Honor Reclaimed (HORNET #2)

Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

The team wasn’t happy to see him. Nobody said so out loud, but the good-natured ribbing and off-color jokes he could hear from where he stood in the hallway stopped when Seth finally entered the hotel conference room. Not that he blamed them. After the botched training mission, he wouldn’t be happy to see himself either if he were in their shoes. The silence in the room fit like a too-tight boot.

Finally, the door opened, and Gabe strode in with Quinn and Greer Wilde.

Greer looked no better than he had last night. If anything, the bags around his dark eyes were more pronounced, the lines etched into his forehead speaking of massive amounts of stress.

“All right, gentlemen, let’s get started.” Gabe produced a folder from his pack and opened it on the table, then motioned to Greer with his chin. “Most of you probably already know him, but for those that don’t, this is Greer Wilde. He’ll be in charge of this briefing. Greer?”

Greer nodded. As he came forward, Jesse Warrick leaned back in his seat and tipped his cowboy hat in greeting. “Thought you left this kinda work, Wilde.”

“Not for lack of trying,” Greer muttered. “How are you, Jesse?”

“Better than you from the looks of it.”

“Been a bad week.” Greer stopped at the front of the room and stared down the length of the table, his eyes landing briefly on Seth before he picked up a photo from the open folder. The picture showed an unsmiling man in a turban with dark, unreadable eyes and a neatly trimmed beard. “This man is Zakir Rossoul.” He produced another photo and held the two up side by side. The second showed the same man, beardless and grinning, wearing the tan beret of an Army Ranger on his close-cropped hair. “Also known as Sergeant Zakir ‘Zak’ Hendricks. His mother is Afghan, but she immigrated to the US in the seventies for school and married an American man. Zak is their oldest son, a decorated former Army Ranger, and—” Greer paused and cleared his throat before continuing. “For the past eighteen months, he’s been working deep undercover in Afghanistan. He was supposed to stay there until April, but two weeks ago, we received a call from him via sat phone.” He withdrew a small recorder from his pocket and hit play. Static filled the room, broken intermittently by a deep, unaccented voice.

“I repeat, this is Sergeant Zak Hendricks. I’ve been made. Get me the fuck outta here.”

The recording ended abruptly, the final words hanging in the air like a noose. Seth felt a chill run down his spine, a visceral response to the desperation in Hendricks’ voice. It was a plea he knew all too well, echoing the cries that had haunted his own nightmares for years.

Greer let the silence linger for a moment before speaking again.

“That was the last contact we received from him. All attempts to reestablish contact have failed. We believe he was taken captive.” Greer spread a map across the table. “Best we can figure, his last position was here.” He fingered a spot high in the mountains near the Pakistan border, then looked up at the team. “I want him back and tried to find him, but since it was a fully deniable mission, our government is doing fuck all to help bring him home. It’s not acceptable.”

Several of the guys murmured agreement.

Seth leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table as he studied the map intently. The region Greer indicated was unforgiving terrain, a labyrinth of steep ravines and narrow valleys that provided ample cover for insurgents. He knew it well, having spent months traversing those treacherous mountains during his own ill-fated mission years ago. The memories threatened to surface, but he pushed them back down.

“What was Sergeant Hendricks’ mission?” Quinn asked.

Greer hesitated, obviously weighing his next words, considering how much to divulge. “In five months, Afghanistan will be electing a new president. What happens during that election will affect the timetable for the withdrawal of American troops. Now as much as we’d like to see all of our guys come home, we don’t want to leave the country in the hands of an extremist leader with a hard-on for the U.S. And, unfortunately, several of the candidates for presidency are exactly that. Most don’t have a snowball’s chance of winning, but there is one man who has Washington worried. His name is Jahangir Abdul Rab Siddiqui. He’s Pashtun, and popular with religious conservatives. He already has the ear of the current administration and has spent the last several years stacking the Supreme Court and National Assembly with his buddies. There are rumors of his Taliban sympathies and suspicion he’s behind several suicide bombs that have killed foreign peacekeepers and anti-Taliban leaders. Zak’s mission was to get in close to Siddiqui and dig up all the dirt he could. His secondary mission, in case Siddiqui did get elected, was to make sure the man never made it into office, but something went wrong. We don’t know what or how. All we know is what you heard on that recording. Zak called for an exfil, but by the time we got men in the area there was no sign of him.”

