One Killer Force: A Delta Force Novel (7 page)
Kolt stepped closer, bent over, and delivered an eye thump, flicking him in the left eye with his middle finger to ensure the Butcher’s nervous system was compromised.
Confirmed kill.
Certain he was dead, Kolt immediately turned and began to beat feet down the road, in the same direction the van had gone after his not-so-acrobatic dismount.
Staying on the grassy edge, Kolt gained speed. He looked up, surprised to see JoJo and Gangster moving uphill toward him, split with one on each side. Relieved, Kolt watched Gangster stop first, taking up a kneeling position behind a tree to cover Kolt’s egress. Behind JoJo, who was still moving up but now slowed to a tactical pace, the van was reversing back up the road.
Kolt watched two objects sail over his head, toward the point he left the Butcher crumpled in death. He knew that JoJo must have air-mailed them, or maybe Gangster. A second later, Kolt heard the distinct detonations, nine rapid-fire explosions each, mirroring the speed and ear pounding of a runaway machine gun.
Within a few seconds Kolt reached JoJo and Gangster.
“Last man!” Kolt said, just loud enough to be heard by his mates. He had kicked a hornets’ nest, but the true nationality of the kicker didn’t need to be shared with the neighborhood.
Kolt reached the stopped van first and turned to cover JoJo and Gangster. Both had collapsed their positions and were already just a few yards behind Kolt. Gangster continued to the shotgun seat while JoJo opened the rear door and jumped in. Kolt followed and closed the door behind him before quickly scooting on his muddy knees to behind the protection of the ballistic blanket.
The van jerked forward again, struggling to gain purchase on the muddy roadway. Trip worked to gain downhill speed and keep the van from slipping off the edge.
Getting his shit together, Kolt managed to slip back into his seat and lean against the skin of the van. He thumb-checked the safety of his weapon, consciously slowed his heartbeat, ripped the partial mag from the rifle, and leaned slightly forward to grab a fresh mag from the pouch on his left hip. He jammed it up into the mag well, tugged to ensure it held, eased the charging handle to the rear until he eyed brass before releasing the bolt to put the gun back in battery. With a confirmed loaded rifle, he flipped the dust cover closed before very nonchalantly keying his hand mike for the first time during the entire two days on target.
“Butcher KIA, let’s make tracks.”
I screwed up and Webber’s gonna shit!
Human Resource Command, Fort Knox, Kentucky—April 2014
This asshole seems to be enjoying this.
Delta Force commander Colonel Jeremy Webber knew he wasn’t the only one who was thinking this. The eyes of his buddy and mostly friendly rival, SEAL Team Six commander Hank Yost, seated on his immediate right, told the same story.
A junior National Command Authority representative flown in from Capitol Hill on that gorgeous cloudless morning confirmed the secretary of defense’s 2015 budget plan would look to reduce the military force structure to the smallest postwar number since World War II. Indeed, as the stuffed suit continued, Webber stole another look over the top edge of his bifocals, confirming he and Yost were on the same page.
Typical shitbag politician that’s never broken a sweat for his country in his entire thirty-something years of life.
“In closing, gentlemen, I can’t reiterate enough how serious the president is about exploring options to reduce the force. One option included a plan for either combining the Tier One special mission units into one organization, or to disband one or the other.”
Webber almost swore out loud. Worst-kept fucking secret was finally confirmed. He was careful to hide his body language, not moving a muscle, keeping the two nineteen-inch flat monitors at his seat between him and the board president.
Webber knew, as did the others in the room, that defense budget cuts were standard practice after a long war. Delta and ST6 hadn’t been around after Vietnam to feel the brunt of deep, across-the-board budget cuts, and both Webber and Yost knew their commands had actually grown during the post–Cold War drawdown. Now, though, they were hoping they pulled enough weight within the special operations community that they would be hands-off. A safe assumption, given that they’d carried the nation’s war effort on their backs for a decade and a half by now.
The suit continued droning on. “We are seeing bipartisan support in Congress as well. Many believe that the two organizations’ force structures are redundant and that they appear to be equal players with redundant, mirrorlike capabilities.”
