SEAL Team 13 (SEAL Team 13 series) (9 page)

He vaulted the fence, razor wire and all, landing in a roll on the far side before silently coming to his feet and vanishing into the midst of the base buildings. Just then, a roving patrol circled the corner. The K9 unit paused near the point where he’d made his entry, the German shepherd suddenly backing into his human companion and whining softly.

“What’s wrong with you, boy?” the military policeman asked, kneeling down to pat the dog as he swiveled his powerful flashlight around.

He didn’t see anything, and finally shrugged it off.

“Probably a cougar pissed on the fence,” he mumbled to himself as he tugged the resisting dog past the area so that they could continue with their rounds.

Already halfway across the base, Robert Black paused when he reached the darkened housing units where the Clan’s intelligence had placed his target. Like most military housing, it wasn’t built for defense, relying instead on the outer fence and patrols for protection. It was literally child’s play for him to silently pop the lock on the front door, letting himself in like he owned the place.

The poor construction of base housing made it slightly tricky for him to cross the distance to the bedroom without making noise, but not insurmountably so. Black took his time, inching across the space with swift and sure motions, testing each floorboard before letting it take his full weight. Within a minute he’d crossed the room and was outside the bedroom, his hand closing on the pommel of his blade as he edged the door open.

He grimaced in annoyance at the digital clock that was flashing in his face from the room’s nightstand, noting that the red LCD screen had been turned away from the bed, most likely because the room’s occupant hadn’t much liked it beaming in his face either. Black slid into the room, pulling the long, curved blade from behind his back as he approached the bed.

After his third step into the room he felt the door close softly behind him, and he froze in momentary surprise when the clock light went out just as the door silently contacted the frame.

Masters woke up when the light changed against his eyelids, his wiring trick with the alarm clock and the door setting off an immediate ingrained response from his nervous system. He willed his body still as he tried to identify what had caused the change.
Someone’s in the room.

He opened his eyes just as the light from the clock went out again. He couldn’t quite make out the shape of his visitor, but the gleaming crescent of a blade against the reflected lights from outside was enough to cause him to move.

His fist came up from under the covers, revealing the gunmetal blue of his Colt 1911 as it tracked onto the rough center of the person in his room. The crescent gleam of the blade vanished as it was drawn back, flashing in a sort of strobe as it arced down through the faint reflected light.

Sparks erupted as his gun was jarred heavily, Masters’s finger tightening on the trigger in reflex. The 1911 roared in the dark room, the muzzle flash giving Hawk a momentary glimpse of his assailant. The shockingly ordinary figure had a slightly annoyed look on his face as he pressed his blade into the pistol.

If Hawk wasn’t busy fighting for his life, he might have thought the man was disgusted with something. As it was, however, he was too busy trying to keep his Colt between himself and the blade pressing down on him.

His wrist was badly twisted, the finger trapped in the trigger guard near its breaking point, so he braced the pistol with his other hand and kicked out as hard as he could through the blankets weighing him down.

The impact wasn’t anything to write home about, but it shifted his attacker aside slightly, giving Hawk the chance to deflect the force of the blade and roll to the side. Sparks erupted against in the black room as the blade scraped along the side of his barrel, finally sliding off into the night table.

Hawk continued with the roll, bringing his left elbow around and driving it into the back of his assailant’s ear as hard as he could. There was a muffled grunt and the man went down to one knee, but a subtle shift in his stance caused Masters to jump back just in time to avoid losing his entrails to a reversed slash of the man’s blade.

He backpedaled for distance, intent on bringing his Colt back into play with as much fanfare as possible. Arm extended, pistol honing in on the shadow’s center mass, Masters squeezed the trigger again, but the gun didn’t go off—instead, there was an impossible tension in his trigger. He squeezed harder for a moment, then realized that his gun had jammed somehow. He grabbed the slide to rack it back and clear the obstruction, only to almost freeze in shock as his hand fell across an unfamiliar landscape.

The slide had been sliced almost in half, and the spring inside could be felt under his palm. It was clear that while the weapon had saved his life from the blade, that had been its last act. He jumped back again as the shadow slashed at him. He reversed his grip on the gun and clubbed down at the assailant based on his best judgment of where he was.

A meaty thud and a satisfying hiss were his rewards this time, causing him to whip the gun butt up and around in an attempt to beat into the man’s head and face with the heavy steel frame. Masters grunted in surprise as the shadowed figure easily caught his hand and twisted it hard, pulling him in close as his wrist went numb and the gun dropped to the ground.

Unbelievable strength,
he had time to think before he was pulled off his feet and thrown across the room with such might that he tumbled right through the wall of his bedroom and into the small bathroom.

