by Rie Warren
Storm stepped into the back with a dip of his head. “Remember what Blaize said about covert mission?”
“The fuck. I’m always covert.” I wrapped my arms protectively around the night camo pack snuggled against my chest like it was a baby in a papoose, because I knew what was coming next.
“Hand over the flash bang, Walker.” He opened his palm.
“Goddammit. I feel naked without my C-4. You know that.”
“Gimme.” Storm advanced.
“Motherfucker.” I watched while he dexterously unzipped the side pocket of my pack, eagerly snatching the two M112 demolition blocks of putty-white plastic explosives wrapped in a Mylar bundle.
My eyes narrowed. “Blaize is a bitch.”
“Head bitch in charge.” He pleasantly agreed. “Blasting caps? Priming unit?”
I placed both in his hands, my own shaking like a meth head giving up the last of his stash.
Watching hungrily as Storm placed my precious bundles aside, I muttered, “Blaize is definitely a chick with a dick.” Tearing my gaze from my favorite weapons, I grinned. “Bitch chick with a dick you got the hots for.”
“I’d rather dip my dick into a vat of boiling oil.”
“So it can feel like when you got syphilis? That can be arranged.”
Storm cuffed me on the back of the head. He was just lucky I was trussed up like a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. Thanksgiving . . . heh. Every Native American’s favorite holiday. Not.
Blaize Carmichael was our new hardnosed higher-up at Operation T-Zone. Op T-Z was an organization quite possibly unsanctioned by the PTB of the USA, because they didn’t need to know what we did behind enemy lines, in the line of duty.
We weren’t military.
We weren’t from the CIA Viper Pit.
We weren’t Black Ops.
We were darker than that.
Unlike previous operations managers who’d relayed years of orders over secure lines and in scrambled codes, Blaize had come on the scene, giving it the personal touch with an up-front team meet-and-greet. Yeah, the woman’s touch in the form of intense head games more mind-fucking than any passive-aggressive wifey could come up with.
By the time she’d debriefed us with her high-heeled boot up our collective asses, read us the riot act, and nailed us to the wall over every single possible past mistake and mission mishap, I’d gone home and drunk a bottle of tequila.
Blaize did have nice legs though.
I rubbed my sleeve across the mask of my helmet then peered at Storm . . . then gawped at the cockpit. The empty fucking cockpit.
“Wait. Who the fuck’s flying this thing?” I asked.
“Autopilot.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder.
“Autopilot?”
“Jerry-rigged autopilot.” His smug smile did not put me at ease.
“I do not want to know.”
“Probably not, but it involves a selfie stick and duct tape and—”
“La la la . . . I can’t hear you.” Jesus Christ. I was gonna die tonight. I just knew it.
“What can I say? I’m a modern day MacGyver.” Storm waltzed into the cockpit, checked the instrument panels, and sauntered back out.
Miraculously, we were still airborne.
Maybe I should get a different job.
“I was just fuckin’ wid ya about the selfie stick, couillon.” Storm’s guttural Cajunese came on like he’d flipped the switch from shadow operative to country boi. “Fully on automatic flight control. Wouldn’t want you to shit your pants before you take the big leap.”
“I hate you.”
“Good thing we’re in range,” Storm said.
Clapping my hands together, I put on my announcer’s voice. “Welcome to pitch-black Beirut! The terrorist hotbed of the Middle East and every operative’s favorite holiday destination for sleepless nights, unexpected espionage, and fun, fun fireworks in the form of mortar shells! It don’t get much better than this.” I fist-bumped Storm. “Eat your heart out, Disney World. Right?”
Storm’s boots rang across the metal grating of the floor before he slid open the door on the military black chopper. “Extraction in six hours. You have the coordinates.”
“Yeah. Yeah.” I saluted him with two fingers off my brow and a hand at my crotch.
“I swear to fuck, Walker, if you make me touch soil in this godforsaken hellhole I’ll shoot you myself.”
The wind screamed inside. I shouted over it. “Relax. Cakewalk.”
