Page 4

3

Dagger let the city fade from his mind as he locked in on the green rising up to meet them.

He tapped his altimeter, watching the tick down of the numbers, which were only numbers on a scale to give him information on the steps he was moving through.

The wind tore at his body as they plummeted through the night, the roar of air deafening in their ears. Twenty-five thousand feet. Blacked-out jungle below. A rolling sea of green stretched to the horizon like an unbroken tide, frozen in time. The treetops swayed in the moonlight, their dense canopy shifting like the surface of the ocean. But it wasn’t the ocean.

The ocean was where frogmen were born.

Dagger had jumped into the sea more times than he could count. Every time, the water had taken him back like a mother embracing her child. Creatures of the deep, they were forged in the salt and surf, baptized in its crushing waves. The ocean was the womb, the place that shaped them, honed them, stripped them of weakness until they emerged hardened, unbreakable.

But this…this was different.

The jungle didn’t embrace. It didn't cradle or give way like the sea. It waited, ancient and unyielding, a living thing that breathed and watched .

His altimeter vibrated. Pull .

The chute deployed, the harness jerking his body upright, cutting momentarily under his arms as silk blossomed above him. The world slowed, the wind fading into silence. Below, the jungle stretched out in endless waves of black and green, shifting in the moonlight. He scanned the airspace around him. His brothers were there. Shadows drifting downward, silent and disciplined, each one trained to move without thought, without hesitation.

The jungle was its own kind of ocean, one of endless roots instead of rolling tides, of tangled canopies instead of shifting waves. But here, unlike the sea, there were things that hunted them back.

The descent wasn’t over yet. The jungle rose up fast. Dagger adjusted his angle, eyes locked on the LZ, just outside the insurgents’ known patrol routes.

They fanned out slightly, their glides smooth, untouched by the chaos of the world below.

Branches rushed up to meet him. The last twenty feet were instinct. He tucked his knees, angled his chute, braced.

The harness bit into his shoulders as he crashed through the upper canopy, branches snapping, and vines twisting around him. No panic. No hesitation. He fought through the tangle, unclipped his rig, and dropped the remaining distance to the jungle floor. Soft earth met his boots, damp and teeming with unseen life.

The air was thick, heavy, alive. The scent of damp earth and decaying vegetation filled his lungs, mixing with the sweat already slicking his skin. The jungle was rarely silent, a constant chorus of unseen things. Insects droned, creatures called in the distance, leaves rustled with movements just beyond sight. Everything here had teeth.

Above him, the rest of the team’s chutes blossomed in eerie green against the night-vision haze.

One by one, his team landed. Ghosts slipping into the jungle’s grasp, untouched. No words were spoken. No signals were needed. They moved like muscle memory, chutes stashed, gear secured, weapons drawn. This was what they did.

They didn't belong here. Not like they did in the water. The sea welcomed. The jungle resisted. The ocean could drown a man, but it would never betray him. The jungle hid its threats, kept them waiting just out of sight.

Yet, this was their job.

Masters of the unknown. Warriors of all terrain.

Fleetingly, he thought of Quinn, of his nephews and the drilling ache of losing the last part of Brian. Quinn was recovering, and she wanted to move on. Painfully, without him, and no matter how he felt about her, she didn’t feel the same. He would have to come to grips with that, if he could.

The mission was waiting. Without hesitation, they moved as one, disappearing into the darkness, as silent as the predators hunting in the trees.

Ten clicks south of their LZ, the target loomed. CIA intel delivered by Emma Sutherland had pinpointed Joseph Baxter’s location. If they veered off even slightly, they’d drop into a hornet’s nest of heavily armed militia.

Dagger signaled with a quick hand gesture. Tex acknowledged.

Caracas had taken his brother. The jungle had almost taken Easy.

No quarter, no fear, only brutal retribution. Tonight, the wolves of war were loose, and they would take back Joseph Baxter. Maybe, just maybe, Dagger would take back the piece of himself that had been torn from him the moment Brian lost his life.

As soon as Brawler’s boots hit the ground, his brain switched gears from god of air to god of the jungle. Soon, he would be god of war.

Tex’s voice cut through the comms, calm as ever. “Clear the drop zone. Move out.”

