Chapter Six

Nomad

Echo moved from the SCIF down to the embassy's gym.

If Rory was going to be on a commercial plane, he'd have to burn through some of his excitement first. Rory could smell a mission rolling up, and his coat twitched with anticipation.

With a Marine guard standing outside the gym's door, keeping others at bay, giving the team the freedom to talk things through, Ty had Rory on a treadmill sprinting a five-mile run. Usually, ten miles was about what it took to wear off Rory's go-go-go energy and keep him comfortable on a plane. But this was his second run of the day. Five should top him off just fine.

The rest of the team dragged chairs to the snack table nearby and found a spot to plunk down.

"Who developed this package?" Spinning his chair around, Havoc sat, crossing his arms across the backrest.

"John Grey." The way T-Rex said it, Nomad interpreted the source as known and trusted. T-Rex's attention turned to the ping on his phone. He swiped the call open as he moved from the table to a back corner.

Jeopardy scowled. "Color Code is involved with an AWOL traitor?"

"Color Code?" Nomad asked under his breath.

"Their focus is on thwarting terrorists from getting their hands on funding," Havoc said. "They work around the ex-USSR block countries up to—I'm guessing—Ukraine, maybe? Down to the Mediterranean, then east into Lebanon and Syria. We've worked with their intel from Eastern Africa, too. I guess they go where the money trail leads."

"All that's speculation," Ty said. "We don't actually know much about Color Code."

"From what Echo's seen," Jeopardy grinned. "Syria is definitely their stomping grounds. My guess is that, in this case, they were in the field and came across an American soldier in a place they weren't supposed to be, doing something they weren't supposed to be doing."

"AWOL in Syria of all places." Nitro scratched his fingers along his beard-covered chin. Long enough to touch his clavicle, Nitro had tamed his unruly facial hair into something that might be construed as fashionable for their time with the legislators—more likely, his wife did that.

Since Echo's typical assignments required them to blend with local populations as they moved through their missions, the entire team masked their profiles behind beards. Their hair reached their shoulders. While wearing suits in Ankara, the team pulled their hair back into neat ponytails.

It was rare that Delta Force wore anything approaching a uniform, instead choosing to put on what everyone else was wearing in that locale. Blending allowed for success. And survival.

This was all new to Nomad.

He'd been clean-shaven in the Green Berets with a tight military haircut, wearing a camo combat uniform.

Since he'd joined Echo, his beard was filling out, and he'd categorize the length of his hair as unruly. It would be a few more months before he could gather it in an elastic band like his teammates had. For now, it was just in his way. "This guy who developed the intel package, Grey, he works out of the Syrian region?" Nomad asked Nitro.

"Who the hell knows? Does that make his information less reliable? Absolutely not. Grey's no cake eater. He was boots-on-the-ground and knows what we're capable of accomplishing. More importantly, he knows what's made-for-tv bullshit—bending time and eating bullets like potato chips."

"Potato chips. Man," Havoc rubbed a hand over his lips, "I could go for some salt and crunch. Anyone see a vending machine on the way in here?"

"I've got a bag of BBQ, but it's gonna be chip crumbs by now." Nomad dragged his backpack from between his feet and unclasped the top.

"I'll take it. Thanks," Havoc said. "You're going to hear Color Code a lot working with Echo. You'll know you're working with one of them because the males are Johns. The females are Johnnas. Then, each has a color as their last name. Ty over there met his girl when Johnna White decided to play matchmaker."

"Careful, brother. We don't talk about my girl on duty or in the field."

Nomad snagged the chips from the top of his kit and handed them out. "Color Code is CIA?"

"Affirmative." Havoc accepted the bag. "I bet Grey specifically picked Echo to go in there and grab Poole. Since he owes us big time, that intel will be as squeaky clean as possible. That guy was part of the craziest mission I've ever been on. Sometimes, I think it was a fever dream that stuck with me because it was so damned vivid."

"It was real, brother," Ty said as he pressed the buttons to slowly increase Rory's pace. "That, or the whole team was having the same hallucination."

Laughter went up, punctuated with celebratory high-fives.

T-Rex returned to the group and stood at the top of the table. "Gentlemen, focus in."

"I'll tell you later," Nitro said. "You'll want to hear this."

T-Rex opened his laptop, then turned the screen to show the men a topographical map that included Syria, Lebanon, and the Mediterranean out as far as Cyprus. There were four red Xs: three on land and one over the sea. "Here we go with the broad strokes of the mission, suggested by Grey in the intelligence packet. Elements are moving into place to support this scenario. If we fundamentally disagree, we need to get that to JSOC stat. But I think it's a solid plan."

T-Rex stood even taller than Nomad's six-foot-six frame. Like Nomad, T-Rex's mere presence was intimidating and was often all that was needed to control a situation. Their stature could also make them uncomfortably easy to spot as they moved through a population where the average male came up to chest level. Like T-Rex, Nomad had learned to hug the walls, so his height wasn't as apparent.

"We're going to divide into two groups, Alpha and Bravo," T. Rex said. "Alpha is going to head out on the jump plane, parachuting to this LZ." He tapped the first X that signified their landing zone. "It'll be a HAHO." His gaze moved to his men then back to the map. "The U.S. has an asset in the area moving an SUV to the X. It should be gassed and ready." T-Rex drew his finger along a roadway toward the second X. "Driving lights out, using night vision, it's about an hour to this farmhouse. The neighbors are far enough away that they won't be looking out the windows at us. If the intelligence is correct, that's where Poole will be sleeping tonight. If he's not there," T-Rex continued, "we head to our exfil site. There's nothing more for us to do. If he's there, we package him up and drive to the coast."

"Team Bravo?" Ty asked.

"They'll helicopter out and drop into the sea with an inflatable. Bravo holds over the horizon for a signal. They motor in and do a pickup. The whole team, along with Poole, move out to this last X in international waters for a Navy pickup. Easy day." His gaze swept the team. "Let's talk this through."

"How many boots on the ground?" Ty asked.

"Four Alpha. Two Bravo. You and Rory will be Alpha. We'll need Rory to surveil the house," T-Rex said.

"This guy, Poole, he slunk over the border?" Nomad asked. "Or did he move through customs? I want to know if the authorities know he exists. Could they be keeping eyes on him?"

"They found Poole's papers on base," T-Rex said. "The field officer believes that he either went over a porous section of the border or paid to get waved through and headed right into the arms of his host family."

"I hear a lot of speculative language," Ty said. "They handed us a GPS coordinate. Did anyone get eyes on this guy? I'm not loving the idea of getting lured into Syria. We've dealt with worm-on-a-hook intelligence before, and we're going in without support."

T-Rex posted his hands on his hips. "You know the drill. Intelligence does its best. If they ran this to the Situation Room, there's a reason. That's not for us to decide. We get an order, we make a plan, and execute."

"Impressive," Nomad was reading the report on his tablet. "Not only do they have a GPS coordinate, but it was fast. Poole's still within twenty-four hours of his R he'd wait until after this mission. One problem with joining a team that had already coalesced with shared mission stories was that a rhythm was in place. The more stories Nomad heard, the more he could get a feel for how the team worked.

"Raisin. To. Raisin." Havoc bunched up the chip bag and tossed it in the trash.

T-Rex spun toward the door at the sound of a knock.

The Marine popped his head in. "Excuse me, Master Chief, the cars are here to take you to the airport."

"Here we go," T-Rex said, closing his computer top. "Let's make Uncle Sam proud."