Mal was trawling through the data on the three White Dawn members' devices when he got Trent's message. The message definitely gave him cause for concern. Mal hadn't ever served in a formal, legal military organization, but he'd dealt with enough of them — and passed himself off as part of them — often enough to know how they worked.

 

Trent shouldn't have sent that message. Trent wasn't allowed to send that message. Trent valued the SEALs, the Navy, and his country more than he valued anything else in the world. If Trent, of all people, was willing to reach out to someone like Mal and tell him the orders he'd just received were dodgy, then something was wrong indeed.

 

Mal definitely worried. He just couldn't do anything about his concerns, not yet. Morna didn't know much. She might be staying with the SEALs, but the only ones who knew anything were the ones who'd gone out on the mission.

 

And that gave all of the SEALs a little bit of pause to include the lieutenant who'd sent them out on the job.

 

Mal worried at his lip. He could handle this one of three ways. He could find a church and kneel down in prayer, but neither of his parents had been at all religious. He didn't know any prayers, and anyway, he was pretty sure if there was a God he didn't have much of an interest in Mal.

 

He could scream, cry, and yell. It wouldn't be at all effective, but it would express his sentiments perfectly.

 

Or he could get to work getting to the bottom of the issue. It wouldn't be easy. Trent hadn't given him much information, and the information Trent had given him was questionable at best. Take "fishy." If Trent had said, We're supposed to be going after Daesh but that's stupid there aren't any targets on Corsica, Mal would have a place to start. Instead, he'd said, Seems fishy. What did that even mean? Did the orders not seem legitimate? Did Lt. DeWitt seem like he was under duress when he gave them?

 

Did the orders somehow, improbably, involve actual fish?

 

Mal had no way of getting to Corsica, and no way of narrowing down where on the island they were. He might be able to scour DeWitt's communications, but hacking the Navy was more trouble than it was usually worth and probably wouldn't do wonders for Trent's alleged attempt to get Mal into the States.

 

Well, every Daesh cell they'd come across in France for the past six months had ties to White Dawn. Mal had just seized laptops and phones belonging to three White Dawn members. A Daesh cell on Corsica would probably be in communication with a White Dawn cell near Toulon, right? After all, there was a damn ferry between Corsica and Toulon.

 

He turned back to the data. It took a while for him to find what he was looking for. Part of the reason was he started his search looking for the wrong thing.

 

He started out looking for mentions of Daesh or for any Arabic names. He shouldn't have. When two hours of heavy-duty data trawling, with his best programs, turned up nothing he tried again. This time he searched for Corsica.

 

Mal's blood ran cold when he saw the memo. It had been hidden deep in the deleted messages on the third machine, but it was still there. A gathering of White Dawn members had been scheduled to take place on Corsica for two to three weeks at the end of October to the beginning of November. There would be hundreds of them, celebrating their ideas about racial supremacy, and planning the next year's worth of mayhem.

 

And, according to the sender, a special surprise entertainment was planned.

 

Mal hadn't experienced much morning sickness during his pregnancy, but now he ran to the bathroom and vomited. He threw up until he couldn't throw up any more. When he was reduced to dry heaving, he copied everything he had onto a thumb drive and raced out the door. He had to get Trent out of there.

 

Virginia, America, even the baby didn't matter. All he cared about was making sure Trent survived.

 

The barracks house — just a house, really, but apparently they'd turned it into a barracks — wasn't far from the hotel. Mal ran for it, and he hammered on the door. He reached for his lock picks until he saw Morna's face.

 

"Jesus Christ, Mal, what are you doing here at three o'clock in the morning?"

 

Mal pushed past her and into the house. "What are you doing up at three o'clock in the morning? Also, I need to see the Master Chief."

 

"Chief is sleeping. You don't want to disturb him before coffee. He's not a morning person." She crossed her arms over her chest and shifted her weight to one foot. "And I'm standing guard. What does it look like I'm doing, needlepoint?"

