Prologue
George Monteverdi leapt into the void, his sixty-five-pound Belgian Malinois dangling from his body harness.
A three-second slide down the rope, and then the helicopter dipped its nose and clattered away, its cargo delivered safely. For the space of several heartbeats, the strike team stayed frozen, weapons to their shoulders, scanning for threats.
At last the team leader twirled his finger in a “let’s go” motion. Geo unclipped his dog, quickly stepped out of the harness, and stowed it in his ruck. Then he bent down and cracked the chem-lites hanging from the dog’s vest, activating them. That way he’d be visible to the SEALs at all times through their night-vision goggles.
“How ’bout it, Bosch?” he murmured, giving the dog a quick scratch behind the ears. “Ready to go to work?”
A low whine was his reply, the dog’s intelligent eyes gleaming up at him, tongue lolling. “I was born ready,” he seemed to say, and with one last pat, Geo stood.
“K9’s off-leash,” he informed his teammates over the troop net. “Heading south.”
Grunted acknowledgments echoed in his earpiece, and he exhaled long and slow, adrenaline humming through him, the weight of responsibility settling heavily on his shoulders.
“Walk point with me,” he said to the new guy, a tall white dude named Kelly whose whole body vibrated with the nervous, first-op jitters Geo could remember all too well.
Kelly gave a short, jerky nod.
“I’ll be watching for Bosch’s tells,” Geo went on, gesturing toward the dog. “You watch for everything else, okay? We got this.”
Geo’s calmness was contagious, and Kelly visibly settled down as his training kicked in. “Roger that.”
With a reassuring nod, Geo gave the dog his search command, then set out after him, Kelly slightly behind and to the right, the rest of the team fanning out in their wake.
Geo briefly scanned their surroundings to get his bearings before gluing his attention to Bosch, who trotted on ahead, his powerful nose alternating between sniffing the ground and the air. Ignoring the birds he startled into flight, Bosch’s sole focus was on detecting the scent of explosives—or humans.
About a mile out, the team paused in the shelter of a palm grove to do one last coordination.
“According to the tactical operations center, nothing’s changed since the op brief,” the team leader, a Black guy named Jaxon, said. “HVT’s stationary, like he has been for the last eight hours.”
They all looked at each other. High-value targets never stayed in one place for long. Eight hours? Unheard of.
“Smells like a trap,” Geo said, his tone blunt.
Mutters of agreement went around the circle of guys, and Jaxon waited patiently for everyone to get the requisite bitching and moaning out of their systems before saying, “Oh, I have no doubt this is a trap, gentlemen.” He paused. “We just have to outsmart it.”
Wolfish grins replaced the sour expressions, because if there was anything SEALs loved more than a challenge, it was a challenge with seemingly impossible odds.
Geo glanced at Kelly. He had a feeling this was going to be a baptism by fire.
Hope you’re ready, kid.
Jaxon gave the signal to move out again, and as they walked, Geo pictured the compound. Walls, eight to ten feet high, with a metal gate for entry. Farmland all around, scattered trees. The drone feeds had shown no animals, no women and children. In fact, there was no movement at all. If this was a high-ranking insurgent commander, where were his bodyguards on the roof, or snipers in the trees?
The whole thing stunk to high heaven.
Yet, despite the dangers, everyone from the top down had decided the juice was worth the squeeze. Geo couldn’t help but shudder. He’d seen video of the commander’s handiwork—the kidnapping of local police, the torture, the murder, the stolen uniforms used to infiltrate coalition ranks. One attack had missed a U.S. general by mere minutes, although several other people had been killed.
Yeah, they couldn’t pass up this chance to take the guy down, no way. Maybe he hadn’t moved all day because he’d gotten complacent, careless. Maybe he was sick, or injured, and unable to be moved. Maybe he was dead.
No matter what, the intel said he was here, so the SEALs were going on. After all, they had stealth on their side, they had training. Geo’s lips curved. They had a hair missile.
A hundred yards out from the target, he called Bosch to him as the team took a knee to observe the compound through their binos.
“Ten to one that shit’s wired to blow,” Jaxon muttered, his binoculars pointed at the gate, which appeared to be ajar. “Might as well have a goddamn welcome mat out front, too.”
“‘Come on in, boys. Get blown up!’” someone cracked, and mirthless chuckles went around the group.
Jaxon lowered his binos. “Send in the K9.”
Geo uttered a few terse commands, Bosch’s lithe form a dark blur as he streaked toward the compound. To the SEALs, he was easily trackable by the chem-lites hanging from his vest, but to the naked eye, he’d be all but invisible.
Unable to keep from tensing, Geo waited for shots to ring out, the bloodcurdling yelp of an animal in pain...
All was silent.
Bosch sniffed along the bottom of the rock-and-mud wall as he’d been trained, looking for buried explosives, then moved on to inspect the gate. Nothing.
“Okay. Let’s move in.”
At Jaxon’s order, the team fanned out and headed for the compound. At the base of the wall, their sniper unhooked the collapsible ladder from his ruck, set it up and scaled it to the top. He scanned the interior courtyard.
“No movement,” he reported.
“Over the ladder or through the gate, boss?”
At Kelly’s question, Jaxon glanced at the dog, who’d returned to Geo’s side and stood in an alert stance, ears up, body forward. “Gate,” he said. “K9 cleared it.”
A rush of warmth and pride settled in Geo’s chest at the vote of confidence. On a SEAL team, trust was never just given—it had to be earned, and at this moment seven men were putting their lives in his hands, in his training of his dog.
And their work wasn’t done yet.
Geo moved to the gate and inched it open far enough for everyone to squeeze through one by one. Once inside, the men spread out across the courtyard as their sniper covered them from his prone position atop the wall.
With Bosch at his heels, Geo headed toward the main structure, a small one-story house. That door, too, was ajar. When Bosch didn’t alert on the threshold, Geo moved in behind him, using the barrel of his M-4 to push the door open wider. The smell that assaulted his nose made bile rush into his throat, and he gagged.