One Killer Force: A Delta Force Novel (44 page)
Kolt turned Seamstress’s face toward him, pinched the North Korean’s nose and locked lips, giving the old man two long rescue breaths. Kolt reached under the man’s ribcage, balled his right fist below his chest, and gave a hard upward thrust. Seamstress didn’t respond.
Kolt scissor-kicked to keep his body upright, spitting river water out as fast as it entered his mouth. Kolt gave another thrust, then another, and another.
Suddenly, Seamstress coughed. Water spurted from deep in his lungs, exiting his mouth like an ice-bucket challenge.
Kolt looked at Seamstress, then up at the hovering Little Bird, and gave a raised thumbs-up, signaling he was alive.
Kolt turned back toward his mate Gangster, and in an instant, Kolt felt the weight of the world come crumbling down on him.
He wept and he wept as only a man who has lost a brother in arms can.
“Chill out, Hawk,” Kolt said as he wedged his backside against the heavy steel door before pulling Hawk’s wheelchair into the spine of the Unit hallway, “you crushed it.”
“Bullshit, Racer!” Hawk said. “The board members ripped me a new one in there.”
Happy Hawk couldn’t see his face, Kolt didn’t answer right away. He knew Cindy Bird was right. The Commander’s Board had been especially hard on her for the past three-plus hours, even taking a piss break halfway through the soft interrogation.
Kolt knew nothing was off-limits at a Commander’s Board when selecting operators for the Unit. Sure, outside the compound, they were total gentlemen, opening car doors for their wives, handling honey-do lists with patience after returning from long deployments, and never forgetting anniversary dates or Valentine’s Day. But the graybeards weren’t going to let Hawk become the first female Delta operator without taking some skin first.
Kolt had sat poker-faced as they had opened old wounds about the circumstances of her father’s death in Fallujah, swarmed her with technical questions about this and that piece of operator kit, and had the skeletons in her closet either tap-dancing or looking to run for the hills. Yes, Kolt knew Cindy “Hawk” Bird had proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was fully capable of entering the ranks as a Delta operator. After turning numerous holy-shit targets with Hawk, she had his vote. But Kolt was easy; it was the other board members she had to convince. The graybeards of the Unit were charged with ensuring the right guy, not necessarily the best guy, was knighted, and they had pushed more of her buttons than a cosmonaut attempting reentry. Their votes were still being debated.
“You’ll know before close of business today,” Kolt said, pushing her down the large hallway toward the Unit memorial garden. “Let’s go pay our respects to your father.”
“Do you think POTUS will do it?” Hawk asked, changing the subject. “Stealth bomb the mini nuke sites?”
“I don’t know. The North Koreans know we have Seamstress, which means they know everything he knew, we know, too. It’s mutually assured destruction all over again.”
Kolt pushed Hawk through the threshold of the double glass doors, held open by Slapshot, who gave Kolt the stink eye for being late. Kolt smiled. It was beyond joy to see Slap there to scold him, and know that the rest of Noble Squadron and the crews of the Little Birds had made it back alive.
Kolt maneuvered Hawk toward the front of the crowd, careful not to bump her bandaged and elevated left leg on any of the guests’ chair legs. A small army of attendees—current and former operators, family members, and specially invited friends of the Unit—were on hand for the unveiling of the latest Eagles to be immortalized into the growing list.
“And the Unit and Six?”
“After enduring a million questions, now you’re full of them,” Kolt said. He wondered about that, too. Everyone did. Delta had performed miracles with Six not far behind. Unless POTUS had an aneurism he had to see that America needed both.
Kolt looked toward the far right of the wall, at the black cloth tarp still hiding the true names of former Delta squadron commander Gangster, and the two snipers killed in action in the Ukraine, Philly and Max. He knew their names, like so many before them, had been patiently and professionally hammer-and-chiseled into the giant triangle-shaped black marble wall by a world-renowned craftsman.
Kolt swallowed hard, self-consciously hoping nobody would notice his unmanageable discomfort with the entire situation. He scanned the other names on the wall, and realized that the names had more than doubled since he had joined Delta.
Great Americans and warriors.
Kolt saw each of their grizzled faces crystal clear, and would swear he could hear TJ’s last words again, see his last breath after saving POTUS on Marine One, even seeing in the deep recesses of his consciousness the marble headstones in Arlington’s Section 60 for Musket, Rocky, and Jet. Kolt could see the reflection off the wall of the gathered crowd, who seemed to be staring him down with accusing eyes as if he were responsible for all of them. If they weren’t launching blame darts, the graybeards certainly would.
