Death and the Damned by Seeley James

Author:Seeley James [James, Seeley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Thriller
ISBN: 9780997230628
Publisher: Machined Media
Published: 2020-01-25T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 31

Bringing a terrorist into Syria was a new and ironic mission for me. Hakim was like a new puppy—I couldn’t leave him alone for fear he’d shit on something and I couldn’t take him with me because pet-terrorists were not welcome on top-secret bases deep in ISIL-held territory. On top of that, I was an ex-Army Ranger in a Navy SEAL camp. That’s worse than being a Shiite in a Sunni camp.

Dhanpal had all the SEAL connections and made some calls from the states, but the in-country CO interrogated me about my mission for an hour anyway. If he found out I had a suicide bomber lounging on my boss’s Gulfstream outside, my body would not come home in a flag-draped coffin. It would be used for target practice by B-2 bombers with heavy ordnance.

I left the pilots in charge of the boy and told them to shoot him if he went near a window.

To my surprise, the CO warmed to my plan. He was just as curious as I about why a NAVSUP admiral would exfiltrate a civilian. When I promised to share Larson’s DNA sample, he gave us a couple electric dirt bikes, some comm gear, and a clear understanding that his men were not there to risk their lives for civilian idiots with death wishes. Then he waved good-bye.

We set out into the desert sunset on the silent bikes dressed like a pair of Lawrences of Arabia with night-vision visors.

We had three objectives: find the exact location of our abandoned Humvee; uncover any potential ambush; and get Larson’s blood sample from where he bled in the back. We hadn’t paused to check our coordinates during the firefight. We just wanted to get the hell out. Now we had to find it at night.

The only sound we made was our tires on the dirt. We zipped through the barren terrain in no time, arriving long after dark. We buzzed around a wide perimeter on the near side of the wadi.

Eventually, we found it. The Humvee sat right where we left it, stripped of everything of value. ISIL had commandeered a significant fleet of Humvees from the Iraqi Army early in their entanglements and ours had been used for parts. The hood was up, exposing the broken engine block. The alternator, battery, and everything else had been removed. In back, the Gatling gun was gone, as were the windows. But the one thing we needed was still there: the flatbed.

I climbed in and looked for blood. Without enough starlight penetrating the windowless back, I risked a flashlight. Sure enough, smears of dried blood covered the bed. I held the flashlight with my teeth and pulled out a baggie. There were no pools, only thin spots. I took up a little paint along with the samples and hoped that would work.

I was scraping up smudges for the third baggie when daylight-bright beams of search lights lit up the truck. I checked my body: prone on the floor, none of the light streaming in was hitting me.

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