Abdul’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. He finally managed to whisper a quiet prayer. “He was a loyal man,” said Abdul. “Abu had no right.”
“Fifty million dollars is missing. The package is out there somewhere. What do you want me to do? Abu Mohamed said he was giving us two days to replace the money, or he was going to come looking for all of us.”
The prince looked at Tariq’s head. He had a huge security detail, but he also didn’t need any problems from the Islamist groups. “Get it done,” was all he managed to say as he walked away.
Chapter 17
CIA Training Facility
The team had started their morning in a small classroom, with Kim Elton teaching Middle Eastern politics. She was a bright lady and had the ability to take something extremely complicated and “dumb it down” so that a room full of jarheads, SEALs, and rangers could understand it. A two hour lesson on who was trying to kill whom, who was in power with what organization, and which organization was operating where, went very quickly.
When the team was mentally fried, it was time for some physical ass-whooping. They were dismissed, and an instructor led them to a mulched path in the woods behind the building.
“I usually run the training exercises here. Quite frankly, you don’t need me. Follow the trail for a mile. Once you get to the confidence course, I’m sure you’ll know what to do. Have fun.” He turned and walked away.
Cascaes barked at Moose. “You heard the man. Turn this Little League parade into a column of twos that resembles a fighting force!”
Moose smiled and happily began screaming. “The only easy day was yesterday, ladies! Column of twos and everyone stays tight. Move!”
The men shuffled around and magically transformed from a group of men standing near each other, to a platoon of Special Forces in perfect order. As soon as they were in a tight column of twos, with the two Chrises in the back and Moose alongside like the Drill Instructor, Moose yelled “double time!” and they began running the trail. Five and a half minutes later, they were a mile down the path staring at a confidence course similar to the one affectionately known as “The Yellow Brick Road” in Quantico used by the Marines and FBI.
“Six miles of fun, ladies. Get busy!” barked Moose as he increased his speed down the hill towards the course. The six miles included a ten foot wall to scale, which was only accomplished by team work, several tiny foot bridges and poles to move across, a series of rope ladders and, of course, the three story tower to climb and rope over. For Marine recruits, it would be considered a challenging confidence builder—for these special operators, it was like being allowed out to the playground after class. They pushed themselves and each other, climbing, roping, running, and screaming at each other. Mackey and Cascaes went through just like everyone else, and even though Mackey was clearly a step behind, the fact that he could handle the course at his age was nothing but inspirational to everyone else.
After crawling under rope obstacles, climbing over mounted poles and bars and sprinting through the mud, the team reached the three story tower. Eric Hodges, the team Marine sniper, and Earl Jones, another Marine Recondo, were the first two to reach the base of the tower.
“I fucking hate the tower, man,” whispered Earl as he grabbed the bottom rung and hoisted himself up.
“Don’t like heights?” asked Eric, pulling and climbing alongside him.
“No. I hated this shit at Parris Island, and I hate it now.”
Eric laughed. “Snipers are always looking for a tower to climb. Just keep looking up!”
Earl grunted and climbed, moving with tremendous speed and agility. “I didn’t say I don’t know how to do it, I said I don’t like it!”
The two of them led the others straight up the tower without stopping. It wasn’t until they got to the top and had to throw their legs over that Earl’s face showed his apprehension. Eric patted Earl on the back, threw his own leg over, and grabbed one of the ropes he’d be using to work his way down. He handed a section of rope towards Earl and said, “Keep moving, Marine!”
Earl grabbed the rope, looked up and mumbled some obscenity, and threw himself over the top. He grabbed the rope, and he and Eric began climbing down, section by section, passing their team ascending on the other side. Moose never shut up the entire climb, pushing the team to move faster. By the time everyone was over and they were reassembled at the base, they were all soaked with sweat. Mackey was huffing and puffing, and managed to cough out his usual, “I’m getting too old for this shit…”
Moose had everyone back in formation, screaming to “finish strong” and the group ran all the way back to the beginning of the course. There was no way for them to know they had just set a new course record.
Once back at the main building, the men showered and changed clothes, then ate lunch and took a bus to the shooting range located about a mile from the building in the middle of the property.
At the range the men assembled weapons and set up targets. Eric Hodges spent extra time assembling his new toy, a prototype sniper rifle known as a PSR. The Precision Sniper Rifle had been issued to Special Forces snipers over a year ago as the replacement sniper rifle for American forces.
While the other men blasted away at targets, relentlessly hitting bulls-eyes, Hodges took his time assembling and admiring his Remington. As he began snapping the large rounds into the clips, Moose walked over.
“New toy fires mortar rounds?” he asked, eyeing the large shells.
“Lapua .338s,” he replied in his heavy Oklahoma drawl.
“Lapua. Why does that sound familiar?” asked Moose.
“Higher velocity at long range. These are what that British sniper was using in Afghanistan when he set the record for longest confirmed kill. Twenty-four hundred and seventy-five meters. That’s a little over twenty-seven hundred yards.”
“Jesus. Yeah, I think I remember that. He must have fired the round on Monday and hit the guy on Wednesday.”