 

"Look. It's important. Their men have just been sent into a death trap." Mal grabbed his sister's arm. "Either go wake Chief, or help me steal a boat and I'll go take care of it myself." He let her go. "And you've been here for too long if you know just who's a morning person and who isn't."

 

Morna rolled her eyes at him, but she went off to get the Master Chief. "You're not stealing a boat, Malachi O'Donnell. You're pregnant, and you don't know how to drive a boat."

 

"Get him or we'll find out just how fast I learn!" he yelled as she ran up the stairs.

 

Chief lumbered down the stairs after Morna not a minute later. "What is it?" he asked, face like a thundercloud.

 

Mal's insides did a little twist, but he stood firm. He might or might not be able to take Chief in a fair fight, but he refused to be intimidated. "Your men have walked into a trap. That Corsica raid isn't a Daesh cell. It's a gathering of hundreds of White Dawn members. And they have 'special entertainment' planned for the troops."

 

Chief's eyes bulged. "You can't possibly know that. You can't even know where they are. I didn't even know where they are."

 

"Spare me the hand wringing about need to know until after you've gotten everyone you sent into that ambush safely home, yeah?" Mal clenched his hands into fists and tried to remember throwing a punch would be the wrong solution here. "There are hundreds of White Dawn men there."

 

Chief narrowed his eyes at Mal. "I don't like your attitude."

 

"I don't like anything about this. But I am giving you the opportunity to solve this before I head over to Corsica myself, and if there's even a hair out of place on Trent's head I swear to all that's holy — and unholy, I am not picky — that I will personally hunt down each and every one of you bastards and skin you alive." Mal spoke through gritted teeth. "And I will start with that lieutenant of yours, because we both know he's the one who gave the damn order."

 

Morna inserted herself between them. "All right, boys, put them away. Mal, Trent's out there because he followed orders and because he's concerned about his friends. He wants to be there and he's willing to take those risks. Chief, you've already seen a thousand times that Mal finds things out that other people don't. If he's telling you something's going on, maybe you might want to think about listening instead of getting your knickers into a twist about it. He's not one of your men." She pushed them apart, gently but with purpose. "I'll go put some coffee on. Maybe you want to wake the lieutenant up, Chief. This sounds like the sort of thing he should hear about, especially if his skin is at stake."

 

Chief spared a moment to glower at Mal before he stomped up the stairs again, and Morna disappeared into the kitchen.

 

Lt. DeWitt followed Chief down the stairs moments later, dressed in sweats and an old tee shirt. "What the hell is this I'm hearing about you threatening me and my men?" he asked, dark eyes blazing.

 

Mal let out a bitter laugh. "Oh, that's rich. You sent your men into a god damned death trap but I'm the bad guy here. You know what? I'm out. I'll get them out myself." Mal turned on his heel and walked toward the door.

 

DeWitt grabbed his wrist and tugged, spinning him around. Mal didn't think, he just reacted. His fist connected with DeWitt's nose. When DeWitt doubled over in shock, Mal brought his knee up into the officer's chin. "Your men don't get to do that because you're their commanding officer. I don't answer to you. You don't get to put your hands on me." He looked from DeWitt to Chief and at Morna too. She'd apparently gone native with the SEALs. "None of you do. I'll rescue them myself because I care about their lives more than I care about whatever asinine orders you got that made you send them into a nest of hundreds of White Dawn bastards."

 

"Mal, wait." Morna rushed forward. "Why don't you tell me why you think he's gone into a White Dawn nest?"

 

"Could you sound a little more patronizing?" Mal snorted. "I'm pregnant, not delusional. I found a message on one of the computers I took from the White Dawn cell I took out a few days ago." A radio squawked from another room, which might have been the kitchen. Morna ran off to answer it.

 

DeWitt frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. His nose was bleeding badly, but he didn't move to take care of himself. "And how do I know that's the truth, hm? How do I know you didn't just make the whole thing up? Navy Intel is tried. Proven. Verified and trustworthy. We've spent over two centuries trusting the chain of command. You're some young punk, the kind of omega who willingly gets pregnant by foreign sailors, and a terrorist to boot. You kill without trial, without orders, and without any kind of command at all. Why in the hell would I take your word for it?"