“That’s what you said in Afghanistan when we got stranded in the fucking mountains for two weeks straight and I almost froze my balls off.”
“I ever tell you I’m scared of heights?” I peeked outside, the rushing atmosphere almost dragging me through the gaping maw of the chopper.
The aircraft hovered at a mere 13,000 feet above ground.
“Not a fan of the Mile High Club?” Storm took my helmet when I handed it to him.
“Oh, I did that. Air Force One. Press Secretary. Took the edge off.”
“Well, I ain’t fucking you.”
I shuddered. “Fuckin’ hope not.”
“Three minutes before we’re over missile range. Get the fuck out already.”
“Hang on.” I tucked my braid into the back of my black suit.
“Don’t be such a fucking diva.” Storm buckled me into my helmet and attached the oxygen hose.
“Diva?” I mouthed at him. “Gonna tie your nutsack in a knot when I get back.”
He gave me a grin and two thumbs up before he booted me out of the helicopter.
The immediate rush—the immersion into absolute nothingness—engulfed me. Cut off from the world, free falling, I swooped through the night like my spirit animal, the Thunderbird.
Fifty seconds into the HAHO jump, I pulled the ripcord, the sudden jump and bodily slump tugging a grunt from my chest as the parachute took my nosedive into a slower pace. I had thirty miles to navigate, airborne and undetected into enemy lines, while Storm disappeared above and behind me.
That was the plan anyway.
Dropping down through the elements, the Thunderbird in me wanted to stream faster. The mythical bird wanted no constraints and no ties to this political world where lines were drawn in the sand—black, white, and every shade of gray in between.
It wanted to fly.
Being Lakota meant I listened to the voices of my ancestors.
Family.
Swooping into a slipstream air current, I remembered mine. The people and the place I’d told Hunter about, finally. Some still alive. Some buried. Memories and visions surrounded me, ghosts as close as the cloudburst I broke through. I’d hidden everything away for so goddamn long sometimes I wasn’t even sure who I was anymore.
Hunter had thought I had no ties to this earthly life.
Truth was the bonds of this life tried to tether me to the land of my people.
I’d slipped free of the knot. I’d flown away. I’d left everything that mattered.
Adjusting my direction as the lights of Beirut swam below me, I checked my gages.
Fuck it. I have a new family now.
After last spring when Hunter and I had lost our entire team and then some to Victor Valderas and the Tampa Bay Outlaws, Hunter had gone off-rez. That was how I’d hooked up with this crew—The Three Stooges.
Storm: transport specialist and supply hoarder extraordinaire. He organized our shit, decided when we were running low, at which point he took over doling out water, weapons, ammo, MREs like we were broke bastards standing in the food line.
Bane: lead medic, which was laughable, because the dude literally had no bedside manner whatsoever and rarely strung more than three words together.
Justice assisted Bane with the stitches and—you know—life-saving emergency measures when needed, because it was a well-known fact Storm couldn’t stand to be in the same room as Bane longer than necessary, and I was just an unsympathetic asshole.
In addition to being all Red Cros
s gung ho, Justice was tech guru, master hacker, and communications expert.
Aside from me, he was the most talkative of the bunch, and the youngest.
Me? I was the infiltrator, able to blend into any scenario. Oh, and of course, explosives were my thing. Except tonight I wouldn’t be the one packing the boom boom.
It was the perfect job for me. No attachments. I could remain inside my emotionless bubble, firing off whenever anyone got too close to me.
A new team made up of men I’d worked with in the past here and there, but due to the deep shadow nature of this particular op, I was pretty much a lone wolf. Justice and Bane had been dropped outside the hot zone—on-call in case I got caught in hot water.
Those two bastards were probably at a spa getting manscaped.
Cunts.
This mission was so far off the record it didn’t even exist. Not on paper, not in the headlines, and definitely not to-be-read in an unauthorized biography.
That was the nature of this beast I loved. What we did was underground and precise. Carefully planned and executed.
