SEAL Team Bravo: Black Ops IV (15 page)

“Not good enough. Team Bravo may not be Six, but we’ve been places and done things that were every bit as challenging as Neptune Spear. It’s Bravo or nothing. It’s not negotiable. Sir,” he added as an afterthought.

Weathers stared him in the eyes, but Nolan wasn’t backing down, and he stared stubbornly back. The officer laughed.
 

“I guess what they say about you is true. You’re one, stubborn, single-minded sonofabitch who always gets what he wants. Maybe that’s what makes you a good Seal. Okay, you’ve got it. If the raid goes ahead, it’s Bravo’s mission.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

“But you’d better bring that killer in, Chief, or the DIA will be after my ass, not yours. And in the meantime, make sure they don’t arrest you. Find that guy.”

“How do I find him?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea. Do what you’re trained for, Chief. I’ll let you know what pans out across the border in Pakistan. Dismissed.”

He walked out the door and immediately ran into Preston and Ashe. They’d been sitting on two hard, uncomfortable looking chairs, and they jumped to their feet when he emerged. Their expressions were smug, so he knew that whatever they wanted, it wasn’t going to be anything good.

“Chief Nolan,” Preston began. “We need another word with you. If you want your lawyer present, that’s okay.”

Ashe was looking at him expectantly; as if he was about to fall into a trap they’d set.
 

Nolan shook his head. “That’s okay, I’ll talk to you. I don’t need a lawyer.”

Ashe looked puzzled. “You don’t?”

“No, I didn’t do anything, so I don’t have anything to worry about.”

Preston nodded. “Let’s get somewhere we can talk. They gave us the go ahead to use that room in the guardroom. We can go over there and see how this pans out.”

“Sure.”

They were both suspicious at his sudden change of heart. Cooperation wasn’t what they’d expected, and Nolan felt that Ashe was just looking for an excuse to play hardball. Preston led the way out the door and across to the guardroom, just inside the main gate. Ashe brought up the rear, as if Nolan may have been planning to run. He smiled to himself.

The guy is far too close to prevent me from turning
fast and disabling him with a snap kick, pulling my Sig, and squeezing off a round at the other guy. Maybe I should show them how it’s done, without the shooting part, of course. Ashe should know how to guard a suspect. I need to deal with these two cops and get them off my back, so I can carry on doing my job. After talking to Weathers, doing my job has just got a whole lot harder.

They showed him into the interrogation room, and once more he sat in the same chair, facing the sun.

Preston went first. “Have you decided to tell us anything more about the rape?”

He grimaced. “What would you like me to tell you? I wasn’t there, so it’s difficult for me to understand what you want from me. You’re asking the wrong guy.”

“We want you to own up and tell the truth, motherfucker!” Ashe shouted, leaning across so he was inches from his face. Nolan didn’t flinch. He just stared at the man, keeping his expression neutral.

Is this guy for real?

He waited for the man to calm down.

“We want a statement from you, Nolan. We want to know everything you can remember about your movements on the night in question.”

And that’s the problem. I don’t know, don’t know anything. I blacked out and went to the doc the following morning to talk to him about it.

He shook his head
.

“I already told you. I was home, on my own. All night. I can’t tell you anything else. What more could you want?”

Preston nodded. “Okay, you were home. What did you do? Watch TV, a movie maybe? Tell us what you did until you went to bed, and after, when you woke up.”

“I, er, I watched TV, but I can’t remember what it was. I really can’t remember.”

That was true enough.

“Think about it, maybe you watched sport, a baseball game? Football maybe?”

Nolan shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Ashe pounced. “That’s too bad, buddy. If you don’t know what you were doing, you can’t convince us you were at home, so we can only assume you’re lying to cover something up. And if you’re lying about that, you’re probably lying about the rest of it. You’re a lying shit, isn’t that right? A fucking pervert rapist. You deserve to be locked up with the rest of the sickos.”

The detective kept staring at him, waiting for a reaction. They wanted him to lose his cool and maybe say something incriminating. He had to disappoint them.

“I don’t know any more than what I’ve told you,” he repeated.

The two cops exchanged glances. “That doesn’t cut it,” Preston murmured.
 
“See, we have to have something to take back Mr. Nolan. Sorry, Chief Nolan,” he sneered. “We have to know what you were doing that night, at least, before you turned in for the night and went to sleep. The rape occurred late evening. It’s important that you account for your movements. Tell us, what are you covering up?”

They know I’m covering, maybe it’s instinct, or maybe Carol Summers told them. But they know something. I can’t tell them; it’d be the end of my career in the Seals.

Ashe stared fixedly at Nolan. “What was it, Nolan, some kind of a blackout?”

Who the fuck could have told possibility told them? Someone has. So maybe it was Carol. My doctor is also a possibility. Or are they just fishing?

“Was that it, you have no recollection of that night? Which is it?” Ashe stood up and leaned over the table. “Did you have a blackout that night, Nolan? Is it the truth? Is that what happened?”

He shook his head. He didn’t know, couldn’t know.

“So you could have been watching TV or out raping that woman, correct, you’ve no idea what you were doing?” Ashe’s snarl had risen to a shout. “If you don’t know, how can you confirm or deny where you were, buddy? You were there, weren’t you? You raped that woman!”

“No, I’m…” he whispered. He felt like a deer, caught in the headlights of a car.

“If that’s the best you can do, we don’t have a choice. You understand?” Ashe continued.
 

