the brush in front of him, memorizing the placement of each faintly silhouetted leaf and branch, alert to even the most minute movement.
The sounds of the night surrounded him. Insects buzzed and clicked; a dog barked maybe a mile away. An owl called through the darkness, its eerie cry proclaiming itself lord of this nocturnal domain, king of this night world.
It was a world in which Blue McCoy belonged, a world where he could lead a group of men so silently and invisibly through the darkness that the crickets at their feet didn’t sense their presence.
It had taken them more than an hour to cross the open field. Five more yards and they’d be in the cover of the brush. They’d be able to move faster then. Faster, but no less cautiously.
Blue listened, so in tune with the land around him that he was the night. His heart beat slowly in time with the silent, age-old rhythm of the earth and he thought of nothing—nothing but survival. All the noises and sounds of the air force base where Alpha Squad had been just ten hours earlier had long since evaporated, leaving only the night. There were six other men behind him, but Blue heard not a sound from any of them. He knew they were there only from faith, but it was a faith in which he had no doubts. The other SEALs were guarding his back as he led them forward. He knew they would die to protect him, as certainly as he would give his life for them.
Blue sniffed the air and froze, catching a faint, musky odor. But a second sniff convinced him that it was only an animal, some kind of rodent that moved as silently through the night as he did. It wasn’t a human smell, and human animals were the prey he was hunting tonight.
Directly through the woods, dead ahead at twelve o’clock, forty yards distant, was a cabin. According to the spooks from FInCOM—the agents from the Federal Intelligence Commission—inside the cabin was United States Senator Mike Branford’s fifteen-year-old daughter, Karen. The latest infrared satellite photos of the cabin revealed that at least four members of the terrorist group that had kidnapped her were inside the cabin with her. Another ten people were sleeping in a second structure, twenty yards to the northeast. And two five-man units of terrorists patrolled the surrounding woods. Only minutes ago, one of the units had come within four feet of Blue and the Alpha Squad. The unit commander had lit a cigarette, tossing the smoking match inches from Blue’s hand before ordering his men to move on.
With their faces painted green and black, and with their intensive SEAL training, experience and discipline, Alpha Squad was invisible, embraced by the darkness, enshrouded by the cloak of night.
As the SEALs positioned themselves in the brush that surrounded the cabin, Blue turned to look at his commanding officer and good friend, Lieutenant Joe Catalanotto. Blue could barely see Joe Cat’s face in the darkness, but he saw the man’s nod.
Time to go.
Out of the corner of his eye, Blue caught the stealthy movement of Cowboy, Lucky, Bobby and Wes as they faded toward the northeast and the second structure. They were going to secure that building and neutralize the terrorists inside.
That left Joe Cat and Harvard cooling their heels outside the main cabin while Blue crept inside to snatch back the girl.
H. stood guard while Joe and Blue scanned the exterior of the cabin, in particular the window that was to be Blue’s insertion point, his way in.
There were no booby traps, no alarms, no extra security. That was because the quarter mile surrounding the cabin was loaded with booby traps, alarms and armed security patrols. It was also because Aldo Fricker, the terrorists’ leader, had forgotten the number-one rule: Never assume. The terrorists had left their vulnerable underbelly unprotected because they’d assumed that no one would be able to penetrate the fiercely guarded outer perimeters of their compound.
They were wrong.
Al Fricker, meet SEAL Team Ten’s Alpha Squad.
As Blue watched, Joe Cat quickly and quietly cut the pane of glass from the cabin’s window. Harvard gave Blue a boost up, and he was inside.
Blue did a quick scan of the interior with his night-vision glasses, quickly locating the senator’s young daughter. She was curled up in an old brass bed in the southeast corner of the room. From what he could see she was still alive. The four guards were in sleeping bags or stretched out on the bare floor near the door. Blue took off his NVs and waited several seconds for his eyes to grow accustomed to the dark again, listening to the quiet breathing of the sleeping guards. It wouldn’t do any good to wake the girl up while wearing the NVs, looking like some kind of alien from outer space. She was going to be frightened enough as it was.
He took four syringes from his battle vest and moved silently through the room, giving each of the guards a carefully dosed guaranteed good night’s sleep. He sealed the needles back up and packaged the now-empty syringes in a bag marked Bio-hazardous Waste. A quick search of the cabin convinced him that no other guards were lurking, so he moved toward the senator’s daughter.
He flicked on his penlight, shielding the light in the palm of one hand as he looked down at the sleeping girl. She was curled in a fetal position, knees tucked into her chest, one arm up, wrist attached by handcuffs to the brass headboard of the bed. Her hair was tangled and knotted, and dirt and blood from abrasions streaked her face and bare arms and legs. She was wearing a pair of blue shorts and a sleeveless top. Both were badly torn.
The bastards had hurt her. Karen. Her name was Karen Branford. They’d beaten her. Probably raped her. Christ, she was fifteen years old.
Rage filled him. Hot, molten and deadly, Blue felt it seep through his body, under his skin, spreading out all the way to his fingers and toes. It was a familiar sensation in his line of business. Normally he welcomed it. But tonight his job wasn’t to fight back. Tonight his job was to take this battered little girl out of here and get her to safety.
When he adjusted his headset, pulling the lip microphone closer to his mouth, his voice was steady. “Cat,” he said almost silently to his commanding officer. “They hurt her.”
Joe Catalanotto cursed. “Bad?”
“Yeah.”
“Can she walk?”
“I don’t know,” Blue said.
He turned toward the girl again, sensing from the change in the sound of her breathing that she was awake. Awake and terrified.
Quickly he knelt down next to her, holding the penlight so that it lit his camouflaged face.
“I’m Lieutenant Blue McCoy, miss,” he said in a low voice. “I’m a U.S. Navy SEAL, and I’m here to bring you home.”
She stared at him, eyes wide, taking in his uniform, his gun, and he knew she didn’t understand.
“I’m an American sailor, Karen,” he said. “I’m a friend of your daddy’s, and I’m gonna get you outta here.”
At the mention of her father, understanding and hope flared simultaneously in her brown eyes. She had been clutching at her torn shirt in a futile attempt at modesty, but now she removed her hand to cover his light.
“Shh,” she whispered. “You’ll wake the guards.”
“No, I won’t,” Blue said. “They’re not going to wake up for a while. And when they do, they’re going to be in jail.” He extracted his lock pick from the waterproof case in his vest and