But I didn’t mind thinking outside the X-Ops box one little bit when things got hairy or the gunfire came on strong.
In this kill or be killed existence, I preferred to kill.
There was no incoming flak as I soared through the night. A good sign. I was superstitious like that. I noted landmarks, checked my compass, and, finally, ripped the oxygen hose free so I could gulp straight air down my windpipe. The elements buffeted my descent, cushioning me, carrying me to my final destination.
I rolled into the soft landing of my impact twenty-two klicks north of Beirut. Only a cliff face separated me from the famous Casino du Liban. Funny. The high-class gambling establishment had been a 007 feature. There was no one as suave as James Bond on any of my missions.
Bright pink beams of light speared out across the Mediterranean water from the polished structure above.
I huddled against the cliff side, silently disengaging my chute and swaddling it into a ball I sandwiched between two rocks. Peeling off my tough outer gear, I heaved a grunt of relief when I dragged away the polypropylene long johns underneath. That shit made my balls itch.
I stashed my gear beneath the waterproof parachute, tucked away my beloved pair of Smith & Wesson 686s, and pulled out a standard-issue handgun.
Luckily I could pass as Arabian with my black hair and dark eyes and darker skin tone. Dressing in the custom-made uniform of black cargos and lightweight Kevlar—getting ready to rock the rock climbing—I knew I could pull this shit off. Unlike pretty boy Justice and his GQ/GI Joe looks.
I timed my watch and started the ascent.
Per intel, the target would arrive with a full torso, ceramic bomb at eleven twenty-five.
The target.
Sheikah Majedah Chehab.
Two
Goddamn Beirut
THERE WAS NO LEBANESE nobility anymore—hadn’t been for centuries—but if there had been, the name Chehab would be at the top of the list. Majedah descended from royalty, and many from her family had held high government offices.
A Sunni Muslim, she’d married a Shia man in a brokered marriage to align the two opposing factions in a torn country where a new civil war could break out at any given moment.
As the wife of Qasim Hassan, Majedah aligned with Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran, going against her Sunni compatriots and many in her Allah-given country.
At the age of thirty-four, she was said to be beautiful, ambitious, and the brains behind many terrorist operations.
And tonight I had intelligence she would destroy what little was left of peace in her native country, throwing it into possibly permanent unrest.
Seemed everyone was a martyr for the cause these days.
Not. Gonna. Happen.
I just had to breach Majedah’s security team.
So easy.
Scaling the nearly vertical rock face, I listened to the beeps on my watch counting down the minutes until BOOM time. Waves crashed below me, but I kept my sights above. I hadn’t been kidding about that being-scared-of-heights shit with Storm. The only thing worse than a HAHO jump was a HALO, or rappelling without a safety line.
I climbed silently to the top, my stomach in my throat the entire time. Brilliant lights shone from the gambling establishment that spread to the very edge of the promontory. I only needed one last thing. A security badge belonging to one of Majedah’s team.
No fucking problema.
When the cavalcade of highly polished, black Caddy SUVs—bulletproof, no doubt—rolled up in front of the casino, that was my cue. The tank-like Cadillacs remained in formation, stopping with the first vehicle adjacent to the grand doors of the Liban.
I waited in the darkness, biding my time, hoping to execute this first part of my mission without being detected. Flanking Majedah’s final guard as he exited the last SUV, I cranked an arm around his neck and clamped a gloved hand over his mouth.
His heels kicked on the glittery pavement, but any noise was covered by the sound of the surf below and the music piping out of the casino. I dragged him to the edge of the rocky overlook in arms drawn tight like steel cables.
“Not a fucking word, or I snap your neck. Understood?” I hashed out in rapid Arabic.
After his jerky nod, I slipped my fingers just below his chin, adding pressure to his carotid. I turned him while keeping him restrained and removed the helmet that had a long, tinted visor running from forehead to upper lip.
“Can you swim”—I fingered his ID badge off his chest, quickly scanning it—“Khalil?”
He spat at me. “Faster than you can shoot, American. Your accent sucks.”