Yeah, he knew what the cop was saying. Give them a satisfactory answer, or they’d arrest him. He had to say something, had to. But he couldn’t think of how to retrieve the situation.

I have to make this right, if I am to keep to the agreement with Colonel Weathers. How the hell can I do that? And if the Navy finds out about the blackouts, I’ll be taken off active service.

He sat waiting for their next attack. He had to think of something, some way out of this mess, or he was finished. He saw Preston look at Ashe, who nodded.

“In that case, Kyle Nolan, we’re placing you…”

The door crashed open. Will Bryce stormed in with Vince Merano right behind him. The two cops eyed them suspiciously.

“We’re using the room,” Ashe shouted at them. “This is a police interview. You have to get out.”

They ignored him. “Chief, they just gave us a call. Wheels up in twenty. Let’s go.”

“You can’t…”

But Will Bryce stood over Ashe, huge, hard, black, and intimidating. He stared down the detective. “Oh, but we can, my friend. This is what the President of the United States pays us to do.”

“But this is…”

They were hustling Nolan toward the door. Will looked back at them. “You got any issues, take it up with out Commander in Chief. He’s in Washington. You know the address.”

Outside, a huge Galaxy C-5 transport was beginning its take off roll, and the four huge General Electric CF39 Turbofans were deafening as they reached maximum power. The lumbering giant began to accelerate along the main runway. The air stank of burnt kerosene, and the noise was deafening. Enough to drown out the two detectives shouting after them to come back. Nolan had to wait until the aircraft had clawed its way into the air before he could talk to Bryce and Merano. They were hurrying him toward the main building that housed the shopping mall and restaurants. Nolan squinted sideways at Will.

“Okay, what gives? Why aren’t we headed to the briefing room? You said we were wheels up in twenty.”

“I did, yeah. It’s true; we do have wheels up in twenty. Twenty hours, that is. I’d never lie to a cop,” Will smiled. “Thing is, those MPs in the guardroom have that room miked up, so they can monitor conversations and confessions. I persuaded them to switch it on. We were worried about you. When it sounded as if they were about to make an arrest, we came busting in to get you out.”

Nolan chuckled. “Thanks, guys, that was well timed. So what is this mission?”

“Let’s get into the coffee bar first,” Vince said. “We’ll find a quiet corner and fill you in. You look as if you need a strong cup of Java.”

“I do, yeah. Thanks. I thought I’d be in chains and on a plane back to San Diego, just before you busted in.”

They found a table where they could talk without being overheard. Nolan sipped at his coffee and waited.

“It’s about that raid on the base,” Will explained. “They upset more than a few of the government people when they tried to knock off Karzai. Our intel people located the group who were behind it. The guy at the top, the warband leader, his name is Abasin Balkhi, and his village is about fifty klicks from Bagram. It’s a place called Bandez, to the southeast, and in the direction of the Pakistan border. CIA confirmed it, using satellite imagery and cellphone intercepts, together with some of their local assets. It’s definitely the guy, and he’s holed up with about twenty or thirty fighters, all of them survivors of the Bagram raid.”

“All these guys are Taliban?”

“No. Oddly enough, this Balkhi is on record as saying he hates the Taliban. But he’s Dari, and Karzai is Pashto, as you know. It’s some kind of a blood feud. He’s vowed to kill Karzai, and when he found out the President was coming here, it was a perfect opportunity. Until he got his ass kicked, that is. They want us to go in at 0300 tomorrow and put paid to this murderous bastard.”

“What’re the plans for infil and exfil?”

“This is going to be a shock and awe job,” Will grinned. “No pussyfooting around in the boonies. We’ll fast-rope down from a CH-47 Chinook. The plan is to land right outside his front door. The village is almost on a straight line between Bagram and Jalalabad, so they are used to the noise of the heavies flying backward and forward during the night. We’re using the entire Platoon, twenty of us, and we’ll be dropping in two chalks, so that’ll get us on the ground before he has time to pull on his undershorts. Our guys have arranged for overhead surveillance, and a Predator drone will be overhead for the entire operation. We’ll be able to monitor the enemy before we go in and spy out anyone who looks like might cause us any problems.”

“Sounds okay, what about exfil?”

Will nodded. “We go out on the same Chinooks. It’s a short flight for them, so they’ll have plenty of fuel. After we’ve gone in, they’ll land five klicks out. As soon as we’ve cleared the hostiles from the village, they’ll come back and pick us up. They don’t want to hang around when the shooting starts. These Afghans tend to get too free and easy with the RPGs. Makes the crews nervous.”

Nolan smiled. “I’ll bet. It all sounds good, providing there are no surprises waiting for us when we reach that village. Where’s Boswell?”

The two Seals swapped glances. It was Vince Merano who answered.

“He’s gone into Kabul with Grant.”

“Kabul? He should be here, prepping the mission. What does he want in Kabul?”

He looked at Bryce. “You tell him, Will.”

The big, black PO1 sighed. “He tried his personal satphone, and it didn’t work. Lucas said he knew a guy in Kabul who could fix it, so they took off.”

“You’re shittin’ me!”

“That’s the way it is, Chief. Boswell’s the boss, so, you know...”

“Someone needs to kick his ass,” Nolan said angrily.

Will shrugged. “The guys are working pretty hard to get everything ready, so we’ll be okay. When we’re done here, we’re going over to intel and relieve them of a couple of their up-to-date maps. You never know when you might need them if things don’t go to plan.”