SEAL Team 666: A Novel (22 page)

Walker grunted as he tried to get his face under control. He brought a hand up but it was shaking too violently to be of any use. He dropped it back to his lap, where it flopped like a dying fish.

“Does it hurt?” Yaya asked.

“Nuh—no.” He managed to close both of his hands. They were now vibrating fists.

“Can you stand? Could you operate a weapon?” Holmes asked, frowning.

Walker couldn’t respond. Instead, he merely stared back at Holmes, helplessness and fear shining from his wobbling eyes.

“Enough.” Holmes reached out and took the spine back from Ruiz. He placed it in the box, closed and locked the lid, then took it into his room.

Walker sat back gasping. “Oh, my God.” He rolled his eyes at Ruiz. “That was way stronger than the Stretch Armstrongs.”

“Dude,” Yaya said, standing up and snapping his towel. “That was badass! Can we do it again?”

“Not if you want to live.”

Holmes came back out of his room talking on the cell phone. A moment later he snapped it shut. “NRO’s going to conduct their overflight in twenty-five minutes. We’re going over to SPG to see it live. Grab your shit and let’s go.”

38

SPG OFFICES. MORNING.

Both human and canine members of SEAL Team 666 climbed into the van. Fifteen minutes later, they were strolling into the offices of SPG. Past the reception area, they continued into the SCIF, where access was made through a safelike door. The SCIF, or Sensitive Controlled Information Facility, was especially suited for the transmission, reception, and creation of information at the top-secret level and beyond. Besides its offices, the centerpiece of the SCIF was the Strategic Information Center. A Navy lieutenant passed them through, not even giving Hoover a second glance. With a pair of floor-to-ceiling flatscreen monitors as well as a battery of computers, this was the place where SPG could render assistance to the special-operations community when necessary.

Watching the men and women working at their stations, Walker felt certain this was the location from which SPG had assisted them when they’d been on the ship. He’d known the SIC was in the building because Jen had spoken of it, but until now he’d never seen it with his own eyes.

And there she was.

She walked swiftly into the room. Dressed in a business suit with her hair pulled tight, it seemed hard to believe they’d lain together in her bed just a few hours ago. She met Holmes and shook his hand. When she saw Walker, toward the back of the group, she nodded, but smiled only slightly.

He mimicked her greeting.

“We’ll be up in two minutes,” she said. “We’ve already established coms with NRO command. We’ve sent them access to our secure node and are just waiting for the handshake.”

“Handshake complete,” said one of the men working at the computers in the room.

The image on the monitors scrambled and pixellated for twenty seconds as the information protocols were passed and synced between SPG and NRO. Then the image slid into focus. Both screens showed the subcontinent of India. To its east lay Bangladesh, Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal, and Myanmar. The screen to the left remained fixed on this image, while the screen to the right began to focus down.

Dropping like the gaze of an intrusive god, their view went from one hundred miles to one mile in a single moment, then focused further until they were passing over land. Trees covered squalor and farms, barely visible beneath the heavy canopy. They passed from forest to pasture, then from pasture to ocean.

“Coming to the port,” came a man’s voice.

“Match left and right screens,” Jen commanded.

The screens were again synced to the close-up.

“On my mark, capture screen at max resolution.”

Boats began to appear in the view on the flat gray water. Warehouses and cranes passed in and out of view as the water returned.

Walker wondered if they might be too late. Had their delay put them all at risk? If the ships had sailed in the last twenty-four to forty-eight hours, they’d have to depend on their global array of subsurface tracking buoys to detect them. But that meant that the ships had to pass near the buoys. And although they were strategically placed in water bodies such as the Strait of Malacca and the Gulf of Aden, and along the U.S. coastline, they were an imperfect solution to a possible attack.

Suddenly a fleet of cargo ships filled the screen.

“Begin mark. Capture.”

“That’s it, isn’t it?” Ruiz asked. “Those are the ships we’re after.”

As if to answer his question, one of the SIC personnel said, “Hull numbers and names match manifest.”

Ruiz grinned as he turned to Walker. “Think we’re going to see them get blown to bits?”

Walker wasn’t sure. He was too busy watching Laws and Holmes, who were conferring quietly with each other.

