SEAL Team 666: A Novel

Hoover saved his ass. Walker spun toward the movement behind him. Three Chinese soldiers had managed to sneak up on him. Two wore the green uniforms of regular forces, while the third was dressed in slick blue camouflage. Walker wasn’t up on his foreign uniform recognition, but it was probably Chinese navy or marines. They’d had to have come out of the crew compartment at the base of the wheelhouse—must have broken through the flexi-cuffs. Walker knew that if he’d been in his original position, he would have seen them and been able to remove them before they became a threat.

All this went through Walker’s mind in an instant; then he was engaged with the first soldier, who grabbed for his collar. Walker was forced to drop his Stoner, which clattered roughly down the stairs and into the hold. He let his opponent pull him from his perch on the air vent, then became a dead weight and fell into him. His opponent took several steps back as he tried to find his balance, during which Walker reached into the holster at the man’s waist, pulled out the Chinese Type 59 pistol, and shoved it over his opponent’s heart. Walker put four rounds into him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hoover mangling the other soldier’s hand, teeth on pressure points, shaking it like a rabbit that needed to be dead. The only problem was that the hand was still attached to the man’s arm and the guy was now screaming. The man tried to punch at the dog with his free hand, but Hoover kept pulling and twisting to avoid it.

Which left the blue-cammied man.

As his opponent fell, Walker brought the pistol up, but the other man was too fast. He whipped around and cracked it out of Walker’s hand with a reverse hook kick. Walker’s hand went numb as the pistol flew into the sea.

Then they were up close and personal.

The man’s long, thin face bore a three-inch scar that went from the corner of his left eye to the corner of his mouth. His eyes didn’t show fear, but projected the concentration one would expect from an expert fighter. He punched Walker twice in the chest, backing him up against the air-vent cowling, then front-kicked.

The first punch tore the wind from Walker, but he rolled with the second. He saw the kick coming and dodged it so that it intersected the cowling. Then he turned and dropped an elbow on the knee. He tried to sweep his opponent’s base leg out from under him, but the man limped free.

They each took a moment to appraise the other. This man wasn’t a simple People’s Liberation Army soldier. He had to be something more, one of their Special Forces or quick-reaction forces.

Walker took the initiative. He fired two punches at the man’s left shoulder, knowing that they’d be blocked, then slammed the elbow of the hand that had worked its way into his opponent’s guard into his chin.

The man reached out to grab his arm, but Walker was ready for that. His feet moved to enable his hips to pivot into a coiled spring. Walker leaned and turned, allowing the man to come even closer. Then he whipped his body around thanks to his savage pivot and caught the man in the jaw with his other elbow.

The man stumbled backwards, but Walker wouldn’t let him recover. He stayed in close so he could reach down to his left thigh. He pulled his knife free from its sheath and slashed it across his opponent’s throat, so deeply that he could hear the man’s last breath sluicing through the slit.

Walker put a hand on the man’s forehead and pushed him over.

He fell, his fingers probing pathetically at the wound.

Walker glanced over and saw that Hoover had subdued his man, now on his knees, his head down. The dog had the soldier’s hand in his mouth, teeth clamped down hard. Every time the man twitched or moved, Hoover would bite harder and pull back. She’d probably broken all twenty-seven bones in the man’s hand and was scraping them together.

Moving quickly, Walker slit the man’s throat; then he stood and wiped the blade on the man’s uniform.

As he was resheathing his knife, Holmes rounded the air vent. “What the hell are you doing out of place?” Holmes barely glanced at the dead men.

Walker realized his mistake. If it was up to him he’d never do it again. Still, he hated being called out a second time. “I wanted to get a better view.”

“This isn’t television. You don’t get a better view.”

“But I—”

“Shut the fuck up. We’ll talk about this later. Thanks to those gunshots, we’ll probably have the entire People’s Liberation Army on our ass in no time and we haven’t even found out what’s so special about this tug.”

“Boss?” Fratty said, over the MBITR. “There’s something down here.”

Holmes’s eyes flared. “Hoover, come. Walker, come.” Then he turned on his heel.

Walker followed, just like the dog.

The hold was pretty much as he’d expected. The only difference was the body atop the crate. It was hard to believe that just moments before, the man had been alive. His entire being had been drained of blood.