As Greer spoke, the pictures of Zak Hendricks circled the table, and both finally landed in front of Seth. He stared down at the grinning man, his stomach churning. The man’s eyes in the beardless photo, full of life and mischief, contrasted starkly with the haunted, guarded gaze in the other image.

Seth looked up, meeting Greer’s eyes across the table. “How do we know he’s not already dead?”

“We don’t,” Greer admitted. “But I remember another situation not all that long ago, where a team of SEALs went into the mountains on questionable intel, all to rescue a lost Marine that everyone thought was KIA.”

Every eye in the room swung in Seth’s direction. He set his jaw. “That was low, Greer.”

“Yeah, but I’m not playing fair. I’m already breaking all kinds of laws by bringing HORNET into this, but fuck it. Zak is one of my best friends, and I can’t leave him there.”

Gabe Bristow stood and clapped Greer on the shoulder. “You’d better head back to D.C. before anyone notices you’re gone. We’ve got this. We’ll bring Zak home.”

“Thank you,” Greer said tightly and headed out. He paused beside Seth’s chair. “I’m sorry for bringing up your situation, but you have to see the similarities.”

Seth did, but resentment still burned inside his chest, and he couldn’t give any more response than a curt nod. If Greer Wilde was looking for forgiveness, he’d have to keep searching.

Gabe waited to continue the briefing until after the door shut behind Greer, and then he passed a thin stack of papers around the table.

“This is all the information we have on the key players right now,” he said. “Granted, it’s not actionable intel—yet—but we’ll have a better chance at getting something of use in-country. Once we’re airborne, Harvard will gather what information he can on Sergeant Hendricks and Siddiqui and prepare an in-depth report I expect you all to read and know by heart.” He glanced to Harvard for confirmation.

The ex-CIA analyst and all-around computer genius nodded. “Got it.”

Gabe continued. “Jean-Luc, when we land, you’ll take Seth to make contact with HumInt’s local asset, a man by the name of Hamid Fahim.”

“Hold up,” Jean-Luc said. “Why Seth, huh?” Then he winced and tilted his head in semi-apology. “No offense, Seth, but I’d rather have one of my own boys at my back if things go sideways, y’know?”

“Too bad,” Gabe said. “Seth is just as much a member of this team as the rest of you. He’s to be treated as such. We’re not frat boys and there will be no hazing of every new guy I bring on. I won’t put up with that shit. Am I understood, gentlemen?”

“Yes, sir,” everyone answered, albeit half-heartedly.

Gabe gave them a moment to let that decree sink in. “After Jean-Luc and Seth have secured supplies and a safe house from Fahim, we’ll set up a forward operating base with internet access so Harvard can continue working. From there, our first course of action will be to locate and plant a GPS tracker on Jahangir Siddiqui’s vehicle. He’s the key to the actionable intel we need. Any questions?”

Some of the guys tossed out questions, but they were working off limited information, and Gabe admitted he didn’t have the answers.

Marcus DeAngelo, a former FBI agent, drummed his fingers on the table. “You know, I hate to be the guy who calls cut on the action scene, but I’m not real comfortable with stepping on the military’s toes. The FBI in Colombia was one thing,” he said, referring to the team’s first mission together, which Seth hadn’t been a part of. “They were in the wrong. Hell, even my ex-partner thought so, which is why he risked his career to help us.”

“Yeah, when Giancarelli gonna give up that badge and come over to the dark side, hein?” Jean-Luc asked with a grin.

Marcus snorted. “He’s thought about it, but it’s not happening unless his wife gives the green light. And she won’t.”

