Somewhere outside, but not too close, they heard voices, the words indistinct.
Maddock glanced upwards once before raising the radio to his lips. “Green 1 and 2 to 3 and 4, you read?”
“Copy, Green 1. Green 3 is out.” Professor could not hide the disappointment in his voice at losing Willis. “Good news is I took out the guy who got him. Blue Team is completely eliminated. Only three Black tangos remain, over.”
“Copy, Green 4. We have made target base, now we’re moving up in the world, out.”
“Copy that, moving up. I’ll give you cover fire. I just hope that damn thing is up there. No sign of it out here.”
As soon as the radio call ended Maddock and Bones heard the soft padding of footsteps just outside the cave. Very quiet, but moving quickly by the sound of them, sort of a pitter patter on the soft dirt, with an occasional click. The two men separated instantly to either side of the cave entrance, guns held in the ready position. Was one of the remaining Black squad about to enter and attempt an ambush?
There was indeed a threat just outside the cave entrance, but it was not at all what they were expecting. In trotted a dog-like animal about the size of a German shepherd. The canine ran into the cave, rocking back on its haunches when it saw the two humans. It bared its teeth and emitted a low growl, but did not advance.
“Coyote. Where there’s one, there are usually more,” Bones warned.
Maddock made a sudden, threatening move toward the animal, swiping at it with his gun. The coyote turned tail and ran, but they knew it didn’t go far. They could hear it pacing not far outside the cave, whining and yelping.
“Thing’s gonna give our position away!” Bones complained.
“We better get on with it.” Maddock looked up toward the top of the rocky spire.
Bones had his pack open, organizing his climbing gear while assessing the joins in the rock, tracing them upward with his eyes. “I guess I’ll take lead.”
He stepped over to the wall and began inserting his fingers into a crack line, testing it. He knew well from experience that rock climbing was both a mental puzzle, determining the most efficient routes and combinations of hand- and footholds, and a physical one, knowing how to orient one’s body to the rock as well as having the arm, finger and leg strength and stamina to move about over long periods of time.
“I’ll take lead,” Maddock said, placing a foot onto a small irregularity in the rock wall.
“Why are you taking lead? I should take lead.”
Maddock looked at his friend. “Why you?”
“I’m the better climber.”
Maddock rolled his eyes. Bones reached into his pocket and produced a coin, an old buffalo nickel that he carried for good luck. “Flip you for it.”
“Fine.”
“I call heads.” Bones flipped the coin up into the air. Before it landed they saw a black splotch of paint appear on the wall of their chamber, not six inches from Bones’ head.
“Heads, I’ll lead.” Bones scrambled up the rock face, leaving his nickel on the dirt. Inside the tower, the going was tougher near the bottom because the walls were slightly concave. Until the three rock walls were closer together as the tower rose, climbing inside here would be tricky. It did afford the advantage, once off the ground, that they couldn’t be fired upon unless someone was inside with them, shooting up.
By the time Bones hammered his first piton into the face, twenty feet up, they heard a man shout, “Crap, I’m hit!”
And then their radios crackled with Professor’s voice. “Took out the trash for you. Should be clean in there now. Two more guys out here somewhere, how’s it going?”
Maddock relayed that they were making their way up the inside of the tower. He clipped a line to his harness that was fastened to the metal spikes and carabineers that Bones was installing as he went higher. He followed Bones’ route up the conical formation. It was a sound assumption that if it worked for Bones it would work for him, until he reached one section where the tall man’s long reach was clearly an advantage when grabbing for the next hold. Maddock jumped, the rock flaying his fingertips as he tried to dig them into a paper-thin nick in the wall.
The face at this point was sharply concave and Bones was barely hanging on as it was. With maybe fifteen more feet until the three rocks were close enough together to be able to wedge one’s body against the opposing walls, Maddock fell from the rock face. The only thing keeping him from landing on his back about forty feet below was the safety rope Bones had hammered into the wall. Even so, Maddock faced a twenty-foot freefall at the end of which his body was jolted hard at the end of the rope before dangling there in midair.
The impact also pulled Bones from the face, although being tethered directly to the piton in the wall, he didn’t have far to fall, but just dangled there, looking down to see how Maddock had fared. The team leader hung upside down, slowly spinning, his head about four feet out from the wall. Bones was about to admit defeat-there was no way he’d be able to haul Maddock all the way back up and then resume the arduous climb — when Maddock called up to him.
“Bones… I found it!”
“Found what? A way to fly? Because that would be great right about now.”
“No, I mean I found it. The asset.”
Bones looked down and saw Maddock reaching both arms out toward a crevice in the wall from his upside down position. Bones began rappelling down the face, using his legs to bounce off the wall when needed. In a few seconds he was hanging in midair next to Maddock, face to upside down face like a couple of bats.
Maddock now cradled a white plastic box with the black letters, ASSET, stenciled on one side. A red button was visible on top of the box inside a transparent plastic door.
“What are you waiting for Batman, press it!”
“You can do the honors.”
Bones flipped up the lid and depressed the button.
Within a few seconds their radios sounded with the commander’s voice.
“SEALs, this exercise has been won! Blue Team, Black Team, report back to me. Green Team: there is a transport helicopter waiting for you a click to the south. You are to report there without delay.”
Chapter 2
“Gentlemen, I’m told you were able to leverage a disadvantage into an advantage today. Nicely done.”
To Maddock, Bones, Professor and Willis, the words themselves were surprising enough without considering who they came from. But the fact that those words were uttered by none other than a high-ranking Admiral, one of the Navy’s top brass, made them all the more impactful.
“Thanks, Admiral Liptow!” Bones’ reply elicited eye rolls from his three fellow SEALs, but Admiral Jason Liptow smiled good-naturedly. His uniform cap hid the male pattern baldness they knew was there from the pictures they’d seen of him in the media throughout the years, but his eyes burned brightly as he stared at the four SEALs in turn.
“Don’t thank me yet, Bonebrake. You and your esteemed colleagues, here, are about to embark on one heck of a mission. But it won’t be stateside.” He waved toward the helicopter’s window, where below them the desert floor rushed past in a moving pastiche of dull browns and occasional reds.
The bird in which they flew, a modified CH-46 Sea Knight, had been retrofitted with a small but serviceable conference area in the forward portion of the cargo hold. Seated at a table, the admiral was flanked by two naval officers who went without introductions, while the SEAL foursome sat across from them.
The admiral turned something small over in his hands as he spoke to the team.
“We are now en route to Naval Air Station North Island.”