The Defiant Hero (3 page)
“Do you honestly think you can take the Kazbekistani ambassador hostage inside his own embassy?” the heavy man asked. He was sweating, and Meg realized that he didn’t fear a hostage situation. He was afraid she had come here on a suicide mission, to gun them all down. Such were the ways of the violent world from which he’d come.
Razeen was silent, just watching her, his dark gaze impossible to read, but another man spoke up. “Perhaps we could negotiate. If you would tell us what it is that you want . . . ?”
“I want silence,” Meg told them sharply. “I want your hands in the air. I want you—” She pointed with her gun at the heavyset man in all his unzipped glory. “—to take a message to both your government and mine. I want all guards and police to stay far away, I want this entire floor cleared. If someone so much as touches this door, I’ll start shooting. You make sure they understand that—they breathe funny on the door, and these men are dead.”
He nodded his understanding, his double chins wobbling.
“Tell them,” Meg continued, “that I have a list of demands, but the only person I’ll consider negotiating with is Ensign John Nilsson of the U.S. Navy SEALs. Tell them to find him and bring him here, and then I’ll talk.”
Please God, let John be somewhere close by . . .
“Do you understand?” she asked.
He nodded. “John Nilsson. U.S. Navy.”
“He’s a SEAL. Make sure you tell them that.”
“A SEAL,” he repeated obediently, his eyes longingly on the door.
“Go.”
Hands still high, the heavyset man took his various exposed parts and lunged for the door.
And Meg sat down, her back to the tile wall, her gun on her remaining hostages.
Waiting for John Nilsson to come and save the day.
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Two
LIEUTENANT JUNIOR GRADE John Nilsson was on a mission. Under his leadership, a six-man team of SEALs had been ordered to break into an Iraqi compound and rescue Captain Andy Chang, a downed American fighter pilot.
Getting inside would be easy. It was getting back out after their presence had been detected and an alarm had been raised that was going to be the hard part.
Nils’s original plan had been to insert and extract without waking even the lightest sleeping Iraqi soldier. But—what a surprise—there were ten times as many soldiers in this compound as intel reports had indicated, and what was described as a sleepy little ill-equipped and poorly manned outpost was in truth a brightly lit, teeming center of activity, even at 0300.
Going in after that pilot with only a six-man team would be little more than suicide.
Still, he’d sent Ensign Sam Starrett and Petty Officer WildCard Karmody in to verify that the pilot was being held at this location. And at least naval intelligence had that much right. Sam and WildCard returned in short order with a report that Chang was indeed there. And, overachievers that they were, the SEALs Nils thought of as his best friends also came back with the complete layout of the compound.
Nils lay just behind the scrub brush growing on a small rise and gazed at the roof of the two-story building through night vision glasses. That roof was the way Sam and WildCard had gotten inside undetected. It was the route his team would take, too.
If this didn’t work, he was going to get hammered. He knew damn well that his correct response to the additional security was to accept failure. He should cut his losses, turn his team around, and slip back over the border.
But he’d never been fond of losing. And accepting failure wasn’t the only option. Not when he’d prepared for exactly this possibility.
Nils felt more than heard Senior Chief Petty Officer Wolchonok move beside him, and he glanced at the older man. Even clean of the camouflage greasepaint he currently wore, Stanley Wolchonok had a face only a mother could love—a mother, and an entire team of SEALs, who’d come to trust the senior chief with their very lives. There wasn’t a single man in SEAL Team Sixteen—including their CO, Lieutenant Tom Paoletti—who wouldn’t jump off the edge of the Grand Canyon without hesitation if the senior chief assured them they’d sprout wings midair and be able to fly safely to the other side.
But right now Wolchonok was shaking his head. “Don’t even think about it, Lieutenant.”
“I can get Chang out of there.”
“No, you can’t.”
Nils always thought God would have a voice like the senior chief’s. Deep and resonant and filled with such absolute certainty. And with just a hint of a Chicago accent. “As always, I appreciate your opinion, Senior Chief. But if it’s all the same to you, I’m going to try.”
Wolchonok leaned closer, lowering his voice even more, speaking not as a senior chief to his commanding officer, but as an older, more experienced man to one much younger. “Johnny, come on, you know what this is. It’s the no-win scenario. You know as well as I do that you win by admitting defeat. Don’t screw this up for yourself.”
Nils knew the senior chief was right. An officer needed to assess a situation and make decisions based on what was best for his men. But they were SEALs, and being SEALs meant that sometimes they had to take risks. It also meant that sometimes they had to cheat the rules. He looked back through the NVs. “I’m not ready to admit defeat.”
Wolchonok gave him a look designed to make men squirm—men with far higher rank than Nilsson. “Cut the Hollywood heroics, Lieutenant. This is only a training op, and today’s lesson is all about backing down. You lose Chang, yeah, but you avoid a total goatfuck—and a little black mark next to your name. By walking away, you keep the Iraqis from getting their hands on six more hostages—a situation that would be politically damaging to the United States. Need I remind you that we’re undermanned and—”
“How many more men do you figure we’ll need?” Nils put down the NVs and met Wolchonok’s evil eye. He knew damn well that this was only a training op, that this was, indeed, the no-win scenario that, as SEALs, as officers, as human beings, they were forced to come up against again and again out in the real world.
However, none of this was real.
They were in the California desert, not the Middle East. Those weren’t real Iraqis he’d been watching through his night vision glasses, they were jarheads—Marines—assigned to participate in this exercise in futility. The assault weapons they were all using didn’t fire bullets. Instead they fired lasers and were hooked into an intricate computer system. If a soldier was “killed” by a laser “bullet,” he’d get a small jolt and his weapon would be disabled by the computer and would no longer fire.
