Van opened his eyes, tucking his cross back beneath his combat utility uniform. “Nothing’s a piece of cake when Skulls are involved.”
Loeb polished his rifle with his sleeve, then checked the chamber again. “Skulls make things about as easy as ballet with a bull.”
O’Neil thought it sounded like Loeb was putting on his Texas drawl affect a little strong. “No one’s interested in what you do in your free time.”
Loeb laughed. “I miss the days when I could hit up a BK after we got back from deployment, grab myself a Whopper—no cheese, thank you very much—then head home to the ranch for a couple weeks while we waited to spin up again.”
“Much as I hated them when I was a kid, I could actually go for a banh mi right now,” Van said.
“What the hell is a banh mi?” Tate asked.
“You like bread?”
“That a serious question, man?”
“I’m talking the kind of bread that’s got a crunch on the outside, soft on the inside. Real bread. French baguette style.”
Back in the sandbox days, this would have been where Loeb made some smartass comment like, “You talking about a sandwich or what it’s like in bed with your mom?”
Van would have punched him in the shoulder. Loeb would laugh.
But now, Van’s parents were gone like Tate’s and everyone else’s. Swept away when the Skulls took Houston.
‘Your mom’ jokes had gotten considerably less funny since.
“Everybody likes bread,” Tate said to Van.
“Imagine crisp cucumber, pickled carrots. Add some cilantro.”
“The soapy tasting stuff?” Tate asked.
Van shook his head. “And meat. Usually some kind of pork. Delicious.”
“Tell you what,” Loeb said, “when we get back to Maryland, I’ll have Sophie cook you one up real nice.”
Sophie was Loeb’s wife.
“It wouldn’t be the same,” Van said. “Especially since most of the garbage we’ve been eating is stuff that’s been sitting in cans.”
“’Course it wouldn’t. But she’s a mean cook, and she’s been busting her chops managing the slop lines at Detrick. Y’all need to understand how inventive she’s gotten. That woman can take dog food and turn it into a feast fit for the White House.”
“Not hard to do when the White House is overrun by them,” Van said.
The pilot’s voice broke over the troop hold’s PA system. “Five minutes.”
Just about showtime.
“Cut the chatter,” O’Neil said. “We got one mission. Whatever else is going on in the world can wait. Including banh mis.”
The troop chief, Master Chief Petty Officer Craig Reynolds stood from his jump seat. “All right, SEALs, you know the drill. Stick close to your swim buddies. Alpha, Bravo, we’ll be on the eastern approach. Charlie, Delta, south. Maintain overwatch. In and out quickly, and we’ll be home in time for breakfast.”
The smell of smoke became almost suffocating as they swept over Durham. Only grew worse when one of the bird’s crew chiefs flung open the side door.
Reynolds signaled to put their NVGs down. O’Neil clicked his in place. The world lit up in a storm of blacks and greens and whites. He saw the fires raging through downtown Durham, churning through the husks of restaurants and hotels. Abandoned vehicles clogged the streets, and broken glass sparkled with the glimmer from the fires like millions of tiny stars dropped to Earth. Ragged bits of soiled clothing flapped in the wind, stuck under car tires or fluttering from the desiccated remains of what O’Neil could only assume had once been bodies.
“One minute,” the pilot said.
They swept over a neighborhood where houses had been flattened and turned to splinters. Craters pocked the overgrown lawns, and trees had been torn apart. A few tanks and abandoned armored personnel carriers sat parked in the streets next to abandoned weapons, helmets, and other gear.
Not to mention the bodies.
Gray. Ripped to pieces. Everywhere.
The place looked as bad as anything O’Neil had ever seen overseas.
Worse, really.
“We’re at the first LZ,” the pilot called.
The chopper began its descent, and a crew chief unrolled the fast ropes out the side of the chopper. Reynolds sent the four-man fireteams Charlie and Delta out first. Soon as they slid down the rope, their IR tags on their NVGs showing them break for a group of trees, the chopper took off for the second LZ.
Reynolds signaled for Bravo to secure the insertion site.
O’Neil fast-roped from the chopper, his boots hitting the soft ground. Loeb, Van, and Tate followed in quick succession, dried leaves filling the air around them, kicked up by the rotor wash. As soon as they all set down, O’Neil shot them hand signals, directing them spread out over the grassy terrain.
He didn’t much like where they’d chosen to set down.
Their insertion site was Maplewood Cemetery, just across from Duke University where their targets were supposed to be. Trees with wide branches covered the rolling landscape, stretching over gravestones of all sizes and shapes. The rest of his team took up overwatch positions behind those grave markers, ensuring no Skull came tearing out of the surrounding forest to greet them.
Already sweat made his shirt stick to his back. The air was humid enough he might as well be trying to breath in a pool.
“Site secure,” O’Neil called over the radio, staring down his sights.
Alpha began fast-roping out the chopper, with Reynolds coming down first. Petty Officer Darion Henderson went after. The tall operator was built like a tank and wore a thick black beard. O’Neil recalled the SEAL’s family had grown up outside Durham. He would hate to be in the guy’s shoes, coming back to run a mission in the same place he used to play little league.
Next came PO Second Class Lenny Stuart. Every square-inch of the guy’s skin was tattooed—within regs—to make a hip-hop icon jealous. Despite the guy’s hard appearance, O’Neil knew he had moonlighted as a dog walker at the Frederick, Maryland shelter that took in abandoned pets. Finally, PO Second Class Ryan McLean hit the ground. The guy’s long hair and beard were so red, O’Neil thought he could almost see them glowing through his NVGs. McLean was the type of guy to loan a man on the teams a thousand bucks without ever expecting it back, no questions asked.
Soon as the other three members of Alpha made ground, they took positions just ten meters north of O’Neil.
The chopper immediately took off. Its engines faded into the night.
Once again, the troop was on their own in Skull territory.
O’Neil signaled for Van to take point. He followed close behind with Tate on his flank and Loeb on rear guard. They advanced through the graveyard, careful not to crunch too loudly through the dead leaves blowing through the overgrown grass.
A distant howl wailed into the night. A chill shivered down O’Neil’s back.
The fireteams had to put as much ground as possible between themselves and the LZ as fast and quietly as they could.
Skulls often chased loud sounds like wolves smelling the blood of a wounded deer, and that chopper wasn’t exactly quiet. O’Neil watched for any signs of the twisted beasts, finger on his trigger guard, ready to stop the first monster that charged them from the woods.
Problem was, even with a suppressed rifle, the shots weren’t really silent. And each time one of those Skulls shrieked or growled or his team fired, that would only draw more of the rabid beasts.
He had dealt with the humans-turned-beasts on more than one occasion, but he always preferred avoiding them entirely. Avoiding Skulls instead of engaging them could mean the difference between his team climbing onto the Black Hawk headed for home on their own two feet or him dragging his buddies’ ravaged bodies into the troop hold.