Swift Strike (SEAL Team 14 Book 2)

by Mathis, Loren

  Not even her ex-fiancé had ever made her feel that safe. She and Kevin had been together for four years and planned on walking down the aisle together before she broke up with him. Maybe part of their relationship issues stemmed from the fact that Lena never felt that special “spark” with him. After all, Kevin was Claire’s pick for her from the beginning. That fact alone should have been a huge red flag that things weren’t destined to work out. However, Claire hadn’t been concerned about whether Lena had chemistry with Kevin. Instead, she was focused on the fact that he was the heir to a multi-million dollar medical device company.

  Sure Kevin had been a well-educated and successful businessman. That should have been enough, according to her mother. But it wasn’t because he also happened to be a narcissistic jerk. Of course, he always managed to be cordial to Lena, but he acted like a pretentious jerk to other people. His poor manners were generally directed to individuals who occupied a lower social status than he did. Besides that particular type of disgusting behavior on his part, she’d never felt a deep connection to him.

  It had been a terrible thing to do to anyone, even a self-absorbed jerk. She hadn’t quite jilted him at the altar, however, it’d been pretty close. But she couldn’t breathe whenever she tried to imagine herself being married to Kevin for the rest of her life. She’d rather live her life alone than be tethered to someone like him. There was more to life than money and luxury; she had always understood that.

  Lena didn’t just want to settle into the life that everyone had planned for her. And despite her protests to the contrary, she did want an all-consuming, unyielding, heart-stopping passion. She wanted to burn hot for a man, and she wanted to find someone who felt the same way about her. Someone who would lust for her even after she could no longer chase away the wrinkles with the myriad of lotions and potions she religiously utilized. Someone who would think of her destined-to-turn-gray hair as regal and elegant. Someone who would look past her countless flaws and love her in spite of them, or perhaps, because of them. Someone who would still dream about her long after her physical body had left this world. She wanted to find a love that would last a lifetime.

  ****

  Jesse and his team had landed in Bayla one week ago, and they were now on their seventh afternoon of surveillance. So far, there hadn’t been any sign of Saverin Tarasov or any other Al-Jaazeez members. There also hadn’t been any other bombings since the small band of SEAL Team Fourteen members arrived on the scene. Maybe AnSawar had moved out of the area. Of course, it was also possible that they’d never been in the region to begin with and this whole mission was a false alarm.

  Regardless, Jesse and four other SEAL Team Fourteen members were tasked with monitoring a linen factory in the heart of the city. They were working with a couple of CIA field agents who’d first alerted top Washington brass regarding the irregularities at the site. According to the agents, several known organized crime couriers were spotted entering and exiting the building on multiple occasions throughout the past few months. Jesse had personally seen zero evidence of to support this, but he trusted the field agents’ assessments.

  Couriers were becoming an increasingly important tool in the toolkit for terrorist organizations around the globe. The concept of why a courier was basically mandatory in most criminal operations was exceedingly simple. The couriers were the middlemen who provided the necessary distance between the financier and the terrorist organization they were colluding with. Distance between the two parties was needed because usually the financiers were men of stature who could not afford to be linked to any untoward criminal activities.

  “Look alive, Denison. Potential target is moving in.” Jesse perked up from his position as a black SUV rolled up to the warehouse.

  “Copy that,” Jesse said into his headset. He watched as four men exited the vehicle. Three of the men were wearing traditional Islamic clothing. The fourth man wore a tailored business suit. None of the men looked familiar to him. Whoever they were, they definitely weren’t high up in the ranks of the Al-Jaazeez network. But like their CO intimated earlier, they could have some connection to the most recent threat presented by AnSawar.

  “Any positive identifications?” Jesse asked from his perch on top of a building located a thousand yards from the warehouse. He and the rest of his teammates had set up posts at different vantage points outside of the target location. Squinting against the sun, he peered into the scope of his bolt-action carbine Scout Rifle.