Plaster dust floated all around Hawk as he shook his head, trying to clear the stars from his vision and the debris from his face. He looked up, and the streetlights filtering through the high bathroom window showed him the silhouette of his attacker as the man kicked back the ragged edges of the hole in the wall and began to step through.

Hawk scrambled to his feet and grabbed the ceramic cover from the toilet, swinging it as hard as he could. The man’s arm came up, blocking the attack, and Hawk shattered the cover across it. He blinked, shocked to see that his actions had barely fazed his attacker, and scrambled out of range of the man’s long curved blade.

“I don’t suppose we can talk about this?” he asked. He hadn’t expected a response and wasn’t disappointed when he didn’t get one.

The figure cocked back its arm and slashed forward. Masters dived under the attack and hit the bathroom door with his shoulder, splintering it off the frame as he rolled into the small living-area-and-kitchen combo. He bounced off a wall, scrambled along the floor as he tried to get his balance, and finally dove for the coffee table in the center of the room.

Robert Black snarled silently, his lips drawn tightly around his teeth as he stalked forward. This man was becoming aggravating. SEAL or no, there was no way that he should have missed his first strike, and now it seemed as though he’d have to hurry. The single shot the man had fired might not have injured him, but the entire based had probably been alerted by now.

Determined to end the fight quickly so he could slip back out of the base before the entire situation became a debacle, he strode forward with his blade at the ready. A massacre on a US military base would bring attention that neither he nor the Clan needed.

Masters’s arm blurred as the SEAL retrieved something from the coffee table and twisted to fling it at him. Black parried the incoming object with his blade, sending a dive knife spinning away into the shadows of the darkened room.

This has gone on long enough,
the annoyed assassin thought as he vaulted the cheap sofa and lashed out with his blade in a bid to pop the annoying navy man’s head from his torso.

He was surprised when his target lunged at him instead of retreating, blocking the blade by planting his shoulder into the striking arm. Then came a piercing pain and sudden pressure in Black’s belly. He grabbed the navy man by the throat and squeezed, only to feel more pain and pressure as the man jerked his hand upward.

There was a sudden rush of sensation that reminded Black of voiding himself, only from the wrong direction, and a spatter of liquid hit the carpeted floor. He grimaced, feeling the strength leave his arms. He tried to squeeze Masters’s neck harder but found his arm knocked clear from the navy man’s throat.

Black staggered back, falling into the sofa he had just jumped over as the SEAL climbed to his feet. Suddenly he found himself looking up at the man he’d come to kill.

“You’re bleeding all over my couch,” Hawk Masters growled, his second dive knife gripped tightly in his hand. “Don’t suppose you’d care to explain why the hell you tried to gut me?”

Black just stared at him as Masters stepped on his wrist and plucked the curved kukri blade from his grip.

“No?” Masters asked idly, not expecting anything as he looked over the dark blade in the filtered light streaming in from the streetlamps outside. “I suppose it was too much to hope for. You’re human, or at least you bleed like one.”

Black stayed silent as Masters walked across the room and flicked on a light. He could hear engines roaring in the distance, sounding farther away than he would have expected. Everything did, actually, once he considered it.

Masters returned to the couch, yanking the coffee table back a foot so that he could sit across from the dying man. “You look human, but you’re stronger than any man I’ve ever met. If you’re not one of those bastardized abominations from across the veil, who—and, more importantly,
what—
are you?”

Black closed his eyes, not quite believing that he’d been killed by this ignorant mongrel.
The matriarch is going to have my line purged for this failure.

The man in front of Hawk Masters died just as tires squealed to a halt outside his place. The MPs burst in a moment later, M16 rifles leading the way as they came to a stop and stared in shock at the dead man lounging on the sofa.

“Throw down your weapon!” They snapped out of their shock, shifting their aim to Masters.

He tossed down the knives, keeping his hands in sight.

“I’m Lieutenant Commander Harold Masters,” he said. “This is my house.”

“We’ll check on that,” the lead MP said, eyes scanning the rest of the house. “Is there anyone else in here?”

“If there is, shoot them,” Masters growled. “I should be alone.”

“Right. We’re going to need NCIS,” the MP said, looking back. Then the man sighed. “I’ll wake the brass.”

Masters snorted. “Better you than me.”

Dawn was breaking when Judith Andrews pulled her car to the side of the street, eyes widening at all the flashing lights adorning the street outside Lieutenant Commander Masters’s assigned living quarters. She shook her head, killed the engine, and climbed out of the car. Another glance at the sheer number of MPs and official vehicles parked around the building left her both stunned and annoyed.

This is supposed to be a covert operation, damn it,
she thought as she crossed the road and flashed her ID at the MP who was trying to stop her. “Where’s Lieutenant Commander Masters?”

The man stiffened. “Inside, ma’am. He’s with NCIS.”