Warning Order (2 page)

Zeus was ready to move on, but waited while Mason surveyed the room. There were two mats, but Mason had killed only one of them. He didn't like the fact that there was one fighter in this building unaccounted for.

Finally he turned and squeezed Zeus, allowing the Libyan to pan across the next doorway—before his pistol snapped up in a flash and he fired. Mason had just enough time to see two men in the room before the thump of the suppressed .45 barked once.

The heavy round nailed one of the men in the center of the forehead, blasting his lifeless body back flat on the mat. His comrade scrambled to produce a pistol from underneath the filthy covers, but Mason stepped into the room, his Glock coughing twice before the fighter could raise the pistol toward Zeus.

“Guess he wasn't asleep,” Zeus shrugged as Mason checked the man's body. He discovered a stack of papers and began stuffing them into the dump pouch hanging from his waist. Every bit of intel that they found would be taken back to the task force's analysts and cross-referenced against its massive databases. The seemingly innocuous “pocket litter” had provided troves of actionable intel in the past, and it had become a standard operating procedure for them to gather as much as they could carry.

“See what happens when you try to be sneaky?” he said, throwing the blanket over the dead man's head before searching around the sleeping mat for more evidence.

Out in the hallway, two shots rang out, followed by a man's scream—then the fleshy smack of a body hitting the ground.

Mason felt a sliver of fear rush down his spine as he wondered if one of his men had been hit. That was followed by an instant burst of relief when Grinch came over the radio.

“Need one,” the sniper said.

“Go,” Mason told Zeus as he began checking the other man for any pocket litter.

“We have a problem,” Zeus said a few moments later, forcing Mason to cut his examination of the room short.

Stepping cautiously out into the hall, he saw another sprawled jihadist, blood pooling along the chalky concrete floor. Mason stepped over the body, marked by the two bullet holes that Grinch had punched through the man's forehead. Nearby someone had scratched “Death to Infidels” into the wall.

Entering the room, he saw Grinch drag another dead fighter's body out of the doorway and begin checking his pockets. The target house was turning out to be much bigger than it had appeared from the outside, and Mason began to worry that the location was too large for his small team to secure.

“Two for two,” he said to Zeus, who rolled his eyes. “I told you Grinch was shit hot.” Mason groaned, enjoying his friends annoyance.

“You're upset because he won't leave you anyone to shoot?”

“Whatever,” the Libyan said wearily from his place next to a desk propped up against the wall. “Take a look at this.”

Two small computer monitors flickered. On one of them, Mason saw several live feeds that he recognized immediately as the outside of the house, while the other one displayed a bird's-eye view of the entire objective.

“Is that what I think it is?” he asked, following the thick black cable, which ran up the wall and through a hole in the roof.

“They knew we were coming,” Zeus said.

Mason tore his eyes from the hacked Predator drone feed, taking in the maps and photos attached to the bare concrete wall. None of it made any sense, and alarm bells began going off in his head. The reason his team had been ordered to abandon its recon mission and to occupy the target house in the first place was to provide overwatch for a mission that hadn't even existed two hours ago.

“How in the hell is this possible?” Mason asked aloud. “I thought the whole reason Boland was on the ground was because he was making sure his source didn't leak this kind of shit.”

Mason had no idea how Boland had gotten involved in the operation in the first place. Hell, he wasn't even on the task force. What he did know was that instead of controlling the source from a safe location like he was supposed to, Boland had apparently chosen to physically take him to the target location and get eyes on the high-value target himself.

It was a bad idea, and Mason couldn't help but wonder how much of a hand Colonel Anderson had in the decision. If Anderson was calling the shots, it might explain the reckless desperation Boland was showing in this operation.

His old friend knew better than to place himself in harm's way. In fact, it went against everything the two men had learned during their time in Delta Force. Calculating risk versus reward was the mantra they had learned from the moment they were selected to join the unit. It had been beat into their heads through selection phase, and right now it seemed that the risk was way too high.

