Code Name: Redemption
A Warrior’s Challenge Series
Book Six
From a hundred meters up the hillside where the unforgiving heat of the night drew every ounce of moisture from the ground, Lieutenant Commander Greg LaPierre and his team watched the movements of the tiny rural village below their position.
Sliding his camo jacket sleeve to reveal his G Shock, Greg checked the time and the temperature. Just past midnight, the air had dropped to eight degrees Celsius. The eerie glow of the night vision goggles over Greg’s eyes revealed little action, other than a stray dog sniffing a hole dug next to one of the adobe ovens the locals called home.
Secure intel advised their HVT High Value Target used this location as a drop. A small speck of civilization, which was a latitude and longitude more than a name on the map, in a mostly uninhabited valley on the southwestern tip of Niger.
Shimmying on his belly across the pitted rocks and sand, Tasker, one of Greg’s long time Joint Task Force 2 JTF2 team members, elbowed his way into the dark gulley.
“Lieutenant Commander. Spirit’s in firing position fifty meters above us on the ridge. We going to make a move?”
“Negative. We wait,” Greg ordered.
Tasker released a deep breath and settled across from him like a mirror image. “Nothing observed except normal activity. Guess we’re getting antsy.”
Greg turned onto his back, adjusting his butt and legs into the natural sway in the ground. They’d arrived forty-eight hours ago. His men wanted to engage, but Greg needed a sighting before dropping fire on a village with innocent women and children sleeping below.
He understood his team’s impatience. This was their last tasking on a seven month deployment. Canada’s Special Ops Command had ordered his team to deliver an extremist to the coalition. Command requested Greg’s team in particular to track and locate Khaled, an AQIM member Islamist militant organization aimed to overthrow the Algerian government and institute an Islamic state.
Africa was now the new breeding ground for Al-Qaeda. Although, the African militaries had begun to work together because the continent had reached a tipping point of violence and unrest, they still needed help from the international Special Forces who worked in small teams on specialized missions.
After ten years, Greg’s CPO, Tom Haskell, team name Tasker, knew the protocol.
Tasker swiped at his forehead. Even with the chill in the air, a sheen of sweat covered his camo painted face. Eight hours ago, Greg noticed his CPO showed symptoms of the common cold. Viruses didn’t stand down for a mission. Greg had his share of illnesses during their missions. Not including the three bullets he’d taken on different occasions.
He unscrewed his water canister and thrust it at Tasker. “Drink,” he ordered.
He knew Tasker had already run out. Cover from the day’s hot sun consisted of spindly trees and gnarled branches. Enough to hide their position, but not if the village goat herder decided to check on his flock.
Tasker’s whisker-covered features grinned, pearl-white teeth shining in the darkness as Greg turned his head toward the fucking goat standing next to him. She bleated a quick hello. The damn thing had taken up residence next to him a few hours ago.
“Think she likes you.” Tasker chuckled, and handed back the half empty canister of precious water. “Thanks for sharing.”
Greg scanned the sparse tree line farther up the hillside where the remainder of his JTF2 team watched for best recon. Spearhead and Rock lay fifty meters to his right. Kane and Dog to his left. LV and Spirit covered their rear, entrenched inside the tinder dry forest.
In Greg’s comm set, Spirit said, “Got eyes on the prize, L.C.”
“Roger. I’ll take sixty winks.” Satisfied his sniper assumed the watch, Greg inhaled a deep breath. He should try to get some sleep as uncomfortable as this bed of rocks would be, a Special Operator learned to sleep just about anywhere.
Digging inside the front pocket of his pack, he found the granola bar he was after. The MREs he’d save for later since they tasted like shit. The goat, who’d settled next to him, swung her head with the sound of tearing foil. Her delicate, pink nose twitching with interest.
“All you need now is candlelight.” Tasker teased. “You like brunettes, right?” he added.
Greg grinned and broke off a piece of the bar. His new friend gently nibbled the nugget of food from his palm.
“Hard to believe we’ve been gone since April.” Tasker plucked a stray weed from the unfriendly ground and bent his legs, propping his wrists over his knees. “Command kept us busy this time. You heading back to Victoria when this deployment is finished?”