  “Hawk has the guy on the far left pegged as Hassad Abbas, a lower level operative who acts as a free agent for various crime organizations,” Malcolm’s voice filtered in through his headset again. Hawk was the code name for one of the CIA field agents that they were working with on this mission. Hawk had touched down in Somalia a year prior to SEAL Team Fourteen’s arrival. He’d spent the last few weeks gathering important intel into the recent terrorist attacks that were presently rocking the country.

  “Right. I have a bead on him.”

  The quartet stood talking outside of the building for several minutes before they entered. The sun had started to fade from the sky by the time the men walked back outside. This time, however, the men had a woman in tow. She was older, maybe fifty years old, and her hands were tied in the front. Her hair was in a state of disarray, tears streamed down her face, and the clothes that she wore were torn and dirty. Her face was swollen and bloody; she’d clearly been beaten.

  “Okay, what the hell is going on here?” Jesse asked, his eyes glued to his scope, his finger on the trigger.

  “No clue,” Luke replied.

  “I have a shot. But it’s a little dirty,” Jesse said, his voice even and hands steady. “Are we going in?” The group was walking slowly, probably in order not to draw too much attention to themselves from the passersby on the street. They were only a few hundred yards from their SUV. A few more seconds and the Team would have to pursue them on the road.

  “Not yet. Hold fire and hold your position,” Lieutenant Malcolm Clarke’s voice sounded in over the wire. As the most senior Team Fourteen member on this mission, Malcolm was their leader for the op. “Preferably we need to snatch Abbas still with a pulse. If we go in now, the odds of that are slim to none.”

  “Lights,” Luke’s voice filtered in again.

  Jesse watched as another black SUV pulled up right beside the suspect vehicle. Seconds later, another older man in a fancy suit got out of the SUV. This guy wasn’t familiar to Jesse, either. Unless Al-Jaazeez had recently held a membership drive, the odds that this group was connected to that terrorist organization weren’t good.

  This new arrival strode up to the hysterical woman, and every muscle in Jesse’s body tensed up. He still had a shot, but it would be close. He watched as the mystery man stroked the woman on her cheek. Shrinking away from her captor but unable to escape his grasp, the woman sobbed uncontrollably.

  What the hell was going down?

  “All right, Denison, Russo, Kincaid break away to position two,” Malcolm instructed. Heart pounding, Jesse packed up his scope and rifle and raced toward the rooftop door.

  Sprinting down ten flights of stairs, he was not even a little winded as he rounded the corner. Slowing his movements to a degree, he made sure the keffiyeh was wrapped securely around his face. His rifle was secured under the traditional black thawb in a specially designed carrying case.

  Jesse carefully weaved in and out of the sea of people who had begun to mill around the city center. A young Somalian mother carrying her infant in a cloth sling around her neck walked onto his path, and he spryly moved around her. Walking up to a black sedan that was situated two blocks away from the target warehouse, he opened the door.

  “You’re thirty seconds late, Denison,” Malcolm barked out as Jesse entered the vehicle.

  “Yeah, Denison,” Luke retorted with a grin, pulling the car away from the curb. “What the hell, man? Taking your sweet-ass time, don’t you know we’re on a mission here?”


  “Do us a favor and spare us the colorful commentary and drive, Russo,” Malcolm said, his tone devoid of any amusement. They were moving fast, but trailing the target vehicles by three car lengths.

  “Does Hawk have any other information at all about these guys?” Jesse asked, breaking the silence that had infiltrated the cabin of the car.

  “The only information that he has is about Abbas,” Malcolm answered succinctly. “The connection to Al-Jaazeez is becoming more and more unlikely, but he could possibly be working for AnSawar.”

  “Yeah, but doing what?” Jesse asked. His question was left unanswered when he slid hard into the passenger door as Luke sped up, abruptly switching lanes.

  “We have a tail?” Malcolm asked, cranking his neck around in the seat.

  “Not sure, sir.”

