SEAL Team 666: A Novel

Walker ran to the beast, shoved the barrel into a bleary orange eye, and pulled the trigger, careful of the flailing claw-tipped legs.

The creature jerked, then shuddered and died.

Good thing, because his rifle was out of ammunition.

Walker spun toward the wreck of the motorcycle. Yaya had been thrown clear. Walker had almost reached his friend when he heard a low roar coming from behind him. A qilin leaped toward him. Walker threw himself to the ground and rolled, wondering what he was going to use to defend himself. But instead of attacking, the qilin snatched Yaya by the leg and quickly limped into the jungle. It was the first one they’d encountered. He’d thought it was dead, but …

He hurried into the jungle, but there was no sign of Yaya.

Then came an improbable sound.

“Walker, this is SPG. Get away from the trees. Come in, Walker. Walker, go to the motorcycle.”

It was Jen’s voice. He ran back to the wreck and pulled out Yaya’s contraption. It had been taped together and wrapped in a piece of the orange safety vest, the Velcro used to hold the entire thing in place.

He stared at it for a second like a pig looking at a wristwatch, then depressed the button on the side. “Jen, this is Jack. You there?”

“Jack!” Her voice broke.

“Jen, are you here? Can you see me?” He stared into the sky.

“We can see you. Listen, you have to get the motorcycle working. More of those creatures are coming.”

Walker glanced at the wreck.

“Jack, I’m dead serious. Hurry!”

59

ALONE IN THE JUNGLE. NIGHT.

He’d picked up a limp sometime after the wreck, two hours ago, and now Jen told him he was less than thirty clicks from Kadwan. Somehow, he’d righted the motorcycle and managed to get it started. The wheel on the sidecar was blown and both wheels of the cycle were bent, but it ran, albeit like a circus-clown funnycycle. Still, it moved faster than he could have.

So while he’d wobble-wheeled down the center of the deserted road, wary of a qilin appearing around every corner, he listened to Jen as she provided what information she could. Much of it was old news, but other parts were incredible.

“We’ve been tracking Hoover for the last few hours,” she’d said. “She’s within ten kilometers of your location.”

Walker had inadvertently slowed down when he’d heard that. “But how?”

“We have no visuals, but Hoover has an RFID broadcasting on ultrahigh frequency.”

“She’s following them?”

“Must be. By her direction of travel, she’s heading straight towards Kadwan. Holmes must have activated her homing beacon when he was captured. We believe he and the others might be still alive.”

“They are,” Walker said, then briefly told them about the information he’d received from Eddie.

Then Billings came on the line. Walker felt his posture tighten as she took command of the mission from ten thousand miles away. She explained how they’d seen the attack on the warehouse and the ambush. Then they’d lost coverage for a time. It took getting the vice president involved, but now they had another satellite to use for a short three-hour window. Not that it was doing much good. They were totally blind to the events transpiring in Kadwan. Inexplicably the advanced optics on the NRO satellite were incapable of penetrating the cloud cover. All she could verify was Holmes’s location, currently in the middle of a cricket field.

As he rode, they devised a way for him to intersect Hoover. The dog was moving at a steady clip, but traveling east of Walker’s position through the jungle. By their estimation, Hoover should reach Kadwan within an hour. If he was able to continue traveling by motorcycle, even at its reduced rate because of the crash, Walker would be there half an hour before the dog, which was plenty of time for them to engage.

But ten minutes after that calculation, the motorcycle stopped for good. Not only was it out of gas, but the rear tire had lost its air. Walker was now on foot.

He hung the improvised radio around his neck. He had his Stoner and a single AK with three magazines. The Stoner and the AK both used 7.62mm, although the diameter of the AK’s rounds was slightly smaller, so he tossed the AK and settled on the better rifle. Although the ammunition wasn’t what he was used to, what he’d lose in cyclic rate of fire he’d gain in accuracy and distance. If the qilin were any indication of what he’d expect, then it didn’t matter how many times he hit it if those shots weren’t on target. With the Stoner across his back and the 9mm in his thigh holster, his hands were free and he began jogging right away.