Hodges smiled. “Muzzle velocity is three thousnd feet per second. I’m guessing the Taliban dude had enough time to hear the shot and say, ‘What was that?’”
“Snipers. Sit around all day waiting for one shot,” mumbled Moose. “Give me a belt-fed weapon any day.”
“Spray and pray, Moose? Nah. I’ll wait all day and fire one round. And you can be damn sure I’ll hit what I aim at.” He glanced around. “Shame about those kids, though.” He clucked his tongue and spit. Eric had seen the windshield explode when he killed the driver of the truck. He didn’t have enough time to see that the other occupants were children, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway—Cascaes was in danger, and he had acquired a target with an AK47 at the ready.
Moose nodded but didn’t say anything. He wasn’t there at the ambush, but he knew what had gone down. Eric snapped the five-round magazine into his rifle and hoisted it on his back along with his field pack, and then began walking further away from the range. Moose looked back at the target, which was barely visible in front of a large earthen berm.
He shook his head and decided to follow Hodges. They walked for five minutes before Eric stopped and dropped his pack gently on the ground. Moose could see the large berm off in the distance, but not the target.
Eric opened his pack and rummaged to find a box with a spotter scope in it. He handed it to Moose. “Earl’s busy trying to learn to shoot straight. You can play spotter.”
Eric knelt down and pulled his rifle from his shoulder, then pulled the covers off his scope. He laid down on his stomach and made himself comfortable. Moose laid down next to him and opened the small tripod on the spotter scope, then looked through it.
“Wow. These are powerful.”
“You mean to tell me you never looked through a spotter before?”
“Why would I?” asked Moose.
Eric shrugged. “I figured everyone in the world wanted t
o be a sniper or a spotter. Don’t worry about wind speed or range. I’ll do everything. Just look through and watch the vapor trail after I fire. You should see the round impact the target.”
“How far is that?” asked Moose.
“Range is eighteen hundred meters. Or, if you want, I can hit Ripper from here. He’s only about fifteen hundred and a much bigger target.”
“Leave my catcher alone. Now let me see you hit that thing. I can barely see it even with this thing.”
Eric pushed ear plugs into his ears, and Moose did the same. He adjusted his scope for a few seconds and then quietly said to Moose, “Heading downrange.”
The sound was louder than Moose anticipated, and he was even more surprised when he was able to see the round’s vapor trail before impact. Eric hit the target dead center. He repeated the shot four more times, about ten seconds apart, each round within an inch of the preceding round.
“Jesus,” whispered Moose.
Eric placed the covers back on his scope. “Dad was a Marine and Grandpa was a Marine. Gramps was a sniper in the South Pacific during World War Two. He had me shooting squirrels and gophers by the time I was five. I grew up in the middle of nowhere. Keeping varmints off the crops was a daily chore. Gramps always said a sniper needs patience, steady hands, and a good rifle. This here rifle is a game changer.”
Moose was standing, squinting at the berm. “And some God-given talent. No one else on the team would have made that shot, Eric.”
Eric started walking out even farther.
“Where are you going now?” asked Moose.
“Twenty-five hundred.”
“You shitting me?” asked Moose.
“Don’t worry about the mule, you just load the wagon,” replied Hodges, quoting two generations of Hodges men.
Chapter 18
R & R
The team trained hard all day. When they were finished for the day, they returned to the housing facility to shower and change. Normally, when agents were training at the facility, they lived there twenty-four-seven until the course was finished. The team made its own rules, however, and Mackey called Dex and told him he was taking the boys out for pizza and beer.
Dex didn’t love the idea of the men being out and about together at first, but then decided if they were a Navy All-Star Team, it wouldn’t be unusual for them to have pizza and beer together. He authorized it and arranged for a bus to drive them to DC.
Mackey’s announcement to the team that they were headed to Angelino’s Pizza in DC was met with a huge ovation. When Cascaes announced he was buying the first round, the ovation continued for another full minute.
An hour later, the team was on board a black bus headed to DC. The bus stopped near a parking lot and unloaded the team, and the sixteen hungry men entered the crowded pizza joint. A table for sixteen was going to take a while, so the men made their way to the bar and began ordering pitchers of beer. There were pool tables in the back, and once they had beers in hand, most of the men headed back to play pool and drink some beer while they waited. Mackey and Cascaes sat on two bar stools at the end of the bar and smiled at the sight of their men acting like college kids.
“We’ve got a good crew,” said Mackey as he watched Ripper and Moose laughing and back slapping each other.
Chris nodded.
“You don’t say a whole hellova lot, do ya?” asked Mackey. “I’ve known you for years and I still don’t know you.”
Chris made a surprised face. “Guess I’ve never been big on small talk.”
Mackey got him another beer. “I’ll get you drunk and get your life story.”
Chris took a long drink. “You want my life story? It ain’t all that, trust me.”
“I do trust you. And you should trust me, too. So give me something. Where’d you grow up? How did you end up in the Navy?”
Chris took a deep breath. Talking about himself was out of his comfort zone, but Mackey had become one of his trusted friends—in fact, one of his only friends. “Okay. I’ll give you the life story. Then we don’t talk about it again, okay?”
