Chapter 1
Havoc
Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Friday, Zero Seven Thirty
Havoc’s heart picked up the pace. This was a simulation, but it made no difference. He acted “as if.”
As if the information offered in the briefing room was the real deal.
As if the imperiled women and children inside this particleboard and cinderblock training structure weren’t just photographs stapled onto cardboard cutouts.
As if there was an actual cache of weaponry and explosives that trained insurgent fighters would use against Delta Force Echo even if it meant killing everyone inside the structure and out, friend and foe alike.
Standing outside the shoot house, stacked with his Echo brothers waiting for their breacher to open their path into the building, the “as if” part was crucial. It trained the mind to show up for a job. To be functional in life-or-death scenarios – flexible, adaptable, and steady.
The mind and the body had to work dependably in unison.
Each brother was a cog in a greater machine. One man not squared away…yeah, that’s all it took—a forgotten step, a trigger finger that was slow to the pull. Lives and mission outcomes were on the line.
They weren’t playing in the kiddie leagues. Every mission that required a Delta Force team’s involvement was edge-of-disaster.
No wiggle room for mistakes.
And that’s why they practiced.
They practiced in the morning when they were bright with energy.
They practiced through hunger. Through fatigue. Through needing a damned bathroom break.
“As if” meant that Havoc’s armpits were damp.
His heart pounded against his breastbone.
There was a hitch in his breath.
He knew from experience that what he privately referred to as “stage fright” would disappear once they moved through the door, whether via a twist of an unlocked knob, a well-placed boot alongside the latch, or Nitro with his blast strips.
Then, Havoc would be a rising tide.
He’d flow with the current past the inoffensive. And when Havoc came up against an obstacle, he’d crush it.
He was a force of nature, baby.
Laughter winked momentarily into Havoc’s eyes at that thought.
Master Chief T-Rex Landry signaled Nitro to the front, calling, “Breacher up.”
Today’s scenario’s threat matrix included the possibility of children which negated the team’s use of C4.
C4 was the kind of explosive Nitro slapped into place on most breaches with its concussive bang.
The goal of a C4 breach was to stun and gun.
Team Echo wanted to overwhelm the enemies’ senses. Without noise-cancelling ear protection in place, those on the interior would be rendered deaf with ringing ears. The targets could call warnings and commands all day; no one would hear them.
The interior would fill with particulates and smoke. The shock rendered even the most hard-core frozen in place as their brains scrambled to understand, process, and decide.
In those first moments of relative safety, Echo could swarm the interior and gain control of those inside before their enemies’ minds and bodies could get into gear.
Mere seconds – but life or death seconds that Echo would use to their advantage, boosting their chances at the desired outcome.
Nitro, a born pyro, was a master of the nuanced charge. Too little, and no one was going anywhere. Too much? Well, that meant nobody and nothing was left for the team to deal with. Nitro worked the Goldilocks angle, trying to get it just right. While everyone on the team trained to breach, Nitro finessed it better than anyone Havoc had ever served with.
Today, Nitro worked his least favorite breach, water.
Loud, for sure, a water breach wasn’t a stealthy way to enter the building. But it also didn’t have the C4 teeth rattle.
Once Nitro blasted the door, success was all about swiftness and violence of action.
Today’s scenario – a family held hostage.
At T-Rex’s command, Nitro jogged forward. He laid his equipment on the ground in a uniform fashion. A few meters of det cord, two bags of saline drip, 100MPH tape (the military’s version of good old duct tape.)
Nitro reached out to touch the door. Metal.
He examined the hinges and the locks.
Nitro sent a look to T-Rex that read, “reinforced, should I keep going with the I.V. bags?”
T-Rex gave him a thumbs up. The goal was access. They didn’t need to take the door completely off the hinges, though it was preferred.
Det cord was the explosive. But it was a fast explosion. It tended to cut, and that was a problem. Sure, sometimes a slice had its place. But here, they needed a push. The kind of push that would lessen the chance of harming kids.
Nitro turned away from T-Rex and slapped saline bags onto the door with double-sided adhesive. He spooled the det cord around the corner to where Echo stacked and crouched away from the shock wave. Though it should be minimal, still, it could impact hearing or shake their brains.
No one had time for that.
