slimmest portion of roof remaining.

  As she crouched down low in front of Steven, another sharp pain coursed through her stiff legs. Her face burned and her heart pounded in her ears. The harsh, ragged sounds of both of their panicked breathing filled the silence.

  Only a few ashen remnants of the smoke lingered, and it provided an eerie foreground as they both stared at the grisly scene that lay before them.

  It looked like a dreamscape straight out of some apocalyptic horror movie. Half a dozen bodies were scattered near this side of the building. Some of them had been mangled in the explosion, but most of them had multiple perforations in their bodies. Even if they had survived the first explosion, there was no way that they could have survived the exsanguination from the wounds caused by the bullets.

  But these crumpled, bloody, and broken bodies weren’t just corpses though. These were her coworkers and friends. Alive and breathing just a few short hours ago, but now torn to pieces.

  Dead. Dead.

  Lena’s stomach muscles clenched convulsively as she tried to fight off the persistent urge to vomit. Blood rushing to her head, she collapsed back onto her knees. Putrid acid burned a tortuous path up from her stomach giving way to clear fluid and then dry heaves.

  “I’m sorry, Steven. I’m so sorry,” she whispered, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Sorry for what she wasn’t sure. Sorry for vomiting all over his Rockports? Sorry that everyone was dead? Sorry that life as they knew it would never be the same again?

  “It’s okay, Lena,” Steven said, awkwardly patting her back as he stooped there beside her.

  It did not make any sense. Like many oil facilities in the area, WG Oil had had its share of anonymous threats in the past. But there had never been any credible warning that someone would go through with their promises to cause the workers at the plant physical harm.

  “My God…who would do this, Steven? Who would…” she said, her voice trailing off as she remained there transfixed, unable to pry her eyes away from the carnage in front of her.

  “Don’t worry, kid. We are going to make it. We’re going to get out of here in one piece. We are going to be fine. I think it was—” Steven said in a breathless rush, before he abruptly cut off.

  Swiveling around quickly, her mouth went dry and heart plunged in her chest landing somewhere around her ankles. Instead of Steven’s warm and familiar face, she was looking up into the cold, hazel eyes of a stranger. A masked stranger. The man’s hands were clutching a brutal-appearing automatic weapon.

  Steven, lying face down in the dirt, was unmoving. His body was free of bullet wounds, but a bump and the makings of a bruise were already forming on the side of his head.

  Lena did not have to shut and blink open her eyes this time. She knew with a bone-chilling certainty that none of this was a dream. And she knew without a doubt that like Allen, she too was going to die today.

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  Thirteen Days Later

  2300 Hours

  “I’ve got eyes on six bodies huddled together in the far left corner. Most likely the hostages.”

  Turning, Ensign Jesse Denison glanced over at his best friend and comrade, Luke Russo. Luke was lying flat on his stomach, his eyes glued to the viewfinder of the thermographic camera. An hour earlier, Luke had set up the team’s thermal imaging device behind the dubious cover granted by a pitifully small cropping of kuni bush shrubs. Luke lay there, practically motionless, as he examined the infrared radiation emanating from the individuals moving around inside of the target location.

  Even though only a few feet separated Jesse from his friend, it was difficult to discern Luke’s features. The pitch black darkness of the night sky allowed the other man to seamlessly meld into his surroundings. Of course, the black BDUs and face paint he wore didn’t hurt the effect either. Team Fourteen was accustomed to operating in total darkness or near total darkness. These types of stealth conditions were critical for the type of high-risk, covert operation that
they were just moments away from undertaking.

  “Are there any other people in the room?” Jesse asked.

  “Affirmative. I have a visual on two people pacing approximately fifteen feet away and to the right of six hostages. About five feet separate the target subjects from one another. Probably a couple of the AnSawar members keeping watch.”

  The team had set up base about a click away from the target location. But even at a mile, the military-grade thermographic camera could accurately detect warm bodies and register even the slightest of temperature changes.

  “The last intel we received said there were eight live hostages.”

  “Yeah, I’m aware of that. But like I said, I only see six. Maybe the other two are being kept in a different section of the building for some reason.”

  Damn. No, double damn. It was anyone’s guess what these assholes were doing to the two very unlucky souls who had been separated from the others. And without being able to pinpoint the exact location of all of the hostages, it was going to make it all that much harder for the team to perform a clean takedown.

  Since joining Team Fourteen, Jesse had gone on a variety of assignments. HALO jumps at three in the morning? Hell yeah, count him in. Give him black ops reconnaissance, sniper detail, or direct action strikes against enemy combatants over hostage-rescue any day of the week.

  As in any mission, hostage-rescue operations could go sideways quickly. But what bothered Jesse was that lives of innocent civilians were at immediate risk if the situation suddenly went to hell in a handbasket.

  When Jesse had first entered the shadowy world of special operations, he had done so out of a sense of personal responsibility and love for his country. He’d grown leaps and bounds from the green, anxious newbie into the confident, astute warrior that he was today. Despite this transformation, he still appreciated the risks associated with this type of operation.