 

"Take my word or don't." He threw his hands up in the air. "They're your men. I haven't steered you wrong yet, and I don't even like you. But you can take it up with someone else. I'm on my way to Corsica. Just stay out of my way."

 

Morna ran back into the room. "Sir, I just got a radio call from Tinker. The signal was weak, I couldn't make much out." Her face had gone as white as snow. "What I could hear was 'camp,' 'hundreds,' and 'Dawn.'" She glanced at Mal for a moment. "Then their radio cut out."

 

"Isn't that convenient?" DeWitt sneered at Mal before running into the kitchen.

 

Chief loomed in on Mal. "If you ever think of raising a hand to a Navy officer again —"

 

"Save it. If I never see a Navy officer again it will be too soon. And the bastard asked for it." He looked away.

 

Chief growled before stalking back into the kitchen.

 

Morna looked at Mal and sighed. "Do you think you could maybe try not to antagonize the guys who can call on aircraft carriers?"

 

Mal snorted. "So you're okay with them manhandling me but not with me defending myself? You have been spending too much time with them." He shook his head. "If they can call aircraft carriers in, let them get Trent out of there. That's literally all I care about."

 

"And the whole skinning alive thing?"

 

"It'll probably have to wait until I find out if I'm going to survive this." He rubbed his belly. "After that, I'm starting with the bastard who put his hands on me."

 

"As long as there's a plan then." Morna rolled her eyes. "Do you really think you can save Trent from hundreds of White Dawn bastards by yourself?"

 

Mal scoffed. "I'm good, but I'm not that good. Someone has to try."

 

"Then why did you say it?"

 

"Well, I came here to try to convince the people he cares about more than me to fucking do it." He glared at her. "But instead, they decided I'd arranged the whole thing, and put their hands on me. So here we are. I'll figure something out. You enlisting or nah?"

 

Morna blushed. "You did leave me here."

 

"You could have come with." Mal shrugged. "Whatever. You know where I'll be." He turned toward the door.

 

DeWitt came running back out of the kitchen. "I can't raise them. What would cause that?"

 

"Dropping the radio." Mal spat out the wiseass retort without thinking.

 

"Don't be an ass, Mal." Morna turned to DeWitt. "Jamming radios is a thing, Lieutenant."

 

"I guess that's just such old-school technology I hadn't thought about it." DeWitt, too, had gone pale. "What evidence do you have that what's going on is really White Dawn?"

 

Mal bristled. "I've already explained —"

 

DeWitt held up a hand. "No. That's not what I mean. I mean if I'm going to buck orders, and even requisition help from the locals, I need specifics. I need evidence I can show my higher-ups and say, 'This is information that came to light after the fact, and I had to make a late decision without input from Command.' That is what I need from you. Can you give it to me?"

 

Mal bit the inside of his cheeks, trying to hold in his temper. He wanted to punch the lieutenant again, to be honest. That wouldn't get him where he wanted to go.

 

"I've put the evidence on this thumb drive." He pulled the drive out of his pocket and tossed it to DeWitt. "Let me get back to work on those hard drives and I can get you more. I'd obviously rather wait until Trent is home safe. Here's the thing." He licked his lips. "How confident are you that your orders were real?"

 

DeWitt screwed up his face. "They're orders. They come from Command. They're real."

 

Mal took a deep breath. "Did you get them in a face-to-face conversation, like through video conferencing? Or did you get them through a confidential email?"

 

"A confidential message. Why?"

 

"Sir, I once diverted a bombing raid from a school in Iraq by pretending to be a RAF colonel. Someone who knows what they're doing can do a lot. If you let me sit down and take a look at your system, I can trace that message back and tell you where it came from. You can sit there and watch me if you don't trust me."

 

DeWitt scowled. "This is some serious conspiracy theory shit."

