“Sorry, Dad, I not only let the horror drown me, but I also let it consume me.” Remembering my father’s words that day so long ago, also recalling my flippant and cocky retort.
Sometimes, I wished I had taken his warning more seriously.
I only half-listened to my mates as we disembarked from the military transport plane. Their banter back and forth about hating the jungle only just computing as I walked past them to the base. I needed a shower, something to eat and a comfortable bed. Tomorrow, most of us were heading back to Ballarat to the compound to celebrate Shiloh’s little girl’s birthday. It was hard to believe the tiny bundle I held not long after her birth would be six-years-old. My mum reminded me the last time I spoke to her about the party and begged me to attend. Generally, I liked to be alone the days after returning from a deployment, preferring to get on my Harley and take off by myself. My destination always unknown, and I always went by myself. My role in Team FIVE meant my work was mostly solitary, not joining my brothers in the fight until they arrived once I gave them the word to move in.
We all worked well together … but I worked better alone. Gabe understood this and allowed my progression to become what it was today.
Striding through the open door to the airbase, I headed straight for my bike, eager to get back to Queenscliff and to my own private apartment for a night of sleep and more sleep before heading back for the party to pretend that everything was all right in the world.
CHAPTER ONE
COLE
Right about now, I wished for the humidity and the thick steaming mud of the jungle. I preferred it to the scrublands and the dry, dusty plateaus of Somalia, and don’t get me started on the bustle and crowds in Mogadishu. Yet here I was traipsing in the dead of night with a SEAL unit I have never worked with as my only form of backup.
This was no ordinary scouting mission, no long-range patrol in the middle of the night while listening to Bastian brag about his sexual prowess and how satisfied he kept Wren or hearing Grill complain that his feet hurt.
Nope, this was me without my team on the way back into the compound where not three hours ago, we were bogged down in one hell of a fucked up firefight with some local drug lords pretending to be friendlies. The bastards fed the coalition forces faulty intel that led us into an ambush: Team FIVE and the SASR, all of us were overpowered and pathetically under-armed. We hunkered down and fought off the rebellion forces as best as we could with the firepower we had until finally, the Black Hawks and Chinooks arrived with their exceptional gun power. It was on my way to the Helicopter Landing Zone to join my team when I saw a group of rebels roughly hustling a man down a hill. His hands, I could tell, were bound behind his back and an improvised hood shoved over his head. From my hiding spot, I saw that he was a soldier, and going by his limp and scrunched over shoulders, the rebels had done him over pretty thoroughly.
Every instinct I possessed urged me to follow, to see what the band of rebels were up to and thank fuck I did. Following the path of boulders, using them as cover, I got close enough to hear the voice of the prisoner and my blood ran cold.
Deke.
The prisoner was Deke.
Not taking another second of wasted time, I radioed in to the forward operating base, breaking with protocol. I had a window of opportunity and time for one call only. So I called in, not to my captain, but to the commanding officer of the mission and told him what I’d witnessed and received the order to do what I knew I had to do.
I didn’t report to the HLZ with the rest of my team. Deke was the team’s radio guy, and he had sensitive information on him, information we could not afford to get into the hands of the rebels.
I knew by now, Gabe and the rest of the Sons would be aware of my absence, and without being there, none of them would be very happy with me right about now. Leaving a man behind and getting into the helicopter without the whole team was not something any soldier would ever contemplate, but this time there was no other option.
The whole country was in complete unrest. The government had lost control of the army and people were leaving for the border in droves. Illegal guns and drugs ran rampant, as did the rebels, and the reason why we were on the ground. Deke carried military maps showing the location of the coalition base; amongst other intel, the Australian Army did not want to become public knowledge. The major knew the importance of locating and rescuing Deke before the rebels knew who and what they had, and we both knew it had to be a quiet extraction. The firefight the team had just been through meant they had to be low on ammo and low on sleep. Once the major explained the team would be rolled out of the country the minute they arrived back at the FOB, the job was placed in my hands. My speciality and purpose, doing things no one else could or should do.
So, that was how I found myself here, with SEALS and not the Sons.
“You must be hating this, hey Stephens?” one of the yanks jibbed me as he walked past me at a fast clip.
“What? Depending on you to have my back, or that you are talking so loud in the quiet of the night that your voice will travel and let the rebels know we