Farther to the left, Kolt noticed “Michael Leland Bird” inscribed, Hawk’s dad, and figured she was looking at the same. Some on the wall had died in training, most in hard-fought battle, even some who sacrificed it all pulling a gig with the CIA abroad.
Kolt eased Hawk into a slot of chairs, most taken by family members of the deceased, but next to Colonel Webber’s wife. The board had caused them to be fashionably late, and Kolt instantly realized the spot next to the commander’s eccentric and meddlesome wife probably wasn’t the best, given Hawk’s situation.
Kolt looked toward the podium for Colonel Webber but didn’t see him. He did notice the Unit chaplain standing tall and confident in his military dress blue uniform over perfectly glossed jump boots. Kolt knew the chaplain hated this part of his job, had struggled personally at times with the finality of it all, but his demeanor and personality were perfect for these dark occasions.
Kolt noticed the three triangle-folded American flags held by three Unit members. All close friends and mates of the fallen, who had the unenviable task of soon presenting the colors to the dead’s next of kin. They had drawn the short straws.
Kolt moved his eyes back across the wall, stopping on the chiseled quote credited to former army secretary John O. Marsh Jr. during a visit to the compound twenty-five years earlier. Kolt read silently.
IN DELTA’S RANKS IS A SPECIAL BREED. THEY HEAR AND MARCH TO A DISTANT DRUMMER. SECRECY PROTECTS THEIR MISSION AND CONCEALS THEIR PERSONAL DEEDS. UNSUNG, THEY ARE DARING CONSUMMATE PROFESSIONALS. COMMITTED, DEDICATED, ANONYMOUS—THEY BELONG TO A TINY FRATERNITY WHOSE COMMON BOND IS UNCOMMON VALOR.
Kolt finished reading just when he heard Mrs. Webber address Hawk.
“Oh my God, Sergeant Bird, every time I see you it’s as if you just survived a train wreck.”
“Uhh, yes ma’am,” Hawk said. “I’ve always been a little accident prone.”
Mrs. Webber leaned closer to Hawk and cupped her hand near her mouth. “Honey, you must have given your mother fits.”
“I inherited it.”
“What was it this time?” Webber’s wife asked. “Another car accident?”
“Vacation booboo, actually,” Hawk said.
Kolt caught some movement behind him and he turned. Webber and several of the graybeards had entered the garden and were moving to their designated places for the ceremony to commence. They hadn’t changed clothes, still wearing the same Multicam fatigues they wore at Hawk’s board. That told Kolt—and in a few seconds, as soon as they came around the crowd and into Hawk’s view, she’d assume the same—that they must have debated her acceptance until they were forced to break for the ceremony. The jury was likely still out.
Kolt noticed Mrs. Webber lean over toward Hawk again and strained to hear her next comment. “You really should be more careful,” she said. “You spend more time in the aid station than the operators do, it seems.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Hawk said before turning her head and leaning back to look up at Kolt. Kolt hid the amusement, barely showed concern, and simply rolled his eyes slowly as if he was worried someone might be watching.
Webber stepped to the podium, adjusted the microphone with both hands, raising it a few inches to mouth level, and became Henry V for the umpteenth time in his three years-plus as Delta Force’s commander.
“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother. Be he ne’er so vile, this day shall gentle his condition.”
Kolt thought about it. Felt his stomach turn and pulse race under his fatigue top. He reached up with his left hand, flipped the hair out of his eye, discreetly wiped the tear that had run down his left cheek, and focused on the black cloth that was ceremoniously being removed from the black marble wall by the chaplain and Unit sergeant major.
Kolt read his three mates’ names relief carved in perfect Baskerville Old Face font, felt a deep sense of responsibility mixed with vulnerability, felt his sweaty palms roll around Hawk’s wheelchair handles, and asked himself if it all had been worth it.
In a second, he came to one hard conclusion.
It had to be.
Dalton Fury
was the senior ranking military officer at the Battle of Tora Bora. As a Delta troop commander, he helped author the operation to hunt and kill Osama bin Laden. He told his tale of that mission in the book
Kill Bin Laden,
which went on to become a national bestseller.
One Killer Force
is the fourth novel in his
New York Times
bestselling Delta Force series. You can sign up for email updates
here
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ALSO BY
DALTON FURY
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CONTENTS