  The other four men in the car checked the clips on their weapons. If they were forced into engaging in a shootout while still seated in the vehicle, they would be prepared. A blue sports sedan sped past them, and Luke let out the breath he’d been holding.

  “False alarm,” he announced to everyone’s relief, the earlier mirth that had infused his voice was long gone.

  “Commander Dewitt, there has been a change of plans,” Malcolm spoke into his long-range satellite headset. “The terror suspects have left the linen factory and they are now on the move. We’re now in pursuit of the vehicles.”

  “Whatever you do, do not get made,” their CO’s garbled warning came in over the speaker. “You are out there solo for this op. There are no air or land support teams available for extraction. You are essentially on your own. You have clearance to grab the courier but other than that, surveillance only.”

  “One more thing, sir. They have a woman with them, she’s clearly been roughed up and is being held against her will. Do we grab her too?”

  “Damn,” their CO’s muttered curse filtered in over the wire. “Yes, grab her too. Make sure not to get over extended out there, though. The closest extraction team that I would be able to call is on assignment in Burkina Faso.”

  “Copy that, sir.”

  Luke slowed the car down when the target vehicles veered off the main highway. Jesse and his team traveled in silence for another five minutes before the two target vehicles stopped in front of a small, dilapidated farmhouse.

  Luke sped up and drove past the structure, parking the car a thousand yards up from the house. Vacating the vehicle, all of the men loaded up on ammunition and weapons. Even though they only had clearance to monitor and grab, they weren’t taking any chances if things went sideways in a hurry.

  By now, the sun had fully set. Darkness crept up beside them as they moved soundlessly through the woods. The rundown, post and beam farmhouse sat in an unusually deep valley with trees bordering each side of the property. Even at its current derelict state, the house was a lot nicer than many of the other crudely built homes in the surrounding village. Jesse and his teammates hiked up the north side of the ridge, through a stand of tall trees before stopping at the edge.

  “Fallback torque position,” Malcolm ordered, and the rest of the men obediently spread out to their practiced posts. Jesse dropped where he stood and set up his sniper rifle. This position on the ridge was at the highest spot looking down on the targets and would provide him with the best vantage point and cover. From this location, he also had a good view of the country road that they’d just exited.

  Peering down into the night-vision scope, Jesse discerned that the men had moved their hostage from the interior of the structure back outside.

  “Visuals, Spider?” Malcolm asked. Callum “The Spider” Kincaid was a senior member of Team Fourteen. He’d been recruited by the Navy straight out of Cal Tech, and had worked his way up to the SEALs. He was more than a little nerdy, but was also more than a little solid when it came to hand-to-hand combat. On the surface, his personality seemed to be entirely mild-mannered and Poindexterish, but that was just a veneer because Spider knew how to scrap. Basically, he was exactly the type of guy you would want covering your six if you ran across trouble in a dark alley sometime. Like the other men, Spider had disappeared somewhere into the night, but his voice came in crystal clear over the headset.

  “Two guards on the east side of the building,” Spider replied back over the static in the line. “From this angle I have an obstructed view of the woman. I have a bad feeling about this, Lieutenant. Something isn’t right.”

  “Join the club,” Malcolm said. The fact of the matter was that all of the SEALs were feeling a little hinky right about now. Whoever these clowns were, they surely hadn’t brought this woman to this remote house for polite conversation over a cup of tea and biscuits.

  “Okay, here we go,” Luke announced. “Look alive, people.”

  Refocusing his gaze, Jesse saw a flurry of movement around the front door of the shack.

  Shifting his grip until the stock of the rifle rested comfortably against the pocket of his shoulder, Jesse looked down the valley below to the unfolding scene.

  The woman had been transported from her position sitting on the front stoop of the house to a kneeling position in the backyard. Five of her captors formed a tight circle around her as one man broke formation in order to stand directly in front of her. He was saying something to the woman, who was still crying frantically, but from this distance it was impossible for Jesse to decipher the man’s words.