Mackey extended his hand. “Deal.”
They shook hands firmly.
“I grew up in Newark, New Jersey in the Iron Bound. Portuguese neighborhood. My father Ray was a first class drunken prick. Apparently he was nice to my mother at least once, because they had me. Then he decided my mom made a better punching bag than wife, and I watched him beat the crap out of her a few times a week for most of my first fourteen years on the planet. He popped me a few times, too, but Mom always got it worse. Eventually, I got old enough to know he was a psycho that needed a good ass kicking. I was just too small, so I started reading about martial arts. Eventually started hanging out at this Karate studio, watching this Japanese sensei teach his classes. I guess a few months of me stalking the place eventually went noticed, along with the occasional black eyes, and the old man started talking to me, asking me questions about why I was always there. I told him I wanted to learn karate, but I didn’t have any money. He asked me if I was having a problem at school because I had a pretty good shiner that day. I told him it wasn’t school, and he figured it out for himself. Invited me to attend his school if I’d clean up and work for him doing whatever he needed doing. My parents never knew where I was anyway, so I started going there every day.”
“I can see where this is going,” said Mackey quietly.
“Yup.” Chris took a long drink from his beer, draining his glass. Mackey refilled it immediately. “So I studied hard and this Master, Kenji Mokai , took me under his wing. Within a year, I became a pretty lethal weapon.” He took another long drink. “So one night, I’m home and Ray comes home blasted out of his skull and wants dinner. Mom had worked late that night and dinner wasn’t ready. Ray started beating the shit out of her, as usual.”
“Was Ray your real dad,” asked Mackey. “I mean, you call him Ray.”
“I call him Ray because that piece of shit doesn’t deserve to be called Dad. So anyway, he was beating her up pretty good and I’d had enough. I walked over and roundhouse kicked him as hard as I could in the solar plexus, just as I’d practiced for a year. Dropped him like a rock and told him he was never laying a finger on either of us ever again. When he tried to get up I broke his jaw and laid him out. My mother was begging me to leave before he woke up.”
“Jeez,” mumbled Mackey.
“I told her the only one that was leaving was him. He didn’t wake up until the next morning. He remembered what happened and tried to get in my face, but I put him in a wrist lock and bounced his face off the floor, broken jaw and all. Put my knee in his back and told him if he ever touched my mom or me again, I’d kill him. Then I smashed his face a few times against the floor to make sure he knew I was serious. He stumbled out of the house and that was the last I saw of him. Some weeks later, he came back during the day and took a bunch of stuff from the house and left a nasty note for Mom. I found it before she got home and ditched it.
“A few years later, right when I graduated high school, Mom decided to get hammered and drive home late. Wrapped herself around a pole.”
“Jesus, Chris, I’m sorry,” said Mackey.
Chris shrugged and finished his beer again, which Mackey refilled. “So, with no parents and no money, I decided to see the world. Joined the Navy and never looked back. I have to say, it was the best thing I ever did. First time I was ever really happy I think.” He paused and reflected for a moment. “Man, the first time I was aboard a ship…” He looked Mackey in the eyes. “Greatest day of my life.”
Mackey hoisted his glass and toasted him.
“Anyway, I took every class, every course, every assignment. Decided I was a lifer. Ended up making the SEALs, and the rest is history. And now that you know that shitty-ass story, you don’t ever have to ask me again.”
Chapter 19
; Mackey
Mackey stood up, but Chris gently grabbed his arm. “Whoa,” he exclaimed.
Mackey looked at him, surprised.
“I just told you more about me than I’ve told anyone in twenty years. Your turn, sit down.”
Mackey stared at him, then sat. He rubbed his chin. “I like interrogations to go the other way.”
“Exactly,” said Chris. He poured a beer and slid it to Mackey. “Your turn, Mack. Spill it.”
Mackey looked at the beer and made a face. “Okay, fine. Fair’s fair.” He took a long drink and sat with his back against the bar, watching his team playing pool and laughing. “Good bunch of guys.”
“Nice try. Spill it.”
Mackey rubbed his chin again. “I grew up in God’s country. Iowa. Not to rub it in, but I was lucky with my family. My folks were great. Hard working, simple folks who ran a big farm. Dad is Chris, senior, so I grew up as Mack. I grew up working the farm with my brother Wyatt. He’s three years younger than me. The real farmer of the family.
“Dad had lived on the same farm all his life. My grandparents’ farm. He was a pilot flying crop dusters when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Dad enlisted in the air force the next day. Because he was already a pilot, they grabbed him up and had him flying fighters in the Pacific as fast as they could get him there. When he came home, he went back to farming and flying crop dusters for most of the farms in our area. I think he made more money flying than farming. I was born in fifty-three. Learned to drive the family pickup at ten, but I was learning to fly when I was younger. I sat copilot every time dad went up. I loved flying as much as he did, and he could see that in me. He loved to fly, too, and I think it was good therapy. When I got older and flew in Vietnam, we traded war stories. First time he ever talked about his years in the Pacific we both had a good cry. They lost so many guys back in those days.
The Team Page 7