Wild Hearts (Novella) (2 page)

They ran across the open courtyard, the most vulnerable part of their escape. Julian shot out the lock at the gates and pushed them open, and Rath slipped out. “Clear,” he called.

They passed through the gate and into the darkness toward the extraction point. Screams and shouting punctured the night, and footsteps pounded across the courtyard. They took the designated path through scrub that would camouflage them. Headlights flashed from the compound, then stopped. They could be driving right into an ambush, depending on whatever was left of El Martillo’s soldiers. Time would tell.

The team ran in single file to be less of a visual target. Risk’s shoulders were aching, his knees giving under the strain. This was what they trained for. His body would not fail him.

Knox came up beside him. “Pass him over.”

“No time. I’ve got—”

“Just do it,” Knox said, nudging in and taking the weight off of Risk’s shoulders. That was what they’d trained for, too, the uncanny knowing that bonded them as a team. As brothers.

The truck waiting for them was barely visible in the distance, even with the NVGs. Eventually, it became clearer. The truck would take them to the helicopter. Again, they couldn’t chance anyone at the compound hearing a chopper, which would be a sure sign that this was official.

They clambered onto the truck, Knox laying Gutterson down. At the signal, the driver took off, pitching them over the rough terrain. Risk pressed a finger to the pulse point at Gutterson’s neck. He shook his head. A moment of silence passed heavily over the group. But they had to move on.

“Did you get Target One?” Knox asked Risk. Miguel.

“Yes. And potentially no.”

“Say what?”

“I think he and his wife were already dead. I can’t be sure, but it looked like their pillows were covered in blood. Then again, it could have been some kind of pattern. Before I could investigate, someone shot at us from outside the window.”

“Someone who knew you were coming,” Rath said, his voice a low growl. “Who knew you’d be going to that room?”

“The Wolf,” Julian said. “He obviously lied about the kids and women not living there.”

“Smells like a setup,” Rath said. “There were kids’ toys all over. I find it hard to believe they decided to stay in the main building tonight, out of the blue.”

“But if this was a setup, there would have been more soldiers and a lot more bloodshed,” Risk said. “And the women and children wouldn’t have been present.”

Saxby kept an eye on the darkness behind them. “If the Wolf had tipped them off, they would have had someone posted outside all the target rooms.” He glanced back at the guys. “Who else got their targets? I don’t think I got Target Two. By the time I reached Jose’s bedroom, the gunfire had started. I fired into the room, but I can’t be sure I hit him.”

“I took out Target Three,” Knox said. Julian and Rath confirmed that they had taken out their targets. But none of them felt comfortable saying it was a successful mission.

“So four confirmed dead, one unknown.” Risk went back to that dark room in his mind. “Miguel and his wife, executed. If she were alive, she would have woken up at the sound of gunfire.” Anger burned inside him. An innocent woman had been murdered.

“Something’s fucked up with that,” Rath said.

Their silence stood as agreement. There were too many questions. Once they were safely back in the U.S., Risk damn well wanted answers.

Four days later …

The five SEALs had been in isolation since the debacle they now referred to as the defuckle, courtesy of Rath’s colorful -isms. Yeah, they’d each been debriefed right afterward. But had anybody answered
their
questions? Fuck, no.

What they did figure was that something was going on, and they weren’t going to like it. They’d been shut off from the world. No phone, television, or Internet. Even worse, they weren’t doing anything. Not preparing. Not training. Not being deployed or even waiting to be deployed. Just getting on one another’s nerves once they’d rehashed every single detail of the mission about a thousand times. They’d done everything as per plan. It wasn’t their fault that intel was misleading.

Now, finally, they were sitting in some conference room with a bunch of brass, men and one woman who were introduced only cursorily. They all sat on one side of a long-assed conference table, stiff-shouldered and proper, while the team slouched on the other side with their knees spread wide. Risk was sure there was some psychological reason for the posture, but he didn’t really care to delve into it at the moment.

Admiral Stevens began the show by clearing his throat, as if he needed to gain their attention. Hell, he had it. They’d been waiting for this for one hundred and twelve hours.

“Gentlemen, thank you for your patience while we analyzed the implications of your last mission. Unfortunately, while you terminated four of the five targets, there are complications. We’ve been assessing the fallout, and we felt that keeping you isolated was the best course of action until we could determine how to handle this.”

He tossed two Mexican newspapers onto the table. Risk didn’t have a chance to translate the headline; the pictures snagged his full attention. The one on top showed Gutterson, dead. Risk was pretty sure it had been taken right after he was hit. The other
photos captured various moments during the takedown.

“Jose Romero survived, though he sustained two bullet wounds. He’s accusing us of an unprovoked attack,” Stevens said.

Julian, who could read Spanish, pointed to the words
Militares Americanos
. “How’d they know we’re American?”

“And how did they get these pictures?” Rath asked.

Risk recognized his profile in one shot, Salsa wielding his weapon in another, though the face paint pretty much obliterated any recognizable features. “What the hell?”

Stevens tapped the newspaper. “The pictures came from security footage. I’m not sure how they recognized Gutterson, but they specified his name. They knew he was a SEAL because of his earlier work with them, and since we were in the region training, they put two and two together.”

“The Wolf,” Rath said. “What the hell happened to him?”

“He’s MIA,” another man said. “We figure he was found out. He’s either dead or in hiding. We’ve had no contact from him since the assault. Jose now suspects that he was there solely to feed us inside information.” Which was true in the end.