I’ll bet this Harvard-mouth jack wagon doesn’t even know we are the commanders of those units.
As much as the guy’s speech grated on him, Webber got it. He knew that the president, or his pencil-neck geek chogy boys like Mr. Pinstripe here, had no idea about the nuances of Delta and Six. No comprehension of their capabilities, or even the details on how and what they had done since their activations many decades ago. Presidents and cabinets shift on schedule mandated by the U.S. Constitution, but Delta operators and Six frogmen stay long enough to span four or five consecutive administrations. Webber and Yost were pretty much proof of that.
Even though the president, or the liberal-leaning SECDEF for that matter, didn’t see the necessity for maintaining the current numbers within both the nation’s premier ground and maritime counterterrorist units, Webber was certain of one thing.
I’ll be damned if they think Delta is gonna disband on my watch.
“Gentlemen, I thank you for allowing me to interrupt your important work here. I’ve satisfied my requirements so I shall leave you to reconvene.”
Colonel Webber leaned over to Captain Yost. In an effort to make light of the confirmation of the president’s desires and ensure their camaraderie trumped whatever decision was made, Webber broke the ice.
He let go of the hard-wired mouse and reached up, pulling his wire-rims from his face. “I can give twenty of your beach boys a slot at our next tryouts.”
Not missing a step and with a straight face Yost replied, “I’d return the offer but I know you don’t have twenty guys that can even doggy paddle. Your boys looked like half-drowned puppies when we fished them out of the Atlantic last month.”
“It was my guy that rescued the puppy,” Webber said.
Yost opened his mouth to reply then closed it.
Webber smiled at Yost before returning his attention to the desktop screen in front of him. He held the mouse softly and scrolled to the next page, halfheartedly reading the board instructions they were required to read.
The terrorist that had been the target of the
Queen Mary II
exercise was the topic. “What do you make of the agency’s claim that Marzban Tehrani and his scientist buddies are holed up in eastern Ukraine?” Yost said.
“My analysts haven’t bought into the Russian–North Korean connection just yet, but who knows?” Webber said.
“I’m with you,” Yost said. “Catching that guy alive is going to be tough.”
Webber looked past his screen and noticed the visitor being shown the door by the desk officer from the special management division. He closed the door behind him, appeared to lock it, and turned to speak to the assembled board members.
“Gentlemen, we are now ready to review the nominees for our Tier One special mission units. Naturally, due to the sensitive nature of these nominees, our cyber security protocol requires these particular files remain in hard format, so you will not see them on your screens.”
Webber turned his attention to his own Unit personnel noncommissioned officer, the sergeant in charge of the human resources troop, stunning as a toy soldier in his dress uniform. Webber watched as Master Sergeant Brewer, right on cue from the desk officer, began passing out the classified nomination packets he had hand-carried from Fort Bragg.
“Thanks, Sergeant Brewer,” Webber said as he took the three files and set them in front of him. As the sergeant moved around the oval-shaped table passing them out one by one to the seated gentlemen, some in their respective services’ dress uniform and some in coat and tie, Webber thumbed through to locate the file he was concerned about the most. Finding it third in the stack, Webber opened the bottom of the file just a few inches. He wasn’t expecting to see a Department of the Army photo, and was a bit shocked when he found one; a current one at that.
“As a reminder, gentlemen,” the desk officer said, pausing to ensure he had everyone’s attention again, “we will potentially be discussing top-secret special-access program information with reference to these nominees, so please ensure all two-way communication devices are powered off.” Webber watched the desk officer catch up to Sergeant Brewer with a cardboard box, placing a handheld magnifier in front of each board member.
Webber reached for the provided three-by-five index card and laid it perpendicular over the four-by-six color photo. He slid it up an eighth of an inch at a time, revealing specific areas that standard promotion boards home in on to determine the littlest of flaws. There was a proper length for the jacket sleeves, a perfect alignment of both corners of the service jacket, and a sure-bet method to determine if a nominee was trying to hide a rubber tire underneath the jacket. If you had gotten soft, sucking it in or smoke screening it behind a hundred medals didn’t make a difference.
