“I have to second that,” Hazard said. “What’s up, brother?”
GQ shrugged, fist-bumping Hazard. The two were practically twins when it came to the looks department—blond, tall, their features striking.“Well, it’s true.”
“Yeah, we can have a measuring contest once the briefing is over,” Ice said with a heavy dose of sarcasm.
“I wouldn’t want to embarrass anyone,” GQ said smugly.
“No one wants to go up against a measuring contest with me,” Rose said as she headed to the front, meeting all the guys’ eyes with a steady, steely look.
“I think my testosterone just squealed like a little girl and went running from the room,” Skull drawled in such a monotone, unaffected way it was like he was commenting on the weather.
For a moment everyone was quiet, then they all burst out laughing. Rose cracked a smile. “Let’s get down to business.”
“So to speak,” Boomer said, snickering, setting the guys off again.
“Focus up,” Ice said with an apologetic look to Rose, but Preacher knew she was well aware of the kind of knuckleheads she was dealing with. She had the disaster with her mother’s garden and yard fresh in her memory.
She put up a photo and Preacher recognized it immediately. All mirth fled, hollowing him out in an instant. His mouth went dry, and his heart pounded. It was of a fountain in the middle of a town square. He’d been there before.You almost died there.It’s where he’d let down one of the closest brothers he’d ever had.
“This mission is going to take us to Banja Luka, the second-largest city in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Rose said grimly.
The next thing he knew, he was standing, and Rose had stopped speaking. He’d clenched his fists and he was breathing too hard. Bones’s cold nose nudged his hand open, and the dog broke him out of his uncontrollable panic. Bones’s inner radar was on point as always. He sensed so much with his clever dog instincts, especially when one of his team needed support. Grateful to the canine, Preacher buried his hand into the dog’s fur, centering himself for a moment. Trying to look nonchalant, he walked over to the coffeepot and poured himself a cup of coffee.
Out of the corner of Preacher’s eye, he saw Rose glance at Iceman. She opened her mouth to continue with her brief, only to be interrupted by Kodiak.
“Aren’t we heading to Bolivia? Isn’t that where the next NSH attack was expected?” Kodiak said with impatience etched in each word. Preacher understood what his teammate was feeling. They had been there and seen what the NSH had done to the people they had vowed to protect and the innocent French bystanders. Kodiak was just like the rest of them. They wanted to be on the direct-action front, outside the wire, meeting out their special brand of justice.
Preacher doctored his coffee to regain his composure so that when he met Iceman’s eyes, hell, any of his teammates’ eyes, he would be able to cover up this sudden panic attack.
Everything about that place was fucked up. Americans, a SEAL, and a CIA agent were kidnapped, and the Bosnian government was involved in the coverup. One of the best of the best had lost his military career and the weight of the role he played in it all still ate Preacher alive when he let himself think about it.
Dean “Striker” Teller saved Preacher. Saved all of them but lost his trident in the process. He hadn’t spoken to Striker since the day he’d gotten word that he was being severed from service. Striker knew it was coming, but he hadn’t been remorseful.
Striker’s younger brother, Neo “2-Stroke” Teller, a member of SEAL Team Seven led by Ford “Fast Lane” Nixon had been kidnapped by Darko Stjepanic, a powerful Balkans crime lord and Zasha Vasiliev, who had been working under the alias of Kelly Sparks as Fast Lane’s CIA liaison.
Striker had asked for leave and was going to head to Bosnia. His leave was granted but it didn’t matter what the brass said, Iceman and Preacher were aware Striker was never going to stand down and they weren’t going to let him go into battle alone. 2-Stroke was Striker’s only living relative. In addition to Striker’s brother, Fast Lane’s CIA liaison Chrysanthe Steele had also been kidnapped. She was now 2-Stroke’s wife as the two had gotten married.
Striker, Preacher, and Iceman had gone rogue when they were given a direct order not to enter Bosnia or go anywhere near Banja Luka as the Prime Minister of the region had forbidden any American military inside his borders. Fast Lane did what he could to help by assigning Zach “Saint” Bartholomew and an ATF agent, Aella Mikos who was after the notorious pair for murder and gunrunning in the States, but they needed boots on the ground to get them out.
Against direct orders the group had entered Bosnian territory, located 2-Stroke and Agent Steele, and stopped Stjepanic and Vasiliev’s reign of terror but even the best-laid plans are just that—plans. And rarely do things ever go as planned.
They had crossed back over into Sarajevo and safety in a very noisy way and made it impossible to keep the rogue op off the record. The op went a bit sideways when Preacher was stabbed. The plan to use the helicopter to fly them all out of the area had to be changed. Preacher was bleeding out and needed immediate medical attention.
The “emergency” exposed Striker’s blatant decision to disobey orders. Somebody had to be held accountable for ignoring the agreement the military had made with Bosnian’s Prime Minister. Striker took all the heat and kept mum about Iceman, Preacher, and Saint’s involvement in the off-the-book’s op.
Later on, it was discovered that the PM’s edict turned out to be nothing but a stall. The PM had been in collusion with Stjepanic and the notorious biker gang, the Kamchatka Bears whom they hired to find and eliminate all the Americans. After Stjepanic and Vasiliev had been neutralized, the PM had started to lose control of the country and only recently had been assassinated by the remnants of Stjepanic’s crew, destabilizing the region and throwing Serbs, Bosniaks, and Croats into a tense standoff.
Preacher couldn’t help feeling partially responsible that Striker was forced out of the Teams. There’s nothing like getting stabbed to make an off-the-book’s op on the books.
Preacher had put out feelers, but it was as if Striker had dropped off the face of the earth. No one reported seeing him and it had now been close to a year and a half since that rogue op.
Rose answered Kodiak’s question about Bolivia as Preacher, clutching the hot cup of coffee, walked back to his seat.
“We are still analyzing the intel. We don’t want to deploy you guys to Bolivia on our recommendation until we’re sure that’s where NSH is going to attack next. We just have no way of predicting what they’re going to do and if all this chatter is just a ploy to distract us. They are the most sophisticated and well-funded terrorist group we have ever seen. They seem to have people everywhere. We can’t be sure they haven’t infiltrated every aspect of our government or military.
“Fuck,” Skull said. “We’re not going to pull back or give an inch to these bastards, no matter what they throw at us.”
“Absolutely,” Rose said, “but we also don’t want to waste money and time and be wrong in the process.” She took a breath. “So, in the meantime, we’re going to Banja Luka to rescue two stock market consultants who were meeting with the Banja Luka Stock Exchange.” She put up the next set of photos of two average-looking guys, oneslick-lookingyounger man with dark hair and the other one older with white hair and weathered features. “This is Shawn Wolcott and Daniel Morton, both partners in the Wolcott and Morton consultant company based in New York City.”