Jean-Luc made a tsk tsk sound. “Mais, that man’s pussy whipped.”

“Can you blame him?” Marcus asked. “You’ve seen his wife, right?”

“Good point. If I had a woman as fine as Leah Giancarelli keepin’ me warm every night?—”

“You’d ask her sister to join you,” Quinn cut in, deadpan.

Jean-Luc grinned wide. “Mais oui. That’s just good ol’ common sense, mon ami. Common fucking sense.”

Even Quinn cracked a smile at that.

Seth stayed silent through it all and flipped through the handouts. Zak Hendricks’s stats, service record, family history…

Mother and father were still happily married and living in the same Northern California town Zak had grown up in. Two sisters—one older and one younger—and a younger brother. All good, upstanding people with no red flags. Zak and his high school buddies got into some trouble as teens, but even they were on the up-and-up now. One was running for sheriff in that rural hometown, and the other was an active-duty Marine.

Zak had one fairly recent divorce, but his ex was already engaged to be married again.

There was nothing in these files that would help them find the man.

Seth closed the folder and pushed it away. “The military won’t do anything until Sergeant Hendricks shows up bleeding on a news feed. And if it was a black op, probably not even then.”

“That’s the general consensus, yes,” Gabe agreed after a beat of silence, then looked at Marcus. “Which is why I’m not all that concerned about stepping on the military’s toes here. If Siddiqui’s Taliban buddies captured Sergeant Hendricks, they plan to make a very public, very graphic example of him. They don’t take prisoners. To date, there are only two known POWs in A-stan. One soldier was held for five years until he was released in exchange for five Taliban prisoners. And one Marine—” He broke off abruptly. and his gaze zeroed in on Seth. Clothing rustled and the seats creaked as everyone shifted to look at Seth.

All seven stares crawled over Seth’s skin like needle-legged spiders and a bead of sweat trickled down the back of his neck. He hated it, hated being the center of attention, hated that Gabe had just boiled his life down to nothing more than an example in a briefing. But he wasn’t a coward and if they wanted to use him as an example, then so be it.

He gulped down the rising panic, shoved up out of his seat, and very deliberately lowered the hood of his sweatshirt. Then he jerked the thing off over his head, tossed it on the table, and held out his arms. He always wore long sleeves in public, but if they wanted to stare, they might as well get the whole fucking picture, right? Scars and all.

He met each of their gazes with a challenge in his own.

Harvard visibly swallowed and looked away first, adjusting his glasses and taking a great interest in his laptop screen. Marcus looked at him with pity, Jesse with the assessing eye of a medical professional. Jean-Luc shifted uncomfortably and for a moment, Seth almost took pity on him . The Ragin’ Cajun didn’t do well with heavy stuff and right now, a thousand-pound elephant sat in the middle of the table. Quinn nodded once in his direction, a gesture of respect. Gabe stood at the front of the table, silent and stone-faced. Ian, one arm draped over the back of the chair beside him, rolled his eyes.

Seth dropped his arms, but didn’t reach for his sweatshirt. “I know how these militants work. If they haven’t already cut off Sergeant Hendricks’s head and they haven’t yet issued a ransom demand, then they’re torturing him.” He couldn’t help the crack in his voice on those last two words, but plowed onward, determined to be of some use to the team. “Maybe they’re trying to get info out of him, maybe not. Either way, Gabe’s right. They’re making an example of him—‘Look at the infidel, so weak, so broken. These are the men who want our country, who want to corrupt our women and our culture. See? We can beat them easily. We are powerful. Allah is on our side’…and so on. Even better if they can keep him alive and make a hundred examples out of him, day after day after day.”

Nobody spoke.

Seth grabbed his sweatshirt from the table, but paused before pulling it on. “Honestly, for Sergeant Hendricks’s sake, I hope we’re going in after a body. I hope it was a quick and easy death because I wouldn’t wish this”—he motioned to his chest—“on anyone except the assholes who did it to me.”