“Three Whiskeys and four Kilos,” the drone operator reported.
Three women, four kids.
He heard them drawing closer to the pier. If he twisted out right now, he could see them. They sounded as if they were no more than ten yards away.
“Contacts are… Contacts are pulling guns on the Whiskeys and Kilos.”
O’Neil’s heart started climbing up to his throat, his pulse pounding in his ears. He wanted more than anything to swing around that container and tear into those Russians. He didn’t need to know Arabic to hear the desperation and fear in those women’s voices or the children wailing and screaming.
Then a heavy thwack, followed by the thud of a head against pavement.
Tate started to stand, swiveling toward the edge of the container.
The drone operator came back over the line. “One of the Whiskeys is down. They’re dragging the Kilos and Whiskeys toward the water.”
O’Neil could already picture what the Russians were about to do.
“How many hostiles?” Reynolds asked.
“Eight in the immediate vicinity.”
They could take eight soldiers. They could save these women and children.
“But all eyes from the warehouses and walls are pointed this way,” the operator continued.
The words that were unsaid were the loudest. Far too many Russians were positioned on the walls or between the warehouses, all with defensible positions.
Maybe they could kill the eight hostiles. Maybe they could even take out a few of the guards around the base.
But they would be overwhelmed just as quickly. Their lives, the mission, and even the people they had tried to save would be lost.
“All teams, hold,” Reynolds said. “I repeat, hold your fire. Do not shoot.”
O’Neil tried to ignore the screams. The cries.
Tate looked to be one more shriek away from bursting out from behind the shipping container. Van placed a hand on the guy’s shoulder and shook his head. Tate’s mouth pursed like he wanted to curse and spit.
The Russian voices suddenly quieted. The women and kids’ protests grew louder, rising into a crescendo.
The drone operator came over the channel again. “There’s a Skull contact headed straight for the group. Hostiles don’t seem to notice.”
A Skull?
“How many Skulls?” Reynolds asked.
“Only one.”
That made even less sense to O’Neil. All those soldiers around the base, and they were just letting a single Skull waltz right up to those eight Russians with the women and children.
Nothing made sense.
The cries of the women and children grew louder. O’Neil hoped that Skull would tear the throats straight out of the Russians.
He could already hear the claws of the beast tapping on the concrete. If he could hear it, so could the Russians. Why weren’t they yelling? Why weren’t they calling out?
“The Skull is approaching a Whiskey. Its—”
A loud scream exploded from a woman, followed by the sound of ripping flesh, and the splash of blood over the ground. Then came the gunfire.
-21-
The gunshots rang loud against the shipping containers and over the water. All the screaming stopped. O’Neil fought back the adrenaline dumping through his body, telling him to react, to do something.
Anything.
But he knew the brutal calculus Reynolds had considered before making his call. Had they intervened, they might have prolonged those women’s and kids’ lives for a few more seconds.
The Russians almost certainly would have cut them down after they had killed the eight soldiers nearest them. Then the SEALs’ mission would be irreparably compromised. If there was already a ticking clock on them after they’d made those two guards disappear, it would certainly run out as soon as the first SEAL fired a shot.
The lives of the few did not outweigh the lives of the many in his brutal, logical calculations. Their mission had the potential to help so many more people, saving countless lives by striking a major blow into the Russians’ operations.
But when O’Neil saw the bodies drifting past in the oily waters, those thoughts did nothing to quell the rising heat in his chest and the burning desire to rip apart every damn Russian he saw.
“Whiskeys and Kilos are down,” the drone operator said. He remained calm, but O’Neil could hear his words catch slightly. “The Skull tore into one, then the hostile contacts killed the rest.”
“Status on the Skull?” Reynolds whispered over the comms.
“Skull is… Skull is… Skull appears to be listening to the Russians. They’re… They’re laughing and talking. Now the Skull is heading toward one of the office buildings with the eight hostiles,” the operator said. “Other hostiles around base are back to business as usual.”
These people had just massacred women and children with the help of a Skull, and that was it? Back to their duties?
O’Neil had long-since practiced the art of compartmentalization on his missions. He recalled seeing a stray, skinny dog licking up the blood of a dead fighter one time, before chewing on the guy’s arm. He had been in a Black Hawk crash. Remembered the grinding of the metal against the ground. The way the bird had turned sideways, smashing the legs of two other operators that had been in the cabin with him. Heard their screams and saw the bloody trail left behind.
He had seen a woman blow herself up in the middle of a café filed with families. He had seen the faces charcoaled from the blast, bodies shredded by the metal BBs and nails that had filled the suicide vest.
He had watched in horror as a fighter used his own family as a shield, firing from behind them at another SEAL. Even striking one of his own kids with a poorly aimed shot.
No matter how he tried to quell the roiling emotion from those scenes, they always came back. When he was trying to sleep. When he was reading a book. When he was just trying to eat.
There was a voice in the back of his head that told him this scene would haunt him, too. That this gruesome tableau would be burned into his memory, emerging when he closed his eyes, when he was back at home thinking that maybe he could get some shuteye.
But for now, he pushed those images to the back of his mind, to the dark spot where he hid all those memories. Because ruminating on them now would do nothing to stop the Russians and whatever other horrors they might be hiding here.
The one passing thought he let simmer in his mind was that any stubborn thoughts that the Russians might be acting in good faith or might have been improperly fingered as the enemy were now completely and utterly obliterated.
These people, responsible for the original release of the Oni Agent or not, were evil.
This world, teetering on the brink of destruction, had no room for people like this.
So he pushed aside all the horrific images floating through his mind. All the anger and emotion percolating his thoughts.
For now, there was only one thing on his mind: reaching their objective.
“Skull and hostiles are back in one of the office buildings,” the drone operator said.
“Roger that,” Reynolds said. “Bravo, move to objective A-One. Alpha is moving to C-One.”
“If you meet resistance or your position risks being compromised, do not hesitate to eliminate hostile contacts,” Reynolds added.
By the way Tate’s jaw tensed and Van nodded, O’Neil could tell his operators would have no problem doing exactly that.
“Charlie and Delta advancing into primary overwatch positions,” another operator called.
While Alpha and Bravo cleaned out the objectives, Charlie and Delta would be watching the enemy from the shipping containers and cranes near the water. They would maintain a clean exfil route back to the water.