Then the image was back to canopy.

“Please pass to NRO Command our regards. Capture and separate digitals of each of those ships so we can examine them.” Jen turned to Holmes. “Give me a few moments, and I’ll put together a targeting set.”

“No need,” Holmes said. “How soon can we get another pass?”

Jen looked taken aback. “You don’t want to see the images?”

“We’d like to see them. There might be some intel that can help, but the ships are empty,” Laws said, pointing at the screen. “Either the crates are loaded on different ships, or they have yet to be loaded. Either way, we’re back to square one.”

“Jim, can you verify?” Jen asked, approaching an older heavyset gentleman sitting at a computer nearby.

“He’s right. See the watermarks and where they’re riding? That watermark should be at sea level.”

Walker looked from Holmes and Laws to the personnel in the SIC. They were at a sudden loss. No one knew where the creatures were. They could be in American ports as they spoke. All the money and technological advancement in the world couldn’t give them what they wanted.

Frankly, he didn’t know what they were going to do now.

39

THE MOSH PIT.

On the way back to the Pit, Holmes let it be known that everyone was on one-hour recall. They had to find out where the cargo was for those ships. SPG was going to coordinate with FBI to see if they could get access to the enforcer captured in San Francisco. Meanwhile, Laws was going to sift through the data SPG provided. They offered to mirror the hard drive, but Laws was old-school. He preferred paper and pencil. So it was that they left the SPG with two boxes of paper, covering every piece of data they’d ripped from the hard drive.

When they hit the Pit, Yaya went off with Hoover for a little bonding. Ruiz and Walker went to strip and to prepare weapons. Holmes went to brief Ms. Billings. Which left Laws as the sole sentient individual to try and solve the mystery. Just the way he wanted. He scribbled a note on a piece of paper, taped it to the conference-room door, then set about unraveling the unravelable. It wasn’t half an hour before he exited the room, his gaze already screwed into a faraway place. He first went into his room and grabbed two Chinese-to-English dictionaries. Then he ordered a large anchovy and green chili pizza from Alexander’s Pizza, along with a carafe of Starbucks coffee. After going over the papers and categorizing them into different piles, he realized that he was going to need his references. Even though he had an audiographic memory and knew how to speak Chinese, the characters were a much harder thing to remember. Although there was a method to the Chinese madness, it was a three-step process to determine the number of strokes, look up the radical, then figure out what the character meant.

Bottom line, it was going to take some time.

40

CORONADO BEACH. EVENING.

The only person who seemed to be enjoying the run more than Hoover was Yaya. Walker hated running. Ruiz didn’t hate it, but he thought it was one of the most boring forms of exercise. If it wasn’t so damn effective, he’d have given it up long ago. Holmes approached it with his head down and his gaze ten feet in front of him. Walker couldn’t tell if the boss liked it or hated it. All he knew was that the run was Holmes’s idea. He wanted to spend some time with his SEALs.

But Yaya was a completely different matter altogether. His enjoyment bordered on the insane. He was running around their little group with Hoover chasing and barking after him. The dog seemed thrilled to have someone who liked to run as much as she did. Ruiz had mentioned that Fratty had hated running. If he had to do it, it was on the treadmill while watching basketball on ESPN. The former SEAL would run the entire time the game was playing, then get off, shower, and go to the gym to play some real basketball.

Yaya began clapping his hands and singing cadence.

Four miles. No sweat.

Five miles. Better yet.

Six miles. You can take it.

Seven miles. Gonna make it.

They didn’t need the cadence; it was just that Yaya seemed incapable of keeping quiet. He loved to run so much that when he wasn’t on mission, he’d take leave just to travel to races. He was an ultramarathoner, which meant that he liked to run races more than fifty miles long. He especially loved running the Bataan Death March in New Mexico, the Bighorn 100 in Wyoming, and the Zane Grey Highline in Arizona. He’d even raced to the top of the Empire State Building twice and loved every second of it.

They’d traveled four miles and had turned around to return. Walker’s legs felt surprisingly well. Although he’d only left training a few days ago, it was the first time in months that he’d allowed his muscles to repair themselves and it seemed to be paying off. His shin splints had only begun hurting toward the end. Now, with a picnic table loaded down with food and beer in sight, he was happy to have finished the run with virtually no pain.

