“Hold on,” he shouted to his teammates behind him. The darkening sky ahead turned eerie shades of orange and purple.
Like a bruise, he said to himself. The whole country was more like an open wound now, with over seventy thousand civilian dead and a strange alliance of Sunni rebels and terrorists, including the al-Qaeda-linked Al Nusrah, pitted against the repressive and stubborn Assad regime, supported by Iran, Russia, China, and Hezbollah.
Crocker didn’t really give a shit about the regional politics, or the civil war in Syria. He was here with his team to complete a specific mission, which in this case involved a downed MQ-1B Predator drone. He was scanning the landscape for it now as his men-Cal, Ritchie, Mancini, Akil, and Davis-discussed Ritchie’s upcoming bachelor party and wedding in the tilt-up seats as though they were back at ST-6 command or hanging at their favorite watering hole in Virginia Beach.
“I’m talking crazier than a Mötley Crüe binge,” Ritchie shouted over the engines. “A final blowout tribute to the end of my bachelor days.”
“I saw them perform in El Paso in ’02. One of the wildest shows I’ve ever seen,” Davis commented, which was somewhat surprising since he was the mildest, most soft-spoken guy on the team.
“You into Mötley Crüe?” Ritchie asked.
“I wouldn’t say I’m into them,” Davis replied, screaming over the engine and rotors. “I mean, I don’t have any of their tunes on my iPod. I’m just saying they put on a hell of a show.”
“Like we give a shit,” Akil shouted back. He was the team’s muscular Egyptian American logistics expert, and the lone bachelor, except for the Asian American sniper, Cal, who almost never spoke. “Let’s hear more about the bachelor party.”
“What?” Ritchie asked as the helicopter passed over the ruins of a stone structure that looked like it was centuries old.
“The bachelor party!”
“It’s gonna be so wild I’m gonna have you guys sign nondisclosure forms,” Ritchie boasted.
“Me, I’m not signing shit,” Akil growled.
Davis: “I might have to pass.”
“Your loss,” Ritchie replied, grinning from ear to ear and lighting up his roughly handsome face. Immediately likeable, with a big smile and high cheekbones, he resembled the ballplayer Johnny Damon. “Dude, I gotta swear you guys to secrecy,” he continued, “because there’s gonna be some wild shit going down, which I’m definitely partaking in. Monica can’t find out.”
Monica was his bride-to-be-a former swimsuit model and now a successful real estate developer with a killer body and expensive tastes. Crocker thought she might be out of Ritchie’s league in terms of ambition and sophistication, but he kept that to himself.
“Rich, you might not want to hear this now, but as your friend I gotta tell you: Honesty is the bedrock of marriage,” Davis shouted. He had young kids and a pretty wife and had put his wild motorcycle-riding past behind him.
“Thanks, Reverend Holier-Than-Thou Dickhead,” Ritchie shot back. “I’ll work on that…after I tie the knot.”
“You gonna have strippers?” Cal asked, holding a PSG-1 sniper rifle across his lap.
Akil turned to him and said, “Look who’s interested in strippers.”
“With special skills, man. And that’s just the start,” Ritchie answered.
Akiclass="underline" “When? Where? Count me in!”
Mancini wasn’t interested in the bachelor party or the locker room banter. This was men’s work, given that they were operating in someone else’s country without permission and both Syrian Army and Hezbollah units had been spotted in the vicinity, neither of which were likely to greet them with handshakes and pats on the back. Searching the rough terrain with Steiner Commander military binoculars from the door opposite Crocker, he spotted something white against the black backdrop.
Leaning into the fuselage, he yelled, “I see something, boss. Target at nine o’clock!”
Crocker took a couple of steps toward Mancini, leaned out the door, and spotted the drone, which looked like a crumpled toy.
Cupping his hands together, he shouted at the pilot, then pointed. “The target’s on our left!”
The 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) pilot turned and nodded back, his wide face covered with reddish stubble. When he banked the helo over a parched wadi and some dried scrub, the MQ-1B Predator drone came into view, its wide nose pointing up like a sea lion lounging on a rock.
For some technical reason unclear to Crocker, it hadn’t self-destructed on impact like it was programmed to do. Black Cell’s job was to blow it up before the Syrian Army or their Hezbollah/Iranian partners got their dirty paws on it and purloined the advanced technical doodads and three AGM-114 Hellfire missiles.
Black Cell was a badass special compartmentalized cell at SEAL Team Six-designed to conduct the most dangerous, top secret counterterrorism missions on direct orders from the White House and CIA.
Minus the front antenna and intact, the drone measured twenty-seven feet long and had a wingspan over fifty-five feet. The whole thing weighed 1,130 pounds. Crocker had watched one being unloaded from a C-150 Hercules in a box called a coffin and assembled in three sections.
He didn’t have the patience for highly detailed, tight little tasks like that and preferred roaming, canoeing, riding, or running in the outdoors in his spare time. Even putting together bookcases from IKEA drove him nuts.
The Black Hawk hovered about eighty feet over the site, which was the best the pilot could do, given the wind, sand, and dust. Not the ideal platform to launch from, but in their line of work conditions were rarely perfect.
Crocker gave the thumbs-up and pointed to the ground. The guys readied their gear and weapons, and Mancini and Akil dropped two special braided nylon ropes out the left door that were anchored to a hoist in the helo.
Davis and Akil fast-roped first, grabbing on to the rope with two leather-gloved hands, then stepping out of the helicopter and pinching the rope between their Salomon Quest boots to regulate their descending speed. It was like sliding down a fire pole, only a whole lot riskier. Black Cell had practiced fast-roping so many times it was as automatic as tying the laces on their shoes.
Light was right, in this case because they wanted to move quickly in and out, and a heavy load would make roping down from that height a hell of a lot more perilous than it was already, given the wind and dust. Which was why Crocker decided to stop Ritchie and Cal before they went out the door. Unlike the others, they wore big packs loaded with C-4, detonators, and other explosives gear.
“You guys wait on the bird,” Crocker yelled. “We’ll secure the site and help you unload once it lands.”
“Piece of cake,” Ritchie shouted back, pointing to the ground.
“No, Rich. You and Cal wait here!” Crocker commanded.
Ritchie nodded. Then Crocker grabbed hold of the rope and descended with Mancini beside him on the parallel rope. The SEALs were dressed in Crye Precision Desert Digital combat uniforms with Alta kneepads and duty belts packed with multiple Flyye pouches for MR141, MK18, and M67 grenades, canteens, and extra magazines. Additional Flyye pouches on their backs and chests accommodated MK124 flares, light sticks, Motorola Saber portable radios, VIP infrared strobes, energy gel, and SOG knives. On their heads, MICH 2000 helmets with SureFire strobe lights, quad-tube night-vision goggles, and bone phones, which sat on their cheekbones and allowed them to hear radio traffic through bone-conduction technology. Davis and Cal wore armored vests with ceramic plates. The others had chosen not to.
Crocker carried his favorite HK416 assault rifle with EOTech sight. Maneuverability, accuracy, and firepower all in one very deadly weapon. Others carried MP7s-German weapons chambered with 4.6x30mm rounds with a greater ability to defeat body armor. All were armed with standard SEAL-issue SIG Sauer P226 handguns. Akil and Davis also hauled single-shot, break-action M-79 grenade launchers, even though most guys on the team preferred the newer M203.