“What the hell?” Mason felt like he was missing a vital piece of the puzzle.

“I think we're being played,” Zeus said, ripping one of the pictures off the wall and holding it up for Mason to see.

As he stepped forward to get a better look, he felt his blood suddenly run cold.

“Oh shit,” he said, instantly recognizing the dark-skinned, ragged, and bearded man smoking a cigarette outside of a café as Boland.

“If they know Boland's face, then he's been compromised.”

“We need to go, right now,” Zeus said.

“I have to let David know,” Mason said, pulling the satellite phone out of his cargo pocket.

David Castleman was the only reason that Mason and Zeus were on the task force in the first place. Eight months ago, when Mason was labeled a traitor and placed on the kill-on-sight list, David was the only man in the CIA who thought he was innocent. The man had protected him long enough that Mason was finally able to prove the real traitor's identity.

He was just extending the stubby antenna when a burst of automatic fire erupted downstairs.

“Grinch, find out what the hell is going on down there,” he ordered.

He turned to Zeus. “What the hell have we gotten ourselves into?”

“
We
didn't do anything,” Zeus pointed out angrily. “What have
you
gotten us into?”

Turkish-Syrian Border

T
he sun was just beginning to come up over the airfield as Renee Hart hustled across the tarmac to the waiting Mi-17s. The rotors of the Russian helicopters whined, blowing her short blond hair against her cheek as they began to spin up, and forcing her to duck before she hustled up the ramp and took her seat.

She pulled her helmet over her head, catching her reflection in the small window set in the thin skin of the helo. She was pretty in a girl-next-door type of way, but within her clear blue eyes was a hardness forged in combat.

Renee was the last member of the strike team to board the helo, and she looked out of place among the burly, bearded warriors. Despite being only five foot six, she had gone through the same training they had, and she'd earned her right to be there.

Her heart was hammering from the short sprint across the flight line, and after tossing her assault pack onto the oil-soaked floor of the helo, she took a second to catch her breath and survey the cramped cargo compartment.

The task force borrowed a page from the CIA's playbook by buying five Russian helicopters with the hope that they wouldn't draw unnecessary attention. The agency was notorious for using a tactic until it proved ineffective, and figured since they'd successfully used it to insert the legendary Jawbreaker Team in Afghanistan, it should work in Syria, Renee saw. The only problem was that this time the team was operating without the official support of the American people.

Renee thought the birds were pieces of shit, and most of them hadn't moved from the hangar since being delivered from Iraq. The fact that two of them were running was a testament to the skill of the CIA ground crews, but she still had serious concerns about their airworthiness.

From her place near the ramp, she could smell burning oil mixing with the clean smell of the early morning as the rotors roared overhead. A crisp breeze blew in from the west, carrying with it the smell of wood smoke. Renee knew that the women of the local village were already up, preparing the traditional flat bread the men would eat before beginning the day's work.

The helicopter lurched forward as the pilots increased the throttle, and the helo began bumping down the runway, causing her assault pack to bounce on the floor. Using her feet to hold it in place, she glanced at the rest of her teammates, who were joking among themselves.

As usual they ignored her, but she knew that any moment the jokes would start. The alienation wasn't anything new; it had been going on since she became the first female operator in the all-male Special Operations program. But the chauvinism was getting old, and sometimes she questioned why she even bothered trying.

“Hey, bleeder, you sure you're ready for this?” Sergeant First Class Jake “Warchild” Carson shouted from his place near the front. Despite the fact that she had more combat experience than most people in the chopper, he never missed a chance to make her feel like an outsider. “We don't need to stop so you can grab some more pads, do we?”

Renee felt a flush of anger creeping up her neck, and she fought the desire to punch her team leader in the throat. She had no doubt that she could take him down in a second, but she was still playing nice, wanting to avoid unnecessary conflict.