When they finally came to a stop, even Hoover had had enough. Her tongue lolled long. Luckily, the support staff had brought a bucket of water for her. She plunged her entire head into the bucket and loudly began to lap up the water.

They’d also set the table up like a SEAL smorgasbord. Fried chicken, cold cuts, raw vegetables, hummus and pita, pickled peppers, stuffed olives, a cut platter of cantaloupe and watermelon, and five different kinds of beer on ice.

Holmes lit the bonfire that had been made ready, then ran into the surf to cool off.

The other SEALs followed, shouting in shock as the cold water smashed into their hot muscles. After about two minutes, they staggered out of the water, shivering.

They each downed a bottle of Gatorade before grabbing beers and huddling around the bonfire to get their warmth back and to dry their shirts and UDT shorts.

“Is Laws going to make it?” Yaya asked.

“He’s locked himself into the conference room,” Holmes said. He popped open a bottle of Longboard and took a deep draught.

“Didn’t you see the sign?” Ruiz asked. “It said ‘Come in if you are bleeding or if the place is burning down. Otherwise G-T-F-O.’”

“Laws is ass-deep in Chinese, trying to figure out what the SPG analysts couldn’t,” Holmes said. “If there’s an answer to be had, he’ll find it. Best we just stay out of his way.” They ate in silence for a while.

Holmes finished first and stuffed his plate into a plastic bag. “Yaya, what do you think about all this?”

“Great food. Do you do this after every run?” he asked.

“Not that, the
team
.”

“Ah, that. I kind of dug the homunculus. Little fuckers were easy to kill once you got a hold of them, but they’re ferociously strong.”

Holmes nodded. “The Triads like using them as servants for all sorts of things. They’re good at stealing things, but even better at sweeping and cleaning the floors.”

“Supernatural janitors,” Walker said, laughing around a piece of cantaloupe. “Just crazy.”

“You seem to be taking all of this in stride,” Ruiz said to Yaya.

“Supernatural has always been a heavy part of Islam,” Yaya said. “Not that we ever saw anything, but it was always understood that it could exist. Djinns have been around since time immemorial. I’m just sad I wasn’t able to help you with that one.”

Holmes shook his head. “You mean the mission from 2007? I see you’ve been reading the mission log. That wasn’t a true Djinn. An oil executive was possessed by one that had become attached to a knife he’d been given by some Bedouins.”

“You gave credit to SEAL Team 6 for that one.”

Holmes shrugged at Yaya’s comment. “We had to. We don’t exist.”

“And the other SEALs? What do I tell them when they ask me?”

“It’s a SAP, plain and simple.”

“Plain and simple?” Yaya drank his beer and shook his head. Doubt showed in his eyes.

“What about you?” Ruiz asked. “Did you know about us before you were asked to join?”

Yaya considered a moment. “I knew there was something going on. I knew there was no pest control service. I also knew that Holmes was involved in a SAP.”

“And you never asked?” Ruiz raised an eyebrow.

“I never asked. Okay, I see your point.”

“What about family?” Walker asked.

“What about them?”

“I mean do you have one?”

“A family?” Yaya laughed. “Sure, doesn’t everyone?”

Ruiz and Holmes glanced at Walker. The look wasn’t missed by Yaya. “What? Did I say something wrong?”

“They’re worried about me,” Walker said. “I don’t really have any family.”

Yaya’s eyes widened.

“Long story,” Walker continued. “I was asking you about your family.”

“I have the usual—I mean, a mother, father, two sisters. They live in Philly. My father’s a doctor there.”

“What about a wife?” Walker asked.

“I had one of those. She didn’t work out.”

“Isn’t that always the case?”

“Wasn’t like that. She didn’t care how much I deployed. She just wanted me to be more devout.”

“How devout did she want you to be?” Walker asked.

Yaya held up the half-empty beer bottle. “None of this, for sure.” Seeing their expressions, he shrugged and added, “Listen, there’s devout and then there’s crazy. My father raised us as American Muslims.”