  And then, the woman collapsed. Slumping to her side, the woman’s head—or at least what was left of it—fell to the ground. Motionless, her sightless eyes now stared unblinkingly at her killers.

  Jesse reflexively winced. He hadn’t seen it coming. He should have been paying closer attention to the man standing directly in front of the woman. Instead, his concentration had been on the other assholes who’d had their guns drawn and pointed.

  “Shit. Damn it to hell,” Malcolm’s voice echoed what they all were thinking. “Hold positions.”

  “What about Abbas?” Spider asked from his hide.

  “We wait.”

  Twenty seconds later, they all realized that waiting was no longer going to be an option. The executioner grabbed the target courier around his throat, forcing the groveling man down to his knees. The power of the first blows to his face whipped Abbas’ head around.

  “Shit, we need this guy,” Jesse muttered under his breath.

  The tango continued to pummel the courier with his fists, a steady stream of blood sprayed from the beaten man’s nose.

  “Move in, position four. Notify when in position,” Malcolm ordered. “Denison, hold your location and clear as many targets as you can.”

  One by one, the contingent of team members confirmed that they were in place at their new locations.

  “Hold your positions,” Malcolm commanded. Abbas was taking a hell of a beating at the hands of his former friends. The rapid blows were enough to fell even the toughest man, and the courier soon hit the ground, gasping for air. Abbas was mumbling something, probably pleas for the men to stop beating the living daylights out of him. It was a wonder if the man still had any teeth left in his mouth. Just when Jesse thought that the guy wouldn’t be able to take anymore, the ring leader halted the beating. Only to bring up his gun to the courier’s temple and then quickly remove it a few seconds later. Apparently, this guy enjoyed playing games.

  “Denison, you have a clean shot?” Malcolm asked, the tension rising in his voice as the scene before them veered off from routine into FUBARville.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jesse understood that Malcolm was in a tight spot. Their Commander had expressly told them that they were authorized for surveillance only. They were not supposed to engage the targets. Unless, of course, they were intervening in order to snatch Abbas and deliver him to the CIA for questioning. The problem was, of course, that the CIA actually had to have Abbas in a lucid condition for questioning. At the rate his ass whooping was going, he would be comatose in another five minutes that is if he wasn�
�t shot.

  “Take the shot, Denison,” Malcolm ordered when the apparent ringleader of the group pulled out his weapon again, aiming it square at Abbas’ forehead.

  Jesse did not hesitate. He did what was trained to do: he pulled the trigger.

  The guy strongarming Abbas dropped like a stone right where he stood. A head shot had the tendency to do that to a person.

  Due to the silencer on Jesse’s high-powered sniper rifle, the other tangos had not heard the shot, but they had all witnessed the aftermath of it. All hell broke loose, as the tangos scrambled for cover while simultaneously blasting out rounds. The hunted men tried to return fire, blindly shooting into the darkness at shadows.

  Readjusting his scope, he quickly took out two more targets as other Team Fourteen members moved in to secure the courier. While the terrorists were generally shooting in Jesse’s direction, their weapons just did not have the range necessary to reach him.

  Jesse watched from his perch as the rest of his team members moved in on the hapless group. The shootout was over in about ninety seconds.

  “Outside area is clear. Report your status and location.” Everyone reported a cleared status, except for Spider.

  “Kincaid, report your twenty,” Malcolm said.

  Silence.

  “Kincaid, report your twenty,” Malcolm repeated again.

  Luke’s tension-filled voice came over the wire. “Shit, Spider’s down. He’s hit, it’s bad. Real bad. I need Avery here stat. Downstairs, second room on the left.” Avery was Kent Avery, a seasoned team member and a medic.

  Sonofabitch.

  “Where was Kincaid hit?” Malcolm’s grim voice echoed in Jesse’s ear.

  “He took one round in the neck… he’s not breathing. Avery needs to get his ass in here now.”

  CHAPTER

  SIX