After shoving the empty wrapper into his pack, Greg unscrewed the cap on his water, gave the rim a rub with his sleeve and swallowed a long gulp. “Probably.”
He offered the canister to Tasker again, but he waved it off.
“Gonna make Diana an honest woman?”
Greg stared up into the cloudless night sky without answering. Diana deserved more than another three years of hanging around, waiting for him to appear between missions and workups. She’d been patient—probably too patient. As a nurse, she had the gift of empathy and yet he couldn’t commit to her or anyone else in good faith.
Whatever faith was left in him.
Out of left field, Tasker dropped the one name that rarely veered far from his mind. “How’s Kayla?”
The utterance of his ex-sister-in-law’s name evoked a response in his chest. She was happily married with two kids and living in Hawaii with the Admiral. They’d kept in touch, but he hadn’t seen her since she’d married Thane Austen, the Navy SEAL who’d given up a lifetime of bachelorhood and combat for her.
“She’s good.”
“Why do you beat yourself up by keeping in contact with her?” Tasker tossed the dry strand of grass and checked his watch. “She’s not technically family anymore.”
A lethal reaction jumped to attention deep in Greg’s soul.
Tasker raised his hand. “Hey, don’t give me that serial killer stare you reserve for Tangos. I’m just saying maybe it’s time to move on.”
“I still worry about Kayla, and she’s family to me.”
Tasker knew his past, just like the rest of the team. Greg’s brother, Daniel, Kayla’s ex-husband, cooled his heels in prison for initially stabbing Kayla twelve times, then back behind bars when he broke parole and tried to find her in San Diego. A few months to go and his sentence would come to an end.
Daniel had come to terms with letting go of Kayla. Greg hadn’t accomplished purging her from his heart completely. He still worried about her. Letting her get on with her life without him was the hardest thing he’d ever done, but it had been the right thing for both of them.
Anger was a weak description of the turmoil he’d experienced after losing her to the SEAL. Somehow he’d changed, and not in a good way.
Months later, Diana literally chased him down. Like all the random women in his life, they’d met, had a night of hot sex, but then she kept calling for a second date. At first he resisted, but the drive to shove Kayla from his mind needed the soft hand of a woman. The drums of war and violence from his missions demanded something in return as well, so he fed it with sex. Eventually, a relationship with Diana took root.
Through the darkness, Greg observed his team mate shaking his head.
As if reading his mind, Tasker said, “Time for you to get on with your life, man. Diana’s a nice gal. What the hell you waiting for? You’re the only bachelor on the team now.”
He wished he knew the answer. Diana was beautiful. Independent. She allowed him to step right back into her life like he belonged there when he visited the west coast. Although he was stationed in Ottawa, home was still Victoria.
“Maybe I will.”
Tasker chuckled. “Nah, you won’t. Women sense shit, ya know.” He hunkered down and crossed his arms, tucking his hands under his armpits, away from the cold nip of the air. “That goat has a better chance of getting a ring than Diana.” He paused and gnawed on his lower lip. “You been honest with her about your extracurricular activities?”
The little goat nestled onto her knees and closed her eyes, content with her companions.
He shrugged. “Not really.”
Tasker shook his head, then closed his eyes.
The JTF team knew each other’s weaknesses and strengths. They also knew what no one else did. Greg had a dark side that needed to be fed, but it wasn’t information he shared openly.
“You prepared for a new team commander?” he said, changing the subject.
One of Tasker’s eyes popped open. “Planning on dying soon?”
“My term is up. Either I sign on for another three years, or I get out.”
Tasker closed his eyes and sighed. “You’re gonna live and die by the sword, L.C.”
The beard covering Greg’s jaw felt dry when he scrubbed his face. As soon as he returned home, the razor came out. He didn’t mind a day’s worth of stubble. Neither did most women when he scraped his jaw against the soft skin on a silky, toned inner thigh.
“L.C., we’ve got company,” Dog announced on the comm set.
Greg rolled over and tipped the BNVGs over his eyes. The flicker of headlights a mile away, approached quickly.
