And then Magic’s words made too much sense. “The trackers are internal,” Shane realized. They were
inside
Campbell. Some beautiful counteragent had fed him … What? A cupcake with trackers in the icing? And five of them had managed to not get crushed by his teeth.
It ranked up in un-fucking-believable-land, along with Shane trashing his ankle on a relatively easy jump.
But it meant that they’d just been reduced from a team of eight to six. Or, realistically, even fewer. Son of a
bitch
. The pain in Shane’s ankle was now the least of his worries.
“What did you eat?” the senior chief asked Slinger. “Or maybe the more pertinent question is,
where
did you eat?”
“Approximately twelve to fourteen hours ago,” Rick chimed in. “Judging from its placement in your lower intestines.”
“What the fuck kind of trackers are these, that they could survive stomach acids?” Slinger wondered as he yanked his pants back up.
“Can you somehow jam or alter the frequency of the signal that’s being sent out?” Shane asked.
Slinger shook his head. “No, sir. I mean, yes, if it was only one tracker, but I’m pretty sure these have five different frequencies.” He looked over at Owen, who still held the device. “Check my math, Effen.”
“Five trackers, five frequencies,” Owen confirmed for Shane. “Sir, we’d need five different jammers.”
And they only had two. Two is one and one is none. It was a Navy SEAL saying from way back, when the Teams had gotten their start during the Vietnam War. Carry two of everything, so that when a piece of equipment failed, the SEALs would have a backup. But here and now, two was as good as none, since two wasn’t even close to five.
“Did you have a late lunch in town?” Rick asked, back to trying to figure out where Slinger had gotten tagged.
“No, I had lunch on base.” Slinger fastened his belt. “Dinner, too. I didn’t eat or drink anything between meals. Water. I had water. Out of a bottle that I also got on base.”
So much for the cupcake with icing theory, which meant …
“I think maybe the question that needs answering is not
where
or
what
did you eat,” Magic said, on the same page as Shane, “but
who
.”
Slinger swiftly turned to look hard at Magic, then swore pungently. “Seriously?” he asked as he pulled his T-shirt back on, his movements jerky with his anger. “You
seriously
think …?”
“Hells yeah.” Magic turned to Shane. “Yesterday afternoon, while you were having your daily high-maintenance
damage-control phone call with Ashley, we went over to the Schnitzel Haus. We’ve been having these epic pinball battles—me and Sling. They have an old-style machine with the real metal balls and—”
“Get to the point,” the senior chief interrupted for Shane, right on cue.
“Yes, Senior, sorry, Senior. The point. Is that Sling got his internally tracked ass, here, picked up by a woman who was gorgeous. Unnaturally so. I’m talking A-list movie-star worthy. Well, maybe more like B-list. I mean, considering it was the middle of the afternoon, and Slinger looks, well, like Slinger. No offense, man.”
Slinger just shook his head in disgust.
“Are you sure you didn’t eat anything in the bar?” the senior asked. “Peanuts, pretzels—”
“I’m very sure, Senior Chief,” Sling said grimly.
“So what are you saying? That she took you to her hotel and …?” Owen’s voice trailed off as Slinger turned and just looked at him.
“Oh,” Owen said, as light dawned. “
Right
. Sorry. Wow. I mean, not wow but, whoa. I mean—” It took a kick from Magic to shut him up.
Slinger sighed heavily as he looked at Shane. “Sir, I’m truly sorry.”
“This is a new one,” Shane told him. “For all of us.” He turned to Rick, who was sifting through his medical bag. “Is there anything you can give him—”
“I was thinking the same thing, sir,” Rick replied, “but …” He shook his head. “I mean, what’s worse? Having him traceable or having him stop every few minutes with explosive diarrhea? And even then, I can’t guarantee all five trackers will be expelled.”
That was good to know. Well, it wasn’t
good
to know, but it was important information.
“Sir, we need to move,” the senior reminded Shane.
“With your injury, our pace is going to be significantly slower than planned.”
No shit. Shane looked from the senior back to Slinger. “Sling, I need you to trade equipment bags with Owen.”
Slinger sighed again as he nodded. He knew what was coming. “Yes, sir.”