Before leaving the midsection, Webber counted the overseas service bars, gold hash marks sewn to the candidate’s right sleeve, one for every six months in combat. Seeing the edges of the small patches just slightly signaled a skilled and meticulous Unit personnel shop.
Brewer’s folks are all over it, as usual.
Webber followed his right index finger center line up the midsection, stopping at the nominee’s right breast pocket. Webber drilled down to ensure the combat service identification badge was correctly centered. The red arrowhead with upward-pointed black dagger worn by all army special operations command forces combat veterans was free of smudges and fingerprints.
Webber shifted his focus to the upper chest area, pausing at the fruit salad of ribbons on the left breast. He studied the photo, keying on the medal ribbons pinned to the dark blue service coat. Reaching for the magnifier, he brought the photo closer into view.
What the hell?
Webber focused on the two rows of ribbons pinned to the dress uniform. If you were in Delta you had accumulated at least five rows of ribbons. Webber also knew, like every other board member in attendance that day, that all authorized medals and awards should be present in photos submitted to promotion and command select boards.
The two Distinguished Service Crosses by themselves were enough to draw any professional military man’s attention. But, after counting the Purple Hearts, Silver Stars, Bronze Stars, and the half-dozen bronze and silver oak leaf clusters, along with the two bronze “V” devices denoting valor on the battlefield, Webber came up for air. He wasn’t surprised at all that he could connect the gold hash marks’ timelines to pretty much every one of those valor awards. And, unfortunately, he knew he could connect a few of the names engraved in the black granite-and-marble Memorial Wall inside the Unit garden back at the compound.
“That son of a bitch!” Webber said just a little too loud, drawing several of the attendees’ attention momentarily.
Moments later Webber felt Yost’s pointed stare, his peripheral vision picking up Yost’s head turned to him. Being too lazy to display all your medals and awards was one thing. Even Webber recognized that the bottom two rows of ribbons were bullshit anyway, more about Napoleon Bonaparte’s famous statement about conquering the world if he only had enough ribbon than the wearer actually earning anything. Webber of course knew that the top two rows told the story of the man, of his combat actions, of what he did when the chips were down and the elastic moment wore off. Sure, the two rows of medals were irritating enough, and definitely out of protocol, but the disheveled and nonmilitary haircut, a thick lock threatening to cover his left eye, and the salt-and-pepper goatee were enough for Webber to execute a controlled detonation.
Fucking Major Raynor, doing his own thing as usual.
Webber looked up to lock eyes with Master Sergeant Brewer, his sapphire blue coat and Persian blue Army Service Uniform pants contrasting nicely with the charcoal gray sound barriers secured to the wall of the windowless and secure basement conference room. Brewer was already returning the glance, but unaware that one of his Unit nominee packets had caused a stir. Webber made note of Brewer’s own attire, proud but not surprised of how his mirror-polished black leather jump boots were like beacons. Webber marveled at how the custom fit of his white collared dress shirt and black tie was only obvious to a trained eye. The sergeant’s fresh and mandatory military-style haircut met the expected standards. Webber nodded from behind the desktop screen at the poster-boy sergeant, motioning him to come over.
Webber remained locked on Brewer as he slipped and side-stepped around a half-dozen other board members. The JSOC commander, Lieutenant General Seth Allen, was there, seated next to the SOCOM commander of all services’ special ops soldiers, sailors, and marines, who was up from Tampa, Florida. Three more general officers detailed by the army chief of staff, all with some special ops experience in their careers, had seats at the table.
The real players were the few former SEAL Team Six commanders and two former Delta commanders, whose opinions on nominee strength would be weighed heaviest. Basically, any former SMU commander who was healthy enough to make the trip and had a dog in the fight was welcome. The dog being one of their former shit-hot subordinate officers, and now the guy who he wants to see get the nod for a squadron command or take the Unit.
The immaculately dressed Sergeant Brewer leaned down to his commander to listen to the concern.