Shadows Reel (Joe Pickett #22)(50)

Although the geopolitical reasons for the mission were never explained to the operators—they never were—Mark V did what it always did. It carried out orders.

Mark V existed off the books and their existence was denied to anyone, including Congress. The word within Mark V was that their presence was not even briefed to certain U.S. presidents.

Every Mark V operator had to not only pledge lifelong secrecy about what they’d done around the world on behalf of the Pentagon, they’d all signed powerful nondisclosure agreements, which, if broken, would result in immediate secret imprisonment or worse.

Axel Soledad commanded the squad of Peregrines. They moved through the jungle like predators, living off the land and maintaining radio silence. Like every mission Soledad had been on, they’d been ordered not to radio for assistance or pickup until the mission was accomplished.

They’d located the warlord in his village, but the man had been stubborn and frightened and didn’t trust them. He’d delayed his departure while government forces moved into the province in a pincer movement. Within two days, the eight Mark V warriors had been ambushed by government forces that had surrounded the warlord’s village.

Wave after wave of them came for three straight days and nights. The warlord tried to surrender, but he was cut down the minute he showed himself. But the onslaught continued.

Most of the enemies they killed were child soldiers who had been conscripted into the Burmese army for forty dollars and a bag of rice. Soledad and his men killed hundreds of twelve-, thirteen-, and fourteen-year-old boys.

At the time, Soledad’s younger brother, Trey, had been the same age as the Burmese boys he slaughtered. It was awful. Their superiors loaded up the children with drugs that included cocaine and a mixture of sugarcane syrup and gunpowder that turned them into savages. Combine that with the bloodlust frenzy only teenage boys were capable of, and it was horrific.

The child soldiers were undisciplined and poorly trained, but there were too many of them. Five Peregrines were mortally injured in the fighting. Soledad then pulled the plug on the mission and called for the three remaining men—Corporal Butler, Sergeant Spivak (the man known as the Blade), and himself—to evacuate the village and be airlifted to safety.

There was no response.

One of the primary and central tenets of special operations was to leave no man behind. Special operators risked their lives countless times recovering wounded soldiers and those who’d given the last full measure. The tenet was sacrosanct.

“Leave no man behind” might have been valid back when old guys like Nate Romanowski served in the unit, Soledad thought. Lots of noble lies might have existed then.

Among the more experienced special operators, it was sometimes discussed how quickly the U.S. government walked away from allies and agreements with foreign fighters. There was a long list of “friends” that had been forgotten and left for dead by the stroke of a pen or a few words in a presidential speech. But special ops was different. Or so they thought.

They’d been betrayed and abandoned for reasons Soledad later learned were treacherous, petty, and inexcusable. It all had to do with internal politics within the executive branch in Washington. In a speech, the octogenarian president had misread his teleprompter, somehow mangling the U.S. policy of support for the Rohingya into support for the Myanmar government. Rather than admit the president’s error, his aides had reversed the official policy instead. Since Mark V didn’t officially exist, the result had stranded them without support or even acknowledgment.

Soledad, the Blade, and Butler had fled to the west toward the Bay of Bengal through some of the most inhospitable jungle terrain in the world. They’d eaten monkeys and snakes, and Corporal Butler had been struck in the neck by a king cobra that killed him within hours.

Unaware of the abrupt change in policy, Soledad and the Blade had made it to the coast, stolen a fishing boat, and navigated south for days until they’d finally beached the boat and plunged on foot into Thailand. Both were wounded, sick, and exhausted. Their calls and texts to Mark V HQ in Colorado Springs were unanswered.

Soledad had discovered that his passwords no longer worked to access Mark V data or communications, and his encrypted satellite phone had been remotely disabled.

They’d been disappeared.

They later learned that their families had been notified that they’d died bravely in action on a covert mission that couldn’t be disclosed. Pensions paid for their deaths had been more than magnanimous.

While recovering anonymously in a Thai hotel room, Soledad and the Blade had discussed what to do next. They could blow the lid on the operation and the high-level policy change, expose the existence of Mark V, bring legal action against commanders who didn’t exist on any official payroll, and violate their NDAs.

Or they could quietly come home and turn on their masters.

They chose the latter.

And now that the Blade had served his time for assaulting a federal agent in Portland two summers before, they could resume their legacy together.



* * *



—

After a half hour of silence in the transport, after Soledad had once again gotten on I-84, the Blade said to him, “Seattle, right?”

“Yes. We’re going to get in and get out.”

The Blade nodded that he understood. Randy didn’t.

“Guess who is after us?” Soledad asked.