“There’s another village due west of here. I want you to head in that direction. Let’s see who follows you.”
Whoever had targeted Slinger with those internal trackers had done it for a reason. Someone wanted to know what Shane’s team was doing, where they were going. But whoever that someone was, he or she was forced to use a short-range device instead of more traditional long-range satellite tracking, because this entire area was continuously staticked with SAT interference. All SAT images taken of this entire mountainside would be completely unreadable, and would screw with the signal from Slinger’s cluster of trackers. But while long-range tracking wouldn’t work, lower-tech short-range would. Ergo it was highly likely that whoever had planted the trackers on the SEAL already had both equipment and personnel here on the ground.
If that was so, the SEALs would find
them
first—after leading them on a wild goose chase.
Shane activated his radio, flipping on his lip mic. “Dexter and Linden,” he ordered the two SEALs who’d been silently standing watch ever since this goatfuck began. “Give Slinger a head start, then trail him. I want zero contact with whoever is out there. And watch where you step.”
“Aye, aye, Skipper.”
They were all aware that this entire region was dotted with abandoned minefields. They’d studied the maps and knew not all were marked as clearly as the land around an abandoned farmhouse that sat just a few clicks to the south.
But chances were, if a building was abandoned, it was not safe to approach.
Shane looked at his remaining men: Magic, Rick, the senior chief, and Owen, who now had Slinger’s souped-up mini-tablet in his possession.
“Let’s do this,” Shane said. “Let’s move.”
C
HAPTER
T
WO
Their terrorist target was one of a fairly large audience sitting in folding chairs and on mats on the floor, at one end of an ancient Quonset hut dating from the 1940s. The structure had been well cared for and reworked into some kind of school gym. The gym, in turn, was now being used as a makeshift theater.
And that meant that their target was surrounded by civilians, most of whom were children, sitting and watching a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s
H.M.S. Pinafore
. In a Pashto dialect.
“Their Buttercup’s pretty awesome,” Magic announced as he crouched down next to Shane, who’d been left in as secure a position as possible with Rick standing guard, hidden on a hillside that overlooked the village.
“And Suliman’s definitely in there?”
“I didn’t have eyes-on contact myself,” Magic told him as he handed Shane the visual imager. It was more than a camera, although it recorded digital images, too. However, it was most useful due to the fact that it utilized face-recognition software to confirm targets like Rebekah Suliman. “But the senior says it’s a match.”
Shane brought the device up to his eyes, then clicked on the imager’s night vision setting, which allowed him to view the images without compromising his pupils’ adjustment to the dark. The flexible shield conformed to the shape of his face, keeping even the smallest glow
from being seen—even by Magic, who was right beside him.
The senior chief was a firm believer in overkill, and he’d recorded an abundance of digital photos.
The outside of the Quonset hut; the sign for the school, announcing all were welcome, not just boys but also girls; the stage with its crudely assembled set and its crowds of badly costumed, ill-at-ease performers—all children between ages twelve and eighteen.
And there she was. Rebekah Suliman.
The CSO file on Suliman was thin, but the analysts at the U.S. Covert Security Organization ranked the woman not just as a One on the most-wanted list, but as a One-X. Which meant she’d confessed or had been proven—without a doubt—to be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of civilians, including children. That X identified her as someone who had intentionally targeted a school or a bus or the pediatric wing of a hospital. That X meant that Shane’s mission was to find her and mark her—and anyone who harbored her—for elimination via stealth missile.
His team was to move in as close as they could, and take pictures that would be used to identify other members of her terrorist cell. Then, after calling in the coordinates, they were to create a perimeter and watch for squirters—those who tried to escape the flames and destruction raining down upon them.
As Shane clicked through the images, he saw that the senior had marked Suliman with an identifying circle in a series of shots of the audience. There were twenty rows of seats set up in two sections with a center aisle, and each section was a dozen seats across. Which meant there were close to five hundred people in that Quonset hut, not including the kids on the crowded stage.
It was mostly a group of women and children watching the performance, with only a sprinkling of men here
and there. And even if every single adult in that crowd knew who Suliman was, and were actively harboring her despite her crimes, Shane believed that those kids were innocent.
The day they started targeting schools was the day they should just burn the American flag, because they’d be no better than the scumbag terrorists that they put down.
