Chapter 3

Haymarket, Virginia

Taylor called the number Claire had given him and never made it past the secretary, who left him on hold for ten minutes after getting Taylor’s name, only to return with a time and place to be the next day. Taylor tried to ask follow-up questions but was stonewalled by a repeat of the time and place he’d have to go to get any information.

Whitaker begged off any celebration, since given her age and how early in the pregnancy this was, she wanted to wait a little while to make sure there weren’t any issues before they started really making a thing of it. Instead, the three of them spent the evening watching a movie and just relaxing, which Taylor thought was a good way to spend the night before he had to head out on a new assignment.

The next morning Taylor arrived at a hanger sitting on one corner of what Taylor had thought was a small commercial airfield in north Virginia a little under an hour from DC. A quick records check the night before had told him that the hanger belonged to White Mountain, which they appeared to be leasing.

Taylor parked at the entrance to the hanger and walked through the front doors into a posh office area, where he was met by a large man with full sleeve tattoos, one of which indicated he’d been a marine at some point in his life. He had the tell-tale look of someone who juiced up, which was probably one of the things that got him kicked out of the marines. Of course, not everyone who used ended up getting kicked out, since in some cases the actual punishment was left up to the unit commander’s discretion.

“Can I help you,” he said, trying to glare down at Taylor in what he assumed was an intimidating pose.

“I was told to be here today. Name’s Taylor.”

“Don’t you recognize the war hero from his appearances on TV?” said a much leaner guy about Taylor’s height.

His tone made it clear he didn’t actually think much of TV appearances in general or Taylor in particular.

“I don’t watch TV,” the giant said.

“Good; it’ll rot your brain,” the guy said, sticking out his hand. “Mark Stone.”

“John Taylor,” Taylor said, taking an instant dislike to the guy.

He was too smooth for his own good, kind of a like a not quite good enough car salesman.

“This is Angelo. Follow me, I’ll show you around. So, if I read your bio in Time right, you were a Green Beret, right?”

“A long time ago.”

He wanted to refuse all interviews after the events during the election when a psychotic bomber tried to kill Caldwell just before the election, but she convinced him to do it anyway. They’d done their research and asked all kinds of questions about his past, including his capture in Afghanistan, the incidents in Miami and Oklahoma City, and his killing of a terrorist right before he released a chemical weapon on Washington. Thankfully, they’d missed the incident in Russia, allowing him to gloss over the parts of Kara’s past that might cause her problems.

“Sure, sure. I read about that last patrol where you got captured. Brutal stuff. I was over there for two tours with the SEALs and one in Iraq. I didn’t get taken captive or anything, but I can tell you I know how you feel. That place is a hellhole.”

Taylor had to admit that was one of the smoother insults he’d gotten. Normally guys like him just came out and called him a coward for being taken alive. Taylor also couldn’t help but notice how easily he’d thrown in that he’d been a SEAL. Taylor would have bet he was kicked out on a bad conduct discharge. Guys who got a BCD from the SEALS liked nothing more than telling you they’d once been a SEAL.

The warehouse was bristling with activity, with a dozen guys moving around, checking crates, or talking in groups of one or two. There was a fair amount of hardware here, all of it getting boxed up and tied with webbing onto a pallet. If he had to deal with them, at least they wouldn’t lack for supplies.

“So we’re about packed up and ready. Although we’ve got pretty good intel on the area, we’re going in prepared. I didn’t know if you were bringing your own equipment, so we set aside an M4 for you, since that’s what most of you guys liked to use back in the day.”

Taylor held up the rifle case and duffle he’d been carrying in with him in response. While he knew he wouldn’t be able to rely solely on his own equipment, he at least wanted to make sure any of the critical equipment was taken care of. Most important were the rifle and sidearm, both of which he’d used regularly in practice and kept well maintained, since the last thing he’d want if things went south was a weapon that jammed up on him when he needed it to work.

Besides that, he’d brought some electronics, including a sat phone and GPS, along with a few less critical items that he just preferred using, like his web harness, mostly because once he’d found one that was somewhat comfortable, he didn’t want to give it up.

“Cool, cool,” Stone said. “Well, if you need to draw ammo or anything, see Lopez over there. Newest guy draws the short straw and has to take loadmaster.”

Taylor was floored by that reasoning. Normally someone experienced got the assignment as the supply sergeant or loadmaster, since if that job got screwed up, you’d find yourself out in the field completely screwed. Of course, that had been the wisdom when he’d been in the service. Guys like this were usually the type that tried to dodge the mission-critical but somewhat boring work, so of course, they’d push it off on the new guy.

“I was hoping to get some more details on this op?”

“Yeah, I don’t doubt it. I was about to start our briefing so we could load up and get underway. I don’t have to tell you how long the flight over there is.”

“Sure,” Taylor mumbled, walking away.