“We have a real PR problem,” Stevens said. “El Martillo has been talking to the U.S. press as well.” The admiral tossed several more newspapers on the table, the standard American variety. The same pictures, though, thank God, only Gutterson’s name was exposed. Still, the sentiment was clear enough.
WAS IT A ROGUE TEAM OF SEALS OR A MILITARY COVER-UP?
one headline read.
THE “ROGUE SIX” MURDER INNOCENT VICTIMS: ON THE TAKE FROM DRUG CARTELS?
another one asked.

“The ‘Rogue Six’?” Julian asked with a sneer. “They gave us a name, like they do with serial killers?”

“Jose’s calling us terrorists, shouting to the world how America is in bed with drug cartels. It’s the whole ‘weapons of mass destruction’ debacle all over again. We have zero proof that they’re up to no good, other than our missing contact’s word and pictures of cocaine that can’t be materially connected to El Martillo. If we make public accusations, we’re essentially confessing to the raid. And we’ll have to admit to our own country that we’ve been covertly helping a violent regime.”

“So we deny involvement. Gutterson was acting on his own,” Rath said. “Pretend
to commiserate and all that good shit. And we find the Wolf. Because there’s something wonky about his part in this.”

Risk had a real bad feeling. It was the same sick, churning feeling he got when his father sat him and his brothers down and told them their mother had been killed in a car accident.

The admiral gave them all a long, sober look. “Our denials are starting to sound hollow. We’ve gone over all the potential strategies. There aren’t many. Waiting is not an option. Jose has threatened to retaliate if we don’t do something to make amends. Not only does he want a so-called gift of weapons or money, but he wants us to admit culpability. He’s hinted at harming American tourists in Mexico. We have to give them something.”

“Like what?” Rath growled. “ ’Cause you ain’t sending my ass over there to be tried in some Mexican court. Sir,” he added.

If Risk could have found a speck of humor, he would have laughed at their expressions.

The admiral, used to dealing with SEALs, hardly blinked. “We’ve been in talks with Jose, trying to find some equitable solution. Now that the American press has gotten involved, our own people are calling for justice. Especially since Jose released these.” He set two more recent newspapers on the table. One showed the girl Risk had seen in the hallway, sprawled on the tile floor, her stuffed bear lying next to her.

Risk jabbed his fingers at the picture. “She was alive just before we pulled out. Those wounds don’t even look real.” His eyes went to the second picture: Miguel and his wife dead in their bed. “That’s how they looked when we got there.” He tapped the pillow in the picture. “These bloodstains were already there. Whoever was outside the window probably killed them first, then waited for us.”

“Give us the Wolf’s name,” Rath said. “He’s the only one who knew we were coming. It looks almost like he set this whole thing up.”

“The Wolf has been a solid, trusted officer for years,” the woman at the table said. “He hasn’t been compromised.”

Rath gave her a cold smile. “Let me find out.”

The admiral flattened his hands on the table. “We’re conducting our own search
for him. Until then, we’re the villains here, to the U.S. and Mexico. And they all want justice. We have to hold a hearing—closed, of course. We have to give the public what they’re looking for.”

“Our blood,” Julian said, his voice menacingly low.

“In a manner of speaking. We can’t admit that we sent you in on an official mission. Our story is that your team was doing a training exercise with Mexican security forces, which we’ve been doing in conjunction with their authorities for months now. Gutterson took it upon himself to target Romero’s compound because he believed they were a front for an actual drug cartel.” Stevens cleared his throat. “And you went with him.”

“Which means El Martillo will be out for our blood,” Risk said.

“We told Jose that you were following Gutterson’s orders. They seemed to buy that he was an extremist who used his authority to command your participation. We were hoping his death would be enough, but they want more retribution. I believe the hearing, and any punishment that ensues, will suffice.”

“And we’re supposed to go quietly along?” Risk asked.

“That was the agreement, gentlemen. You knew the terms.”

Risk leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Yeah, but I don’t think we got all the facts.”

Three weeks later …

Risk stalked down the hall with the rest of his team—ex-fucking-team—to the back of the building where reporters weren’t waiting for the “Rogue Six.” At least they hadn’t been court-martialed. Their commander had finagled that, which was damned nice, since they hadn’t done anything wrong. Everyone else, however, thought they had. The worst part was they had to go along with it. No, the really worst part was they weren’t active duty SEALs anymore.

The rear door opened, and the flunky they’d been following gestured to a black
limo, complete with a guy in a suit standing beside the vehicle.

Risk, the first in the group, came to an abrupt stop. “What the—”

“A limo instead of a prison transport van,” the flunky said with a smirk. “There ain’t no justice these days.”

For the thousandth time, Risk bit back words that wanted to explode. Only a few people knew the truth. This jack-off was not one of them. And it shouldn’t bother him.
Get used to it
. But oh, buddy, did he want to smash the guy’s smirk into his face.

The smirk disappeared, and Risk looked back to see that Rath had ripped the tie he’d just loosened into two pieces, the torn ends hanging from his fists. Rath’s steely gaze speared the flunky’s; still wearing his dark beard, he looked like a mountain man. A crazed, hack-you-into-pieces mountain man.

Sax patted Rath’s shoulder, giving the flunky a mild look. “There’s a reason his nickname is Psycho. But you go on, keep flapping your lips.”

The flunky stepped back inside the building and pulled the door shut. A bolt clanged into place.

The driver stepped forward, his hand out. “I can take your bags, gentlemen.”

Clearly, this guy knew nothing about their situation at all. But a limo? Something wasn’t right … again. Risk checked the height of the vehicle, then made sure it didn’t list to one side under the weight of explosives. He turned and saw the question on his comrades’ faces. He bypassed the guy’s outstretched hand, tossed his duffel into the open trunk, and ducked into the limo.

Saxby followed with the grace of a guy who’d been in a limo a time or three. “You think this is the Navy’s way of sayin’ sorry?” he said under his breath as he dropped onto the leather seat.