Hybrid: A Post-Apocalyptic Military Thriller Novel by Anthony J. Melchiorri

Author:Anthony J. Melchiorri
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2021-04-26T23:00:00+00:00

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THE GUNSHOTS RANG LOUD against the shipping containers and over the water. All the screaming stopped. O’Neil fought back the adrenaline dumping through his body, telling him to react, to do something.

Anything.

But he knew the brutal calculus Reynolds had considered before making his call. Had they intervened, they might have prolonged those women’s and kids’ lives for a few more seconds.

The Russians almost certainly would have cut them down after they had killed the eight soldiers nearest them. Then the SEALs’ mission would be irreparably compromised. If there was already a ticking clock on them after they’d made those two guards disappear, it would certainly run out as soon as the first SEAL fired a shot.

The lives of the few did not outweigh the lives of the many in his brutal, logical calculations. Their mission had the potential to help so many more people, saving countless lives by striking a major blow into the Russians’ operations.

But when O’Neil saw the bodies drifting past in the oily waters, those thoughts did nothing to quell the rising heat in his chest and the burning desire to rip apart every damn Russian he saw.

“Whiskeys and Kilos are down,” the drone operator said. He remained calm, but O’Neil could hear his words catch slightly. “The Skull tore into one, then the hostile contacts killed the rest.”

“Status on the Skull?” Reynolds whispered over the comms.

“Skull is… Skull is… Skull appears to be listening to the Russians. They’re… They’re laughing and talking. Now the Skull is heading toward one of the office buildings with the eight hostiles,” the operator said. “Other hostiles around base are back to business as usual.”

These people had just massacred women and children with the help of a Skull, and that was it? Back to their duties?

O’Neil had long-since practiced the art of compartmentalization on his missions. He recalled seeing a stray, skinny dog licking up the blood of a dead fighter one time, before chewing on the guy’s arm. He had been in a Black Hawk crash. Remembered the grinding of the metal against the ground. The way the bird had turned sideways, smashing the legs of two other operators that had been in the cabin with him. Heard their screams and saw the bloody trail left behind.

He had seen a woman blow herself up in the middle of a café filed with families. He had seen the faces charcoaled from the blast, bodies shredded by the metal BBs and nails that had filled the suicide vest.

He had watched in horror as a fighter used his own family as a shield, firing from behind them at another SEAL. Even striking one of his own kids with a poorly aimed shot.

No matter how he tried to quell the roiling emotion from those scenes, they always came back. When he was trying to sleep. When he was reading a book. When he was just trying to eat.

There was a voice in the back of his head that told him this scene would haunt him, too.

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