SEAL Team 666: A Novel

Fratty paused to check the computer equipment on the bridge. He also checked to see what operating systems they were using. Overly simple. If he decided they needed to use the ship for something—like a battering ram or a diversion—he’d be ready. He reported this to Holmes through the MBITR. Holmes told him to stand fast for a moment while he reconned the hold.

Fratty stared out the window and tried to make out the FNG across the way. He was green and he still thought with his pecker, but he’d make it. That is, if he kept his head down and away from Holmes. There was some history there, even if the boy didn’t know it.

Try as he might, he couldn’t locate Walker. The boy had made himself invisible. That was a good thing. Fratty glanced around the control room. It was like pretty much every other modern ship. There was no steering wheel like the ones ships had in the old movies, but a host of digital readouts and analog switches instead. By the model numbers, Fratty could tell that the ship’s electronics had been updated sometime in the late 1990s.

His gaze fell on a calendar. Not a Chinese calendar, but a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders calendar. The Cowboys might be America’s team, but those cheerleaders were the world’s darlings. Fratty had seen their posters and pictures in more Third World shitholes and Arab palaces than he cared to count.

“Clear. To me,” Holmes said.

Fratty and Laws grinned. Now to see what was in the hold.

17

MACAU. CARGO SHIP’S HOLD.

The entrance to the hold reminded Ruiz of the West Virginia mines his family called home. Black to go in and black to come out, his father would say to his son when asked about the black coal dust that coated his every pore and crevice. He never really did come clean. The closest he’d ever come was one Christmas when the mine had shut down for two weeks. His father’s skin had taken on a burnished tan those fourteen days, the only reminder of his work in the mines the deep creases in his knuckles, which wouldn’t let go of their deep veins of black.

With a flick of a switch, the hold went from nightmare to green. Ruiz descended carefully down the steel-cored stairs. First into the hold, he stared eagerly through the green-tinged darkness, examining each shadow for movement or an untrue color, like a deeper green or a deeper black.

The hold ran the better part of the length of the ship—probably sixty meters. All of that space was filled with row upon row of wooden boxes. Each about six by six by six, they were packed so closely together that there was little room between the topmost crates and the deck above. Nor was there any room between the crates. That also meant there was no air circulation. Only here and there was there more than an inch or two, usually because of an odd-shaped crate. The Ruiz clan knew volumes about this subject, having been on one side or another of a cave-in where miners drank air like it was made from Dom Pérignon.

“Report, Ruiz.”

He described what he was seeing, standing on the second-from-the-bottom stair, waiting, watching, ever-careful, his Super 90 moving along his line of sight, an extension of himself.

A large area, probably a dozen feet across, was open at the bottom of the stairs. A single crate rested against a floor-to-ceiling wall made of more crates.

“Frat, get the rear. Laws, move next.”

Laws descended and swung the barrel of his MP5 around in a tight arc. Holmes came next, followed by Fratty.

18

MACAU. CARGO SHIP’S DECK.

Walker watched as all four of his teammates descended into the hold. Now they had no cover. Walker lifted his eye from the optic and looked around. He lowered his NVGs over his eyes and ran them through the spectrum, checking infrared and starlight. There was no one and nothing at his twelve, three, six, or nine o’clock, which meant that he wasn’t doing anyone any good.

Fuck it.

He folded the bipod and hooked it to his leg. He began to back down from his perch.

Hoover growled.

Walker spun around, searching, then realized that the dog was growling at him. He switched off his MBITR. “What is it, girl?” He moved to lower himself.

Hoover growled again.

“You think I should stay? Is that it?”

The dog sat on her haunches and cocked her head. The result was a perfect What the fuck do you think you’re doing? look.

Walker grinned and hopped down. “Easy there, Wonder Dog. I know what I’m doing. I lost line of sight and need to get a better position is all.”

He began to walk away, but Hoover remained. Walker went another five feet, then turned around. “Well? Are you staying there or coming with?”

Hoover looked from the top of the cargo container where Walker was supposed to be and then back to Walker. Finally she made up her mind and padded toward Walker.