 

Mal shrugged. "It is. It's a little bizarre, and to be honest, it's unsettling. But it also doesn't take much time at all. Not active time, anyway. You can come with me to get those laptops, and then I'll show you what I'm talking about."

 

Chief's eyes were narrow. "If I can make a recommendation, Sir."

 

DeWitt curled his lip. "You go with him. I want to see what he does."

 

 

 

~

Trent and the rest of the squad hid in the ruins of an old house. There wasn't much left to the place. The walls stood at about waist height, and the entire floor plan would have been as big as Trent's living room in Virginia. He tried not to think about what it would have been like to live like this, all cooped up with a family. Worse yet, what would it have been like with multiple generations?

 

Well, the owners were all gone now. Had they been killed in one of Europe's interminable wars? It seemed like Europe never stopped fighting, at least up to the mid-twentieth century. Some parts of the continent hadn't even stopped then. Maybe the last residents had abandoned the family farm to go to one of the cities or to work in the tourism sector.

 

Maybe they'd just built themselves a newer, more comfortable, more sanitary house. With plumbing. In that, they wouldn't have been much different from Americans. The countryside in the northeast was literally dotted with abandoned farmhouses and barns only steps away from modern buildings.

 

"What's the plan, Kelly?" Iniguez elbowed Trent, jolting him out of his reverie. "We've faced some intense odds, but not without a plan."

 

Trent took a deep breath and tried to focus. Yeah, they were SEALs. They could take on forces much larger than they were. They didn't have a lot of support right now, though. They had no reliable intel. They'd packed for a small group they could take out with small arms, so they had no explosives. And their radios weren't working.

 

"All right." Trent closed his eyes. Mal and Morna were always taking on groups larger than them and they pulled through just fine. How did they manage it? "What would you say is the first thing we need?"

 

"A few high-impact bombs would be swell right now," Toledano told him. A few of the other guys nodded.

 

"Hm. Think these guys might have a few lying around?" Trent waggled his eyebrows. "Robson, Hopper, Fitzpatrick — you guys go find their explosives. Don't get caught. Steal what you can. Floyd, Tinker, Iniguez — you guys find where they're storing the bulk of their weapons. They're not going have them just lying around. Toledano, you and I are going to go find the diesel generators and any propane tanks. Let's synchronize our watches and meet up back here in two hours. Don't get caught — I know I don't have to actually tell you that — but if you have the chance to take someone out, do it. There aren't any innocents here. We need to even the odds as much as possible."

 

They broke. Trent and Toledano headed in the direction of the diesel generators. They weren't hard to find given the noise they made. The generators had a couple of guards. Trent and Toledano made quick work of those guards by snapping their necks.

 

Later, the noise would bother Trent. He'd accepted the fact he'd have to kill to discharge his duties, and he was oddly okay with that. Shooting didn't bother him at all. Knives were a little more difficult for him, but he could handle it. The sound of a man's neck breaking, and the feel of it giving way under his hand, was something he couldn't stomach.

 

He supposed that was a good thing. If he ever got used to snapping necks in the dark, they might as well put him down.

 

Once they'd scouted the generators, they looked for propane tanks. That took a little more time, since they weren't sure there even were any propane tanks. They found them after some dogged searching, though, and when they did they had to laugh.

 

The White Dawn had stashed their propane supply near the campers. That made it more dangerous to scout them and made what Trent had in mind riskier too. Every trailer and every tent acted as a sentry. At the same time, if Trent and his brothers succeeded, they would improve the odds so much more.

 

Trent and Toledano made it back to their hideaway with seconds to spare. The others were there already, but they were breathing hard. Hopper sported a cut along his forehead, but it didn't look like anything serious. Trent found a bandage in the med kit, and they got ready for Part Two of Trent's Wicked Plan.

 

The men assigned to the explosives dump had taken all they could carry and then some. Trent and Toledano didn't need a lot to do what they planned with the tanks. They only took some. He directed the others to go ahead and rig up the armory and anything else that looked important. If the gathering had a communications center, that would be ideal.