“Stay in position,” he ordered.
Crawling over the lip of the berm hiding their location, he slid down the slope toward a group of boulders large enough to hide behind. Evaluating his position and the ten ramshackle buildings in the village, he determined he wasn’t close enough. He needed to see a face. The face of Khaled Ashear. The guy ran a feeder cell for ISIL. The kind that gave the rebels money to buy weapons. This guy raised funds through the slave trading of Niger women.
Greg eyed another outcropping of rocks. From above, his men waited on his command. The more movement, the higher the chance they’d be seen.
Alone, he ran fast and low to the next visual point and hunkered down just in time. Two men in white robes appeared from the one story adobe building closest to the roadway.
A long rush of bleats from Greg’s little friend made him chuckle.
“She misses you,” Tasker said a second later in the headset.
“Keep her busy.” He grinned and slid around the rocks to get a better view.
The lone vehicle rounded a long sweeping curve on the gravel road. Greg could make out the panel truck as it sped in their direction. Two armed men stood in front of the building like a receiving committee.
“Dog?”
“Go ahead, L.C,” he answered.
“Advise Road Crew we’ll need an evac in one five mikes.”
“You think this is our tango?”
“Better be. I’m ready to smell the ocean and have an extra-large Tim Horton’s. How about you, men?”
“Roger that, L.C.,” the men responded.
If Greg was wrong, the unmarked standby helo used for Special Ops would extract them to a new position. Regardless of the outcome, their cover would be blown. He wanted to pluck Khaled clean and neat from this village. If wrong, they’d be forced to dig information from the locals who were usually too afraid to share information or risk their family’s lives. The entire country lived in fear from the regime’s violent hand.
“LV, you got a lock on the target vehicle?”
“Affirmative.” LV was Spirit’s spotter. The panel truck came to a jolting halt, sending dust swirling into the air. Greg waited as two men exited a truck covered in dents and rust.
The passenger wasn’t Khaled. He watched as the village men walked to the cargo hold, and the driver joined them.
Speaking in Arabic, the lanky driver raised the truck’s back door and shouted an order to get out. Greg watched as ten women were yanked from the rear compartment.
Two of the girls tripped and fell to the ground. The driver’s passenger gripped the women by the hair and yarded them to their feet. The girls cried out and pulled away, huddling with the others in a tight circle.
Greg adjusted his BNVGs, the binoculars zooming in on the driver’s face. He smiled, and the dark warrior he kept in check for his missions rattled its chains to be unleashed.
“Confirmation attained. Khaled identified,” he announced to his men.
The women were rounded up and escorted toward the building situated on the far left of the village. Behind him, Greg heard the nearly silent approach of his men taking cover closer to his position. “Hold your secondary positions.”
“I’ve got a kill shot,” Spirit confirmed.
“Hold fire. Command wants him alive,” he responded.
Greg negotiated the terrain on his belly with deliberate movements. One last clutch of boulders to conceal his location lay ten meters away. From there it was open ground to the village.
They needed to move quickly. Khaled never remained in one place for long. When Greg gave the command for his team sniper and the rest of the men to exterminate the tangos outside, the next step would be to apprehend Khaled.
“Dog, take out the truck if Khaled makes a run for it.”
“Roger that.”
When the last woman disappeared inside the red adobe building, Greg let a second pass then said, “Take ‘em out.”
His men fired with precision. All but Khaled fell. His HVT ran for cover. Dog took out the tires on the truck.
Greg ran hard across the open terrain. At six-foot-four, he had a long stride. A thirty meter dash for cover while Khaled darted into the building closest to him, causing irate voices and yelling from inside.
“On me,” Greg ordered.
LV, Spirit and Tasker caught up to him and took position against the east wall, offering cover fire for the rest of the team now making their way across open ground.
The rest of his team positioned themselves on the other side of the building, flanking Khaled’s escape route. Silence crept over the village again, then Greg heard the door creak open and craned a look around the corner.
A small boy, no more than six years of age, was pushed outside. He clutched something between his little hands.
Fuck.
“He’s rigged,” Tasker said quietly, peering around the corner beneath Greg.