Rory, the team’s military K9, was last in the stack. His handler, Ty, held tight to Rory’s collar behind Havoc. Trained as a force multiplier, Rory had a nose for finding munitions, a jaw that exerted over two hundred pounds of pressure, and athleticism that was a joy to see.
But also harsh stink breath.
“Rory, back off.” Crouched on one knee, the toe of his left foot curled under, ready to push Havoc into go-mode, Havoc lifted his elbow, pressing Rory back just as a glob of saliva dripped from Rory’s lips down the sole of Havoc’s boot.
Havoc scuffed his boot into the dirt, so there was nothing slippery to make him lose his footing when Havoc raced into the shoot house.
Like the rest of the team, Rory was dressed for battle. His ear protection and doggy goggles made him look badass, which was good for frightening the enemy into submission. His K9 ballistic vest would protect him from stab wounds and most gunfire. Uncle Sam wanted to safeguard their K9 investments. After all, it was about a hundred grand to purchase and train a military war dog.
But Echo wanted to protect Rory like any of their team members. On too many missions to count, Rory was the difference between an op that ended with a raised glass and cheer at the pub instead of a trip home in a flag-wrapped pine box.
Rory trained hard, just like the team did.
With a hand on Rory’s collar, Ty took a step back.
“Breacher has control,” Nitro whispered into his comms. “Breach 3...2...1...”
The stack lowered their crouch and waited for the boom.
“Fail breach,” Nitro mic-ed.
Havoc lifted out of his semi-squat.
Rory pleaded in a high-pitched whine to let him run in and bite the bad guy.
With a hand signal from Ty, Rory calmed the whines to heavy panting. It was an essential skill that Rory could pull back his impatience – even if it was his very favorite thing in the world to do—bite the target.
But any noise could bring unwanted eyes to a window.
It could turn a surprise into an I-see-you-coming.
Squirters might run out the back door to hide in the landscape, thwarting capture.
Rifles might be aimed and ready.
Silence was key.
“Breacher has control,” came over his headset.
“Breach 3…2…”
Havoc squatted with his shoulder pressed to the outside cement blocks of the kill house.
“…1”
The boom that followed was loud but didn’t reach the level of C4.
Even with their noise-canceling ear protection, those blasts could make Havoc’s ears ring to the point of distraction. And distraction wasn’t allowed.
They worked their hand signals and moved.
To Havoc, it was like being a force of nature. Water after a heavy downpour rumbling forward, sweeping destruction in its path.
No stopping it. No stopping him.
The team stepped through the threshold. The door was concave where the I.V. bags had been taped. As the metal rounded into a convex scoop from the blast concussion, it tore the barricade from the hinges and merely fell to the side.
The men moved as one into the house, peeling off, clearing rooms.
Havoc was first man coming to the end of a hall where the line of sight was clear, but the room was out of his visual field. He took an extra-long step. Balancing and pivoting on the ball of his foot as his right leg swung around to align him with that hidden corner.
He didn’t need to think. Havoc’s brain, primed for action-reaction, had sent thousands upon thousands of rounds into targets, both paper and enemy flesh. Havoc had shot until he’d built up a permanent callous between his thumb and forefinger, hard as a rock.
His firearm came up, and Havoc double tapped the three inches of bad guy head that peaked out from behind the child’s curls.
Havoc glided forward, grabbed the digital image of the child, slung it over his shoulder as he evacuated “her” from the shooter house, and got the image to safety.
Ten seconds later, the airhorn blew.
The team stopped and looked up at their evaluators, who had been watching them from the roosts above.
“Too slow. We need to shave another thirty seconds off your entrance. Nitro, what happened to your breaching charge?”
Before Nitro could answer, a woman’s shadow stretched across the floorboards.
There stood Johnna White, CIA.
Ty moaned and wiped a hand over his face. He’d been hand-picked by White for a psy-ops mission a few months back that included him wooing an asset.
The Echo brothers all raised their fingers to point to Havoc.
“Why Havoc?” White asked.
“To be honest, ma’am,” Ty said, “he’s the only one left in Echo who’s still single. If you need a Casanova for your next op, he’s your man.”
“Actually,” she said. “There is a woman involved in this mission.” She sent Havoc a wink. She’d hung out with special forces operators long enough that she knew how to give as good as she got. But this time, her face was tense with concern. “Time is tight. I’m sorry to pull you away from your fun and games. But I need to read you into this mission. And I need you winging into position. Now.”
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