 

They were to rig the explosives to go off at the same time, preferably with the same detonator. Then, they would head in as one and fight it out. That was it. That was the plan. Trent didn't have a plan for fighting once the explosives went off. He could try to come up with one, but plans like that never lasted long past first contact with the enemy anyway.

 

Rigging the explosives took time, more of it than Trent was necessarily comfortable with. He didn't complain about it, though. They all knew what they were doing, and they knew bombs weren't something to screw around with. You took the time you needed, or you paid the price.

 

When all was said and done, they met up at their new rendezvous point. The sky had just started to lighten over on the eastern horizon. Trent figured it was as good a time as any to light things up.

 

He set off the bombs, and all of the men ducked.

 

The explosions were spectacular. There was screaming, of course, because there was always screaming when bombs went off. Some of the screaming was truly pitiful. Trent would hear it in his dreams at night. Those were from men trapped in burning tents or trailers. Burning to death was a terrible way to go, and Trent had done it to them. It couldn't be helped, but that didn't chase the screaming out of his head.

 

Screaming or no screaming, the SEALs couldn't wait. Plenty of people had been taken out in the bombing but plenty of others had not. Trent grabbed his Mossberg and started shooting.

 

Some of the White Dawn guys seemed genuinely dazed by what had happened. They staggered around in the smoke and dust with guns, unused in their hands. Others reacted better. Had they been expecting an attack? They came up firing, even the ones who'd been wounded.

 

Part of Trent wondered how they could have been expecting an attack. He didn't think Mal would have warned them. Sure, Mal was part of a questionable organization, but he didn't have any reason to think Mal would sell him out. Every interaction with the Wolves had shown them to be diametrically opposed to White Dawn on every level that counted.

 

So where else could they have gotten the information?

 

Trent couldn't focus on it. He had neo-Nazis to fight. He fired again and again, hoping his bullets hit home. They did more often than not. He was a good shot, and the environment was target rich. They came at him in their pajamas, and they came after him in jeans. They came after him in paramilitary uniforms, too, because that wasn't creepy at all.

 

Fitzpatrick was the first to get hit. The body armor protected their torsos, to a certain point, but their limbs were vulnerable. The enemy wasn't stupid, just evil. They aimed for arms, and legs, and for the head. Fitzpatrick took a shot at close enough range that his arm looked a lot like hamburger. He couldn't use his shotgun anymore, but he could use his sidearm with his left hand.

 

Trent tossed the small medkit to Tinker, who stood beside Fitzpatrick. Tinker speedily wrapped the mangled arm and got back to work. It wasn't a perfect fix. It wasn't even a good fix. Fitzpatrick needed stitches or a tourniquet. Maybe both. He could keep shooting until he passed out from blood loss, though. Hopefully someone back home noticed they were out of touch and would eventually send help. Then they could evacuate Fitzpatrick.

 

Trent ran out of shells for his shotgun and had to switch to his sidearm. He didn't like that. He didn't have the range with his sidearm that he did with the shotgun, and it didn't have quite the stopping power either. He'd take it over going hand to hand, though. A bullet grazed his leg, but he kept shooting. One, two, three enemies fell to the ground. They joined their friends, killed by the rest of the SEALs.

 

Hopper went down next. He took a bullet to the leg. This wasn't going to be a case where he could keep shooting until he passed out. He was already spurting blood and turning gray. Trent put his gun down and tied the tourniquet himself. The bullet had cut into an artery. If they couldn't stop the bleeding, Hopper would be dead in minutes.

 

If Mal were here he would have fixed Hopper's leg in half a second. He'd probably have gotten Hopper back on his feet, left no scars, and gone back for more. Of course, if Mal were here these assholes would be shooting at Trent's boyfriend and baby. That wasn't going to happen — not ever again — if Trent had anything to say about it.

 

Robson went down. He was also hit in a lower extremity, but he was shot just below the shin. He yelped and collapsed, but he kept his head up and kept shooting. Trent gritted his teeth. That was it. They weren't getting out of here, not without helicopters. If that bullet hadn't shattered Robson's shin, he'd eat Robson's shoes. And Robson's shoes were always foul.