“He's fucking with you. Don't take it personal,” Master Sergeant Jonathon Parker yelled over the rotors.

Renee forced a smile and lifted the hand mike from the radio stuffed into her assault pack.

Like the rest of the team, Parker had been in the military for more than ten years, and he was a well-rounded operator. He was handsome in a rugged kind of way, and at six foot four, he was the tallest man on the team. He was also the only person who'd taken the time to get to know her or learn about what she had done before coming to the task force.

“Hey, Parker, you better not be moving in on Mason's girl,” Warchild yelled.

Renee shook her head, knowing that Warchild was secretly threatened by Mason. The way he acted around the legendary operator was almost juvenile, and Renee knew enough about male psychology to realize that it stemmed from the fact that Mason intimidated the hell out of Warchild.

Sergeant Major Jason Mitchell leaned forward on the nylon bench, his titanic bulk squishing the operator next to him into the skin of the helo.

“Hey, shithead, why don't you do everyone a favor and shut the fuck up?” he shouted.

The man was built like a tank, and as he glared at Warchild, Renee wondered if he had to get his uniforms specially made. The M4 rifle in his massive hands looked like a toy, but there was nothing childlike about the rage etched on his face. Mitchell had fought with Mason in Iraq and had no patience for those who sought to sully the warrior's fragile reputation.

Renee knew it was all a one-way dick-measuring contest, and that Mason's expertise was a sore spot, but it was nothing compared to how threatened her team leader was by the experience that
she
brought to the team. Warchild's fragile ego couldn't stand the fact that she'd once served as team leader for one of the army's covert Terrorist Apprehension Teams, and it made him lash out whenever the opportunity arose.

Back then Renee's job had been to find, fix, and finish suspected terrorist cells before they were able to strike. Her extensive knowledge of the different terror networks had made her a valuable commodity. But everything changed the day she met Mason Kane.

Renee had uncovered a link to a Colonel Barnes, along with the Black Ops unit he was operating out of the shadows in Afghanistan. When Barnes took his men off the reservation and decided to prosecute his own war on terror, Mason had helped her hunt the colonel and his rogue team from the foothills of Pakistan to the heart of Damascus.

She'd learned up close and personal that Mason was someone you wanted on your side in a gunfight. He was a coldhearted son of a bitch, but Renee knew that he also had a soft side. He was without a doubt the most loyal person she'd ever met. As for Warchild, well, she would soon see if he had what it took to back up his big mouth.

The helicopter thundered toward the objective, and her thoughts turned to the mission briefing they'd had before jumping on the birds. The analyst had informed them, “We have been looking for Khalid al Hamas for quite some time,” motioning at the Arab displayed on the monitor. “Our source on the ground has confirmed that he is in very tight with the Iranian Quds Force, and the reason he is in Syria is to meet up with
this
guy.”

The slide changed to a younger man with a closely cropped beard and a slender, almost feminine nose.

“This man is Jamal Latif, the ground commander for al Nusra. He's become a serious pain in the ass after pushing the Syrian army out of Aleppo. Recently, he declared jihad on anyone refusing to adopt al Nusra's particular brand of ideologically motivated hatred. Christians, Sunni, Shia—it really doesn't seem to matter to Latif. He just likes to kill people. His handiwork is all over the internet, and he seems to be on a personal mission to bring mass crucifixion to the twenty-first century.”

He displayed a low-angle shot of ten naked, bloody men hanging from a row of makeshift crosses.

“Fucking animals,” Renee muttered.

“Yeah, the guy's a savage,” Colonel Bat Anderson, the task force commander, said from his chair at the front of the room. “We got it. But tell me why this warrants breaking mission protocol. How do you know that either one of these guys are going to be there?”

“I'm glad you asked, sir. We have an ace in the hole on this one. Due to excellent cooperation between the DOD and the CIA, we have managed to insert a deep-cover asset within Abu Fariq's camp, and our source has verified that the target will be at the objective no later than 0800 hours.”