The boy nodded when someone from inside the building gave him an order. The children of Africa were nothing but sacrificial lambs to the insurgents.
The boy headed their way. His scarred, bony legs revealing a hard life.
“I can bring him down,” Dog said, but the disgust was evident in his voice.
“Negative.”
“Aw, fuck no,” Spirit muttered.
The danger redlined with this kind of contact, but Greg wasn’t willing to let the kid die if he didn’t have to.
He waited, and the moment the boy rounded the building, he clutched his hands over the kid’s tiny fingers and pulled him in.
The boy’s eyes grew wide and he shouted with fear.
Turning, Greg held the kid while Tasker worked fast to pull the grenade from the kid’s hand. With a quick toss, and a three second pause, the explosion forty feet away sent rock and sand into the air. With no windows on the adobe building, the occupants inside didn’t have a visual.
Spearhead checked the back side of the building and reported. “All clear.”
“LV, Spirit, check on the women. Get them ready to transport.”
“We’re taking them with us?” LV confirmed.
“Not going to leave ‘em here. This is a drop location.”
“Copy.”
“Guess I’m babysitting,” Tasker muttered. The kid coiled under one of his thick arms, kicked his legs and wiggled to free himself. Unsuccessful, the kid tried to take a bite out of Tasker’s forearm.
Greg unclipped a smoke canister from his belt. Unless they had masks in there, they’d come out choking on the noxious fumes. “Hold position.”
He slid down the front face of the building and signaled again for his men to remain where they were. Instead of sending his Lead Breacher in first, he would ferret out the bad guy.
Putting it into a run, he tossed two canisters into the open doorway. Weapons fired from inside, the cartridges causing the sand to spit into the air on impact.
The canisters exploded. Smoke rolled from the entrance of the building. Coughing and shouts erupted from inside. Three men ran from the structure, smoke swirling around their departure. They hit the dirt on their stomachs.
These men were villagers. Again—a tactical move on Khaled’s part. If Greg’s team moved in and revealed themselves, someone would take a bullet shower.
He waited for Khaled. “Spirit, are the women secure?” Greg queried.
“No, sir.”
The short comm conveyed trouble.
“Dog, Kane, cover the main building. Roust Khaled.” Greg hurried down to the last building where he’d seen the women enter. Taking a sideways step into the dark, one-room space, he surveyed the situation.
Spirit had his weapon leveled, but so did one of the women. At LV!
Greg shouldered his rifle. The women huddled in the dim corner gripping each other, but the one holding the weapon, an old Russian rifle from the looks of it, grilled LV with eyes that could shrivel any man’s bravery. She shouted in French. Calling LV, Spirit’s spotter, a rapist.
His gaze roamed across each face, some of them as young as eleven or twelve. Surveying each woman, he paused on one in particular. She watched his movements, her almond shaped eyes eclipsed by beautiful dark hair falling past her shoulders. She was older than the rest. Maybe in her late twenties.
Moving slowly, he removed his helmet and nodded to her. “Vous allez à la maison.” You’re going home. More of the girls turned their attention toward him. He laid his weapon on the ground and raised his hands. “N’ayez pas peur.” Don’t be afraid.
He could feel the connection between himself and the dark-haired beauty. Through her eyes, he read her fear, her strength. The woman with the weapon stepped ahead of the girl, then swung the barrel, aiming it at his belly.
If they were the bad guys, she’d be dead already, but she didn’t know that. The dark-haired beauty spoke softly to the woman with the weapon.
“Maison?” he asked. French was the main language in Niger. Since he was French Canadian, there was no language barrier.
The beauty tilted her head. She wore a thick sheaf of white fabric wrapped around her slender body. Her dark nipples peaked behind the cloth.
“Maison,” she replied and stepped toward him.
The woman with the weapon looked nervously between them, the end of the rifle wavering with the weight.
“Oui.” He nodded.
“Khaled secure,” Kane reported in the comm set.
A ripple of words ran through the women clustered in the corner. The older ones he surmised belonged to the village. Greg waited for the dark-haired beauty to approach him. No one had lowered their weapon yet.