 

At least they could still fight. They had to. The enemy wasn't going to stop coming until they were all dead. Bodies piled up in little clumps, like horse patties all over the field, but there were so many more enemy men than there were SEALs. Some of them came into the fight already injured or burned, thanks to Trent's explosions. Trent had to give them credit for that, at least. Their cause was trash, but they'd fight through the pain for it.

 

A White Dawn fighter with a blistering burn covering half of his face got in close and stabbed Iniguez in the back, right where his vest ended. He'd missed Iniguez' spine, but he must have hit something vital. Trent turned around and shot the assailant in the face.

 

The assailant managed to sneer, somehow, before falling back onto the ground.

 

Trent dropped to get a look at Iniguez. He couldn't see what particular organ the enemy had gotten, but there were enough of them in that part of the body Trent knew he'd have to act fast and pray. He grabbed some gauze from the medical kit and packed the wound as best he could. There wasn't enough in the kit to properly bandage the injury, but he did what he could to slow the bleeding. If they all survived, Mal would fix him up good and proper.

 

Tinker took a shot to the arm while standing guard over the injured SEALs near him. He didn't even flinch. He just pulled out his sidearm and got the one who'd injured him between the eyes. That was Tinker for you.

 

A searing pain split across Trent's belly, moving from right to left just under his vest. Trent slammed the butt of his gun down on the assailant's bald head, and the attacker fell to the ground. Trent stomped on his neck and heard the bones crunch, but the damage was done. The cut wasn't so deep as to count as a stab, but it was deep enough.

 

Blood — his own blood, so hot it steamed in the chill of late fall — spilled out over the hand he dropped to grab at the wound.

 

Trent had been hurt more than once or twice in the line of duty. Shock usually kicked in at a time like this. Wasn't that how this was supposed to work? He spat out a mouthful of what he thought was spit, and had to bite back a scream when he saw blood instead.

 

He aimed his gun. His hand shook just a bit. Was that from fear or blood loss? It had to be from blood loss, because SEALs didn't feel fear.

 

Except Trent was most definitely scared, and he was most definitely a SEAL.

 

He squeezed the trigger. Two more enemies went down.

 

He hunched over and kept his arm over the injury. Maybe that would help mitigate the bleeding. At the very least, it would keep the men from seeing his injury.

 

A SEAL always knew death was a possibility. He'd never felt death so close as he did now. He'd had some close calls, but this was something else.

 

Somewhere in the distance, heavy rotor blades thumped against the air.

 

He fired again and again. Floyd and Toledano were still standing, still whole. They kept firing, again and again. They weren't going to be put off by a few injuries. And they weren't going to get distracted by the choppers, either. If the choppers were theirs, great. If the choppers were locals, there to bust up both sides or whatever, Trent would be more than happy to let the higher-ups deal with it. If White Dawn had somehow gotten choppers, Trent hoped he'd pass out before he had to deal with it.

 

He kept firing, even as his body got colder. He knew what that meant, and it wasn't good. It had been a decent life. He'd had people around him for his whole life who cared for him. He'd loved, and he'd had a chance at a family of his own. No one could ask for more.

 

He fell to the dusty ground. "Kelly?" Floyd turned around to check on him. "Holy shit!"

 

A gun clicked. "You boys turned out to be a lot more entertaining than we thought you'd be." The voice belonged to an American, probably from Texas or Oklahoma. Trent hadn't learned to tell which. "We're going to have to shut this down now. Just so you know, though, this ain't the whole show. There are so many more of us than you could ever imagine. We'd never get everyone together in one place."

 

The sound of flesh hitting flesh rang out through the air, even louder than the approaching choppers. "Shut up," Floyd spat.

 

A gun blast rang out, and Toledano reappeared. "I was sick of listening to that guy anyway," he said.

 

Trent tried to laugh, but he passed out instead.