In an instant, Khalil forced his way out of my arms. He drew his sidearm with practiced skill, but I kicked it from his grip before he could fire. On the edge of the cliff, hidden by landscaping, we locked arms, both of us bracing our feet on the slippery gravel.
One misstep would lead to a long, ragged, rocky death.
One shout from him would blow my cover.
Khalil packed plenty of brawn, but I was a scrapper. And I didn’t have much time to rejoin the convoy. I slammed my fist into his face. Caught him on the recoil with a hammer blow to the sternum. I grabbed his head in both hands while blood leaked from his busted nose.
“Decided I wasn’t gonna kill you.” My voice low, my calm breathing pattern unchanged, I threw my knee up to his goolies. “I’ve changed my mind.”
With a wrenching twist, I snapped Khalil’s neck.
“And I am loyal to only one Nation. It is not the United States.” I threw his dead weight over the side of the cliff, watching just long enough to see him swallowed by the black depths of the water far below.
Pulling Khalil’s helmet over my head and adding his badge to my chest, I returned to my target’s security detail.
Majedah Chehab had still not appeared.
“Had to take piss,” I explained in the local lingo as I fell into line.
The woman of the hour waited inside her armored SUV, hidden behind black-tinted windows, while her head honcho walked up and down the ranks like this was the first day of boot camp.
The guard stopped in front of me, but I could read no expression from the only visibly facial feature—his mouth, which pressed into a firm line. He looked slight. Dressed all in black with the same state-of-the-art body armor as me, he was of average height, lean, wiry. If it came to hand-to-hand, I could thrash him.
“Identify.”
I almost cocked my head when I heard the voice and its slightly higher pitch.
Is that a woman behind the mask?
My sights trained straight ahead, I offered my ID, barcode side showing.
“Khalil Habib. Good.” The uniform said, and I was certain of it.
The person in charge was female.
Bowing my head in a nod, I uttered an affirmative in Arabic, the words easily rolling off my tongue.
Being multilingual was a bonu
s. Especially when I wanted to relive nightmares in a foreign tongue none of my bunkmates understood.
She nodded curtly then mentioned something into her coms unit.
All the doors of the lead Caddy opened at the same time, and Majedah emerged, blanketed by her closest, most trusted team.
The rest of us followed, me at the end of the file like a naughty schoolboy.
That wouldn’t do.
I painstakingly made my way to the head of the line without putting anyone else off their step.
I needed to get as close to the sheikah as possible. Get her alone. I couldn’t take on the entire security team singlehandedly, and no way could Storm, Bane, and Justice have tagged along on this op. Those totally Caucasian fuckers would’ve been too conspicuous.
I needed to disarm Majedah. Defuse the explosives—my specialty. Then take her out with a nice quiet bullet to the brain.
All in a day’s work.
A hit of adrenaline raced through me like a tidy bump of coke.
Sometimes I loved this job.
I thought briefly about Khalil who was now fish food in the Mediterranean.
My mouth twisted.
Collateral damage. Couldn’t be helped.
The female head-of-detail swiftly turned her head toward me as I stepped in time with her right beside Majedah.
I gave her little more than a curt nod before stealing a stealthy glance at my target.
Fuck me running but the sheikah glowed.
And where were the ceramic explosives?
No way could she hide that shit in the low-cut, oxblood, leather blazer split to her navel where a black diamond dangled. More heirlooms crusted her ears and wrists, and tiers of centuries-old jewels dripped from her neck to her collarbone.
The woman was not packing anything more than a pair of really great tits as far as I could see.
I scowled.
Whatever. I wouldn’t put it past the radical cunts to try to dupe me.
“Spread out. Eyes on the sheikah at all times.” The boss of big shit ushered us into the casino behind the Lebanese woman.
It may not have been Casino Royale, but it was a casino full of royalty. Royal flushes, royal pains in my ass, a full house of moneyed motherfuckers I was supposed to make sure lived through the night to stave off another Middle Eastern war.