“How long until the show is over?” Shane asked.
“I … don’t know it that well,” Magic confessed. “I only saw it once, but … If I had to guess, I’d say they’re probably in the final act.”
“So it shouldn’t be too much longer.” Shane flipped to the next images—closer and closer shots of Suliman, sitting in the third row, second seat in, a big, happy smile on her goddamn, child-murdering terrorist face.
“Yeah, you don’t know Gilbert and Sullivan, do you?” Magic said. “That shit can go on and on.”
In the next slew of images, Suliman turned and leaned down, as if listening to the child—a little boy—who sat in the seat beside her. And then—again in a series of shots that showed the movement in frozen moments—she lifted the boy up so that he was sitting on her lap. With her face close to the child’s, she pointed to the stage, and the boy clapped his hands as they both laughed.
Fuck
. “The report didn’t say she had kids,” Shane said tightly.
“Suliman?” Magic said. “She doesn’t. Well, she did, but not anymore. They’re all dead.”
“Maybe … nephews and nieces …?” Shane flipped back through the pictures.
“No, they were all killed,” Magic said. “Her entire family was blown to hell. That’s what makes her so fucking ruthless. She’s got no one, Commander. She’s no fear and all anger.”
Shane turned off the imager and pulled it from his face. “Don’t call me that.”
“You know you’re so there, Laughlin,” Magic said. “After this op …? Admiral Crotchkiss is gonna greet the plane himself and plant a great big wet one on you. And then he’s going to give you his niece’s hand in marriage—oh, wait. What a coincidence! He’s already done that.”
Magic was convinced that Shane’s engagement to Ashley Hotchkiss was the equivalent of an arranged marriage between members of the corporate aristocracy and a young, swiftly rising officer in the U.S. Navy. It was, he insisted, part of an insidious plan to keep the future leaders of the U.S. military securely under corporate control.
But Magic didn’t know Ashley as well as Shane did. The idea was ridiculous—that she would marry Shane merely because her father’s brother requested it …?
Vibrantly beautiful Ashley, with her gorgeous blue eyes, her classically lovely face, her willowy dancer’s body, her sharp intellect, and her keen sense of humor … She could have had any man—
any
man—she’d wanted, including a whole pack of powerful officers much higher up the chain of command. But she’d fallen in love with Shane. He’d made damn well sure of it.
“Your bullshit is getting old.” Shane now handed his friend the viewer. “Do something useful with your giant brain for a change and look at these images—particularly the ones toward the end. That little boy looks too much like Suliman to not be her kid.”
And that meant their job here just got even harder. Because if this boy was Suliman’s, Shane couldn’t just call in a strike on the home where she was sleeping tonight, because doing so would kill the child, too.
Meanwhile, Magic was flipping through the images. “Dude, what …? Wait … No, no, no, this isn’t her.”
Well, Shane
could
call it in, but he wouldn’t, and …
“I’m sorry, what?” he asked sharply.
“Jesus, you can be a load,” Magic muttered. “We’re alone out here, Ricky can’t hear us, and yet you
really
need to hear me call you
sir
just because I dissed your fancy-assed girlfriend?”
“Fancy-assed fiancée,” Shane corrected him. “And no, dickweed. I was asking because I thought I heard you say—”
“That this isn’t Rebekah Suliman? It’s not. I don’t know who the fuck this is, but it’s not her.”
“But the face recognition software—”
“Is wrong,” Magic finished for him again, still flipping through the images. “I’m gonna reset and run it again and … No, it still IDs whoever this is as Suliman, but I’m telling you, bro, it’s
not
her.” He shut off the viewer and handed it back to Shane. “Your royal majestic lordship sir, maybe you don’t remember this, because your soon-to-be uncle-in-law snapped his fingers and got you leave for some party—”
“Ashley’s sister’s wedding.”
“Whatever,” Magic said.
“It was a big deal,” Shane protested.
“I’m sure it was. But while you were doing the electric slide with old Aunt Edwina, I was loaned out to Team Six. I didn’t mention it before now, because it was one of those sneaky, covert, not-to-be-mentioned things. But long very-top-secret story short, I’ve seen Suliman through a rifle scope.”