The captain nodded. “Collins woke for the first time late last night. By early this morning, he was coherent enough to answer questions. He was able to share what happened to him and the three missing SEALs. We haven’t yet been able to confirm his account, but Lieutenant Flyte is leading the search, now that we know where to begin looking.”
“That’s as far as they got before you arrived,” Xavier said. He nodded toward the visitor’s chair. “I have a feeling you’ll want to sit for this.”
She nodded and skirted the bed and dropped into the chair. She felt flushed and had cold chills at the same time. Her body was going into overtime stress reaction after a brief respite from the nightmare.
She met the admiral’s gaze. It wasn’t lost on her that two high-ranking Naval officers were delivering this news personally to the man who bore the weight of the entire disastrous training.
It was a kindness. A show of support. But it also meant the news was very, very bad.
The admiral picked up the story. “Collins said his team extracted from the lake in the location they’d selected during the planning session on Whidbey. Less than fifteen minutes after they entered the forest, they were engaged by an enemy combatant. Thinking it was part of the training, they took cover and returned fire. They had direct hits on their target and expected the man to lay down his arms and play dead, as expected given the shots landed in areas not protected by body armor. He should at least have presented as injured when the Simunition round hit an extremity. But the trainer—as that is who they believed they were engaging—didn’t surrender. Instead, he approached Commander Odent and shot him point blank in the face.”
Audrey covered her mouth with her hand and gasped, imagining the horror of the moment.
“Master Chief Petty Officer Mueller was shot next. Also point blank to the head. Seaman Hobbs and Petty Officer Collins both took cover and tried to escape. Knowing their weapons were useless, they had no other option. Collins was shot in the shoulder. He was left to bleed out while the shooter chased Hobbs. Collins isn’t sure of the exact timeline, but he knows he lay in the forest for some time, possibly hours, before the initial shooter returned. Finding him alive, the shooter decided to take him to the lodge as another hostage. Collins lost consciousness while being dragged through the woods. He doesn’t remember being in the lodge at all. Waking up in the hospital was quite a shock.
Audrey couldn’t even begin to imagine how disorienting that would be.
“He said he has no idea what happened to Hobbs. He has provided their location in the woods as best he could estimate. We have a dozen men including Army Rangers, Special Forces, SEALs, and federal officers searching that area of the forest and expect to receive news soon.”
She swiped at her eyes, fully able to imagine the horror of the night. She could see the trees, feel the rain, hear the shots, smell the gunpowder and blood.
The captain resumed. “Communication continues to be a problem, but we’ve restored cable and landlines and located three signal blockers so far and suspect there are only one or two more. The signal blockers are highly advanced. Technology we’ve never seen before.” He cleared his throat, and his gaze flicked to Audrey, but he addressed Xavier. “We believe the mercenaries were hired by Grigory Laskin.”
Xavier gave a slow nod. “I was going to suggest the same thing. I’ve been thinking along those lines since we knew the mercenary leader—Mikhail—was after both Chris and me. The merc who died in the mudslide mentioned Belarus and a woman.”
Audrey had been the one to share what they’d learned from the mercenary on the hillside, as Xavier had been out of commission, first as he was being examined, then he’d been asleep, which was probably the only reason she was still in the room right now, because she had a feeling they were wading into the ultra-top-secret realm.
The admiral gave a sharp nod. Not surprisingly, he turned to her and said, “I’m sorry, but we’re now in territory that we cannot share with you.”
She nodded. “I understand.” She even knew Xavier wouldn’t spill the details later and had to respect that. There would be no blowback from what he’d revealed to her and George, but the military wouldn’t offer more information than absolutely necessary.
To Xavier, the admiral said, “We’ll discuss this further during your official debriefing.”
“Have any of the mercenaries been detained?” he asked.
“Yes. Three were captured by the SEAL team not long after the mudslide. Jonas and Phelps had set out to attempt the same hike you and Audrey had made in case you both had died in the slide. They came across three mercenaries who were trying to flee—much as the mercenary you met on the hillside said he was doing. It appears Mikhail was no longer rational. He killed one of his own men in anger after losing the lodge and hostages.”
“Do any of the mercs have a wound to the neck or shoulder—above the collarbone?”
“I’m not sure,” the captain responded. “Why?”
“I shot one with one of Corporal Shaw’s match guns—hit him with a nail—during the raid on the lodge. He got away when I went after Audrey.”
She hadn’t known about that, but then, in the aftermath of the fight behind the post office, she’d been too obsessed with getting the dead man’s blood off her face to really remember anything else. It had all been a blur.
“The merc I shot… He was masked,” Xavier said.
Audrey jolted as his words sank in. “But…Cohen said the mercenary leader, Mikhail, was the only one who was masked.”
He nodded. “I figured you should check, in case Mikhail is trying to pass himself off as a minion.”
The blood drained from her face. Xavier had been on the verge of taking down the mercenary leader, but he’d abandoned him in order to save her.
“We’ll check on that,” the captain said. “We’re still trying to get an accurate count of the number of mercenaries. To that end, we’d like you both to come to headquarters for a full debriefing as soon as you’re released from the hospital, Mr. Rivera.”
“The doctor said I’m clear to leave this morning. Keeping me overnight for observation was just a precaution.”
“Good. We’ll give you time alone first—I know this morning’s news is a blow, as it is to all of us. When you’re ready, tell the nurse, and we’ll have a car pick you up.”
The men left, and they were alone again. The silence was a heavy weight as Audrey thought about the three SEALs. Two known to be dead and the third unlikely to have survived.
Audrey rose from her seat and moved to his bedside. She took his hand. “I’m so sorry, Xavier.”
She remembered those first minutes after they found the empty pit, and his desperate need to stop the training. She’d wanted to check on George and he’d wanted to go to the yurt. They both knew now that even if they’d gone to the yurt, it was too late. Jeb was dead and all wired communication destroyed. They couldn’t have stopped it.
But even so, this had been Xavier’s fear at that time, that the team would engage with tangos and assume they were actors. They’d expect the enemy to shoot paint pellets. His greatest fear had happened within the first fifteen minutes of the op.
He tugged at her hand, and she climbed onto the bed. She wrapped her arms around him as he let out a gut-wrenching sob.
She did the only thing she could and cried with him, deeply grieving three men she would never get to know.