Maybe it was rude, but Taylor had no plans to turn his back on Stone, let alone trying to be the guys’ friend. Stone just shrugged and headed off to whatever he needed to do while Taylor made his way over to the guy Stone had called Lopez.

“I was told you’re the guy I needed to talk to about requisitioning supplies.”

“Yeah. I can take your order, but you’ll have to wait till after the briefing for me to pull it. You brought your own weapons?” he asked, looking down at Taylor’s rifle case.

“Yep. M4 and a 1911.”

“Ha, they had you pegged. Yep, we have ammo for that. How much you want?”

“Standard loadout on the M4.”

“Nothing on the 1911?”

“No, I’m set.”

“Any other ordinance?”

“I don’t suppose you have flashbangs or anything like that.”

While guns weren’t hard to buy the other stuff he’d carried in the service, like explosives, were another thing.

“We do, actually. We can’t hand them out now, but once we land we’re covered by our charter and the rules change. We have a full compliment. What do you want?”

“An incendiary, four frags and two flash if you have ‘em.”

“I do. I’ll put you down for it. We’re only taking what we can carry, so just keep that in mind. There won’t be a resupply until we’re done. Do you have armor?”

“Yep, I’m good on that.”

He’d seen enough shitty body armor over the years to not trust that to anyone else either.

“Okay. All set.”

“Thanks,” Taylor said.

Lopez hadn’t triggered any of his internal warnings and Taylor briefly wondered why someone like him would be working with guys like these. Maybe Taylor was wrong, but he seemed pretty genuine.

“Okay, let’s get started,” Stone said, standing at the end of a long table with a bunch of metal chairs around it.

Taylor found a spot near the end and pulled his chair slightly away. Although they probably assumed Taylor was being standoffish, he did it so he could watch most of them as the briefing happened. Once he had information on them from Bryant, he wanted to have at least a general idea of what they each looked like and maybe get a little bit of each of their personalities. The files would be a big help, but even classified records, if that’s what Bryant managed to get, would be somewhat sanitized, even if just by the language used. Taylor preferred to get a firsthand impression before reading about someone, just to have a better idea of what he was looking at.

“I know some of you know about this op already, but I’m going to go over everything anyway, since we have a couple of new faces and I want to make sure we all know what’s expected. Four days ago, a team from Northbridge had their compound taken over by a local warlord and the staff held for ransom. The reason we’re here is that Northbridge has decided they don’t want to ransom the men. They want a rescue op instead.”

“Fine by me. All I care about is if the check clears,” the guy named Angelo said.

“We’ll get paid,” Stone said and the rest chuckled.

Taylor was glad to see that Lopez kid didn’t join them, although that might be because he was busy looking nervous. The rest of these guys, assholes though they were, all had the look of guys who’d spent time in the field and seen at least some action. Lopez looked just one step out of boot and Taylor had to wonder how someone like him ended up with this bunch.

“All right, settle down. Let’s get through this so we can all grab a few cold ones before we head out tomorrow. You know my rules on drinking once the op starts, so we gotta make sure we have time to get it all out of our systems tonight.”

Taylor had to be surprised a second time. He would have bet money these guys had less self-control than that.

“We are scheduled to depart from here at zero seven hundred tomorrow and fly to Djibouti, landing at Camp Lemonnier at about zero five thirty local time, where we’ll stage our gear. The Navy has been nice enough to give us a hot and a cot, but we will have a nanny the whole time and limited access outside of the hanger they shove us in. We’ve secured a charter to take us down the coast and we’ll pull out at eighteen hundred. Lopez, it’s your job to make sure the boat is loaded and everything stowed before we head out. It’s a six-hour trip to our drop-off point, which is an empty stretch of sand about twenty-three miles east of Berbera. There shouldn’t be much of a moon that night and the forecast is for heavy cloud cover, so we should be pretty dark when we go in.”

“How often is the forecast ever right?” a guy Taylor hadn’t been introduced to said.

“True, but it’s the best we could do in timing. If it’s not, it’s not. Our target is two miles inland, and this area is rocky and mostly uninhabited, so we should be okay. We bury the boats just in case we need a backup evac and hike inland. We should be catching them about one or two in the morning and these aren’t the kind of guys to put out patrols.”

“Another bunch of f•©king kids with guns,” Angelo said.

“Maybe. We aren’t expecting much opposition. Intel says maybe twenty guys, and these aren’t trained military. We’re talking local militia. Safe money is they run at first contact. We drop the few sad sacks who man up enough to stay and fight, and pull out the hostages. Once we have them clear, we radio for pickup. The Navy has okayed three helos from Camp Lemonnier to meet us back near the beach, where they will pick the hostages and us up and take us back to Djibouti. Then it’s beers and bonuses all the way around.”

“What if they don’t run?” Taylor called out.

“What?” Stone asked, taking a second to identify Taylor’s voice in the crowd.

“What if they don’t run? Some of these militias have been fighting in this area for decades. They’ve seen combat and didn’t flinch, or are we forgetting ninety-three.”