“Wolfman Jack.” Hood rolled his eyes behind his NVGs and turned to the dour leader of the Monster Squad. “Is that supposed to be funny?”
“I’m sure somebody must have thought so,” Wolfman replied.
As her remaining teammates came forward to join the huddle, Bride went on, “The big guy here is Imhotep.”
“AKA The Mummy,” supplied Mad Dog, coming up beside Hood.
The towering man with the 240B, his face still hidden behind his balaclava, inclined his head slightly but said nothing.
“It fits since he’s actually Egyptian by birth,” Bride went on. “His family came to the States when he was just a kid, so he’s as American as you or me. He’s our heavy weapons guy. Doesn’t say much, though.”
She gestured to the remaining masked figure. “Vlad on the other hand is Russian. And yes, his real name is Vladimir.”
“Pleased to meet you,” the man said, his voice thick with a Slavic accent. Unlike Jack, Bride and Sharky, his FN SCAR was the SSR variant, outfitted with a long barrel and an even longer sound-and-flash suppressor.
“He’s former Spetsnaz. A sniper. Sharky’s our demo guy. Wolfman’s the field leader, and I’m his 2IC.”
“So which one of you is going to tell me why my team has been benched? And why you’re here?”
This time, Bride wasn’t so quick to answer. She passed the question to Wolfman with a glance.
“We deal with situations that are beyond the capabilities of even special operations units like Delta and Seal Team Six.”
“Beyond our capabilities?” Hood shook his head. “Bullshit.”
“Boys,” Bride murmured. “Let’s not turn this into a dick measuring contest.”
“Don’t get me wrong, Hood. You’re good at what you do. I’ve seen your folder. But at the end of the day, you’re a guy with a gun, trained to fight other guys with guns.”
“And you aren’t? Then who do you fight? Monsters?”
Wolfman’s silence was answer enough. After a few seconds, he said, “One of the men you photographed is Saleh al-Hindawi.”
The name meant nothing to Hood, but he withheld comment.
“Saleh al-Hindawi is a known associate of Dr. Rihab Ammash. Her stepson, actually.”
That name was vaguely familiar, and as Wolfman went on, Hood’s recall increased. “Ammash is a former Iraqi WMD expert — you might know her by her nickname, Doctor Tox. She was one of the highest-ranking females in Saddam Hussein’s regime. We arrested her after we took Baghdad and held her for more than six years without trial. A few years ago, she was released for political reasons and disappeared, but rumor has it she and Saleh have gone over to the Islamic State, no doubt looking to settle an old score with us. Further analysis of the photographs gives a seventy-three percent probability that one of the two women in the group is Ammash.”
“They were both wearing burqas,” Mad Dog countered. “How do you do further analysis on that?”
“That’s classified.”
“So Doctor Tox is the ‘monster’ you’re hunting? We had her once and let her go. What’s changed?”
“She ain’t out here in the ass end of nowhere because she wants to get away from it all,” said Sharky.
“Our intel says she’s working on something new,” said Wolfman. “Something very bad. We’re here to end the threat. Permanently.”
Hood shook his head. “That doesn’t explain why you’re here. Or why we’re on the bench. We’ve hunted high-value targets like her before. And we’ve done our share of looking for imaginary WMDs. We could have handled this, too.”
Wolfman exchanged a look with Bride. She shrugged. “He’s not going to just let this go. You might as well tell him.”
Wolfman sighed. “One of Ammash’s lines of research dealt with teratogenic compounds.”
“Teratogenic?” said Hood. “I don’t know what that means, but it sounds bad.”
“It’s the scientific name for any compound known to cause serious birth deformities,” Bride supplied. “The word is derived from the Greek word teratos, which means—”
“Monsters,” Sharky supplied, grinning fiercely.
“Doctor Tox isn’t interested in causing birth defects,” Wolfman said. “She’s after something that can literally transform people into monsters.”
Sharky finished. “And now you know the real reason they call us ‘the Monster Squad.’”
AS THEY TREKKED back to the observation post in silence, Hood considered what Wolfman had told him. It sounded completely implausible… No, worse than implausible. It was the plot of a bad science fiction story. An elite spec-ops team with a corny name, hunting a fugitive Iraqi scientist intent on developing some kind of Jekyll-and-Hyde serum that would transform a healthy individual into an unstoppable rage beast.
And yet, somebody a lot higher up the food chain was taking it all very seriously. And as curious as he was to know if any of it was true, Hood was starting to feel less like he’d been cut out of the mission, and more like he’d been let off the hook. But his curiosity was nonetheless aroused sufficiently that he decided to bypass the OP and head directly to the cave entrance. He radioed the team mates he’d left keeping watch to inform them of his decision. “Rollie, Bender. You guys awake?”
The voice of Ron “Rollie” Menzies, the troop’s master breacher, crackled in his ear a moment later. “Barely, bossman. This is about as exciting as watching paint dry.”
“Boring green paint,” added Jeremy “Bender” Graves. “Please tell me our honored guests brought some Red Bull.”
From somewhere behind him, Sharky let out a short laugh. Evidently, the Monster Squad was still listening in on their radio traffic.
“Negative on the go-juice,” Hood answered. “So I take it all is quiet on the objective?”
“Roger that, bossman.”
“All right. Stand by. We’re gonna walk our new friends down to the entrance.”
“Aw, we don’t get to meet ‘em?” Rollie asked, affecting hurt.
Bender added, “What’s the matter, boss. We embarrass you or something?”
For some reason, the light-hearted banter rubbed Hood wrong, but he fought the impulse to respond abrasively, and instead simply repeated, “Stand by,” before switching off his radio again.
They passed within a hundred meters of the OP. Hood didn’t look up to the hillside where his men were stationed, but he could feel their eyes on him. This close to the cave entrance Hood chose his steps carefully, moving slowly to avoid alerting the enemy fighters inside. He also kept his rifle at the high ready, pointing at the cave entrance. His finger rested beside the trigger guard, his left hand poised to activate the PEQ-2 laser-aiming device secured to the HK’s upper rail. With the Monster Squad’s fancy integrated battlefield monitoring system, it was probably an unnecessary precaution, but Hood wasn’t going to let his guard down. The technology was unfamiliar to him, and therefore, not to be trusted.
As they got within about twenty meters, Hood felt a hand on his shoulder — Wolfman, signaling him to stop. He complied, but did not lower his weapon as the five-person element continued forward without him. They were all business now, balaclavas lowered, every square inch of skin covered. They looked more like ninja warriors — or maybe comic book superheroes — than soldiers. Hood guessed there was more to their coveralls than just insulation and camouflage; probably some kind of lightweight bulletproof miracle material.
The cave entrance itself was unremarkable, a half-buried scallop at the base of a steep cliff face. But for the fact that more than half a dozen people had disappeared into it, Hood would not have believed that it was anything more than a sheltered niche in the hillside. As the Monster Squad drew close, they broke formation, spreading out to form a defensive line. One of them — Bride judging by physical size and weapon choice — advanced to within a few feet, taking a position that forced Hood to shift his aimpoint to avoid flagging her. She didn’t linger there, but instead took something from her chest rig and, with an underhand toss, lobbed it into the cave.