Captain Andy Chang of the U.S. Air Force was really Captain Andy Chang, but after they finished here tonight, whether Nils and his SEALs managed to rescue him or not, he was going to grab a beer with the rest of the guys before heading home to his pregnant wife.
The most real thing about this entire scenario was that black mark Wolchonok had mentioned—the one that would show up on Nilsson’s fitness report if he tried this and failed.
He had, however, absolutely no intention of failing.
“I think six more men will do it,” Nils continued, still holding the senior chief’s gaze. “Four to create some well-placed diversions and a couple of snipers to even up the odds if and when the shooting starts.” He switched on his radio, pulling the lip mike closer to his mouth. “Team Bravo, stand ready.”
Wolchonok blinked. And then he laughed—just a short burst of disbelief as his eyes narrowed and he tried to see inside Nilsson’s head.
As Nils gazed back at him, he couldn’t keep a smile from escaping.
And then Wolchonok smiled, too. Senior Chief Stan Wolchonok had a smile about as bright as a sunrise after a solid week of rain. It transformed his butt-ugly, weathered face into a thing of true beauty.
“What have you done?” Wolchonok asked.
“It’s not what I have done, Senior Chief,” Nils told him. “It’s what I’m going to do.”
He was going to win the no-win scenario.
Johnny Nilsson was one of those guys who was going to make admiral some day.
It was more than just his fancy degree from Yale and his silver spoon “mumsie’s playing tennis at the yacht club today” childhood that had Sam Starrett convinced of that fact. There was something he could see in Nils’s eyes, even when his friend was shit-faced, even when he was puking and feverish with the flu, even when he was half asleep and muttering in Zamboorian or Chinese or God knows what languages.
It was in the way Nils walked, the way he smiled, the way he took a piss. It surrounded him at all times, hanging about him like some freaky-deak aura that was so powerful, even mere mortals like Sam could see it.
And Sam could see it super clear tonight, as Nils outlined his revised strategy for getting them in and back out of the compound with Captain Chang in tow.
Somehow Nils had found out that tonight was no ordinary training op. Tonight he was in command of a no-win scenario, and knowing that, he’d not only restacked the deck in his favor, but he’d reshuffled and redealt the damn thing as well, making arrangements for six additional SEALs to join in on the op.
And now Sam had the point, leading the team stealthily through the corridor, toward the room where the jarheads were holding Chang. There were no booby traps here, no alarm systems, not even any guards in the hallway, which was typical brute-strength thinking. Figuring no one could penetrate their densely guarded perimeter, the Marines had left their vulnerable interior unprotected.
He knew from his earlier visit that there were only two guards in with Chang. The SEALs would take ’em out fast, kicking open the door at the exact moment Team Bravo set off the first of their diversionary explosions.
Sam checked his watch as they silently moved into position outside the door. He glanced at Nils, who gave him a nod and something that looked a hell of a lot like a smile. The son of a bitch was enjoying himself.
He was enjoying himself, too, Sam realized as he nodded back at Nils. Of course, it helped knowing that the bullets weren’t real. Ever since last summer when he’d felt firsthand what it was like to be a target, his hands got sweaty at the prospect of getting shot again.
Not that he’d ever mention that to the shrink he still met with, although far less frequently these days. God, no. He’d lie through his teeth first, without any guilt. Because Sam knew a truth no shrink would be able to understand. Yes, he understood that being scared was part of being alive. But admitting that fear was something he simply could not do, not to a shrink, not to a girlfriend, not to his mother, not even to John Nilsson, his teammate and best friend.
Lieutenant Jazz Jacquette was gently turning the knob so that the door was unlatched. As Jazz nodded at Nils, Sam could see his full lips twitch. From another man, it wouldn’t have meant anything, but from SEAL Team Sixteen’s grim-faced executive officer, it was the equivalent of an all-out grin.
The Marines were expecting an easy victory. They were expecting that the SEALs would back down and go home. But in approximately seventeen seconds, Nils and his men were going to kick some serious Marine butt.
Nils gave a hand signal. Stand by.
Sam held up fingers as he watched the seconds tick down. Four. Three. Two . . .
He used all of his weight to kick the door open, and it went like clockwork. He and Jazz went in first, moving fast, in sync, shoulder to shoulder to stay out of each other’s firing range. He saw the absolute surprise on the guards’ faces, saw the weapon down on the table, saw Chang safely off to the side.
Sam’s weapon was already up, and he fired, neatly taking out the guard on the right as easily as Jazz handled the guard on the left.
It was over in less than two seconds.
Nils moved toward Chang—he and WildCard cut the captain free.
“You’re badly outnumbered,” Sam heard Chang say.
“Just stay close, stay down, and we’ll get you out of here, Captain.” When the light hit Nils a certain way, he looked a little like that movie star, Ben something. The one who’d dated Gwyneth Paltrow. Except Nils could play earnest and sincere better than any Hollywood actor Sam had ever seen.
And they were off, back out into the hall, moving swiftly toward the front entrance.
Sam could hear the sound of explosions, more of them now, one right after the other, rapid-fire. It sounded like an all-out frontal assault. And knowing the Marines, they would respond to it as if it were an all-out frontal assault, sending their men out in force to meet the threat.
Except the threat was already behind them. Within them. Inside them.
Team Bravo had set off smoke grenades in the lobby, bless their devious little hearts. It made it impossible to see—or to be seen.
They led Chang right out the front door, pretending to cough and choke along with the Marines, hiding amidst the chaos.
The area around the compound was thick with smoke as well. And all of the big floodlights had gone dark—Chief Frank O’Leary’s handiwork, no doubt.
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