Within reaching distance, she stopped. Her exotic eyes blinked as her slender finger stroked the badge sewn onto his fatigues. “Caa-na-da. S'il vous plaît. Aidez nous.” Please. Help us.
He nodded. “Yes, we’ll take you home.”
LV and Spirit lowered their weapons because the old girl wasn’t pointing hers at them anymore.
“Man, if we could can that slick talking shit, L.C., we’d at least have the female population on our side,” Spirit joked.
LV chuckled. “Must be those snake charmin’ green eyes of his.”
“Chopper’s incoming,” Dog announced on the comm set.”
Greg heard the familiar whip whip of the Griffon’s blades and turboshaft engine as the bird hovered above the village. Spearhead communicated with Road Crew that all was clear to land.
The women ran from the building, no longer prisoners of Khaled, but the dark-haired beauty remained, then knelt and picked up his weapon, handing it to him.
“Merci,” she murmured, uttering the word carefully. “Alia.” She pointed at herself and the tiniest of smiles curved the ends of her full lips.
Alia’s eyes settled on him with gratitude and the offer of something more intense. After a mission Greg’s adrenaline ran hard, looking for another high to replace the one draining from his pulse. Too often sex came to mind, but his intensity was too dark for most to handle. The need to use a heavy hand got worse and worse after he’d severed his ties with Kayla.
Looking into Alia’s eyes, he saw her desire seeking a connection, but he’d experienced every aspect of hostage and rescue situations. Hormones, adrenaline and fear mixed a cocktail that could get a warrior in deep shit.
He gripped his weapon and placed a hand to her back, guiding her out the front door. Alia clung to him as they ran for the chopper. His team had boarded the other women. Only ten troops fit in each Griffon.
A second chopper landed sixty meters from the other. Dog and LV rolled their HVT onto the metal deck, then the helo crew secured Khaled’s hands and feet. Dog gave Greg a short wave as the chopper lifted into the air with half the women and half his team.
Thirty minutes later, the helos landed at an American FOB Forward Operations Base south of Niamey. The women were assisted off the aircraft by US Marines, except for Alia. She’d sat beside him on the chopper and waited for him to pull her into his arms and settle her feet on the sand. There was something extremely exotic about her and wrapping his hands around her slender waist didn’t help.
A Marine waited to take her with the other women being hustled into the camp. They’d be fed and a translator would try to extract information from the women.
Alia tipped onto her toes and kissed his cheek. “Au revoir, Canada.”
The team surrounded him and watched as the women were herded away.
“I’m fucking ready for a Canadian Maple and a cup of dark roast,” Tasker said.
“Time for a shower and some half-decent grub.” Spearhead led the way, and the team followed, except for Tasker. He stayed beside Greg.
“Still thinking about calling it quits?”
He knew Tasker would ask him again once the op was finished. “I need something, and I’m not finding it here anymore.”
His friend cradled his C7A2 rifle in his arms. “You just need some warm, soft skin that doesn’t smell like one of us. Come on, I’ll buy ya a warm beer.”
Greg had been eighteen when he’d signed up. Stepping from a childhood draped in violence to a life of combat and missions, chaos had become second nature. The woman he desired most in this world belonged to someone else. He remembered Admiral Thane Austen telling him that before Kayla came into his life, all he’d had was fight and fuck.
Looking toward the rising sun on the horizon, waves of heat already shimmered over the rolling sand. Greg knew he needed a taste of home before he made a decision about his future. After his boots hit Canadian soil, he’d head west to the Pacific and take some time to shake combat off his back.
Tasker elbowed him and they caught up to the team. Later, under the hot stream of a well-deserved shower, Greg summarized his life. He went through the motions of eating, sleeping, sex and killing. It weighed heavy on his mind. He wasn’t sure if any woman could calm the drums of unrest that threatened to throw him off balance all his life.
His brother succumbed to the darkness, but Greg wouldn’t slip. Not like Daniel.
Diana was waiting for him. Maybe Tasker was right. Make an honest woman out of her. Cut his extracurricular activities as his team mate called them, and salvage his life.