Brawler lifted his fist, signaling affirmative. He released Beast from the harness strapped to his chest, setting down the animal onto the jungle floor. Beast lifted his nose, scenting, his dark brown eyes could never be described as warm, there was way too much war dog in him, but when he looked up at Brawler, they were respectful, affectionate, and ready. Beast knew who was in charge.

Brawler turned and reeled in his chute, shoving it beneath thick underbrush before turning his full focus on Beast. The dog stood perfectly still, ears pricked, nostrils flaring slightly. He was already scanning, already tasting the air for threats.

“Brawler, you and Beast take point, Bondo cover our flank.” He, Easy and Bondo were in the Big and Tall Man group, except Bondo didn’t have Easy and Brawler’s full head of hair.

“Only Tex could tell the big man to get to the back of the line,” Shark murmured with not only clear respect in his voice, but amusement.

“But all bets are off when it comes to chow. Bondo doesn’t even see a line. He just bulldozes through to get to his shepherd's pie,” Flash said.

“Shut your pie hole,” Bondo growled as he soundlessly passed, and everyone snickered, low and gleefully.

With the warm glow of their brotherhood wrapping around him, Brawler’s fist flicked in a sharp motion. Move.

Beast obeyed instantly, dropping into a stealth crawl, nose low, body taut.

Brawler’s heart pounded, not from exertion, but from the intensity of the moment. This was the part he lived for, moving like a shadow through the jungle, his boots silent against the damp earth, weapon up, senses sharp. The scent of wet vegetation and decomposing leaves filled the air, masking everything beneath it.

The thick jungle bracketed them like the tall, imposing walls of a maze, but Brawler didn’t need to see open sky to know the direction they were going. Forward. Always forward. A rhythm ran beneath his breath, a beat from a song buried deep in his brain.

“Better run through the jungle…”

Hoo-fucking-yah!

Creedence Clearwater Revival might have gotten the vibe wrong, the jungle was thick, wild, alive. His team didn’t run from anything. They ran through all right. Through obstacles, through threats, through anything that stood between them and the mission.

Just like tonight.

Their valuable hostage was out there, somewhere beyond the tangle of trees in the enemy’s grasp. That meant only one thing.

The wolves of war were on the move with. Beast leading the pack.

The Belgian Malinois moved like he’d been born from the terrain. His body low. Muscles coiled. Ears pricked. Silent. Lethal. Dialed in. Even in NVG green, Brawler could see him, see every detail of the rich red coat, the black mask down his face and barrel chest. Striking. Commanding. Built for war. Built for him.

Others saw a military working dog. Brawler saw a partner. A mind. A mirror.

Beast had come to him trained, but that didn’t mean bonded. That took time. Respect. Trust. Some dogs were wiry and sleek. Not Beast. He was solid, powerful, all muscle, all aggression, all instinct. Always had been.

But it wasn’t the muscle that made him dangerous. It was the brain.

Beast didn’t just obey. He decided. He tracked Brawler’s breath, his posture, the tension in his body. He moved with zero hesitation.

He didn’t wait for orders. He knew what to do.

Just like Brawler knew he’d never be alone.

They moved through the jungle together. Two ghosts on the hunt.

The team spread into a staggered formation, focused, every nerve taut.

Moving low and fast, a unit of shadows slipping through the thick undergrowth, silent and deadly.

The humid air wrapped around him, thick as wet wool, carrying the distant scent of damp earth, sweat, and diesel fuel.

Without warning, Beast stopped. Just froze.

His ears twitched. Nose flaring, reading the jungle like a book written in scent.

Then, a flick of his tail, the barest shift of weight. A second passed. Then two. Nothing but the weight of the jungle, waiting for the anticipated violence as the predators at the top of the food chain went head-to-head in a titanic battle.

Brawler’s pulse quickened. Beast was on Baxter’s scent.

Brawler tapped his comm. “We’re close. My boy is on target.”

“When that dog talks, we listen,” Dagger said.

“He walks the walk, too,” Easy said. “Can’t get enough of him going into beast -mode.”

Tex responded. “Focus up. We’re in their backyard now.”

He wasn’t wrong. The hospital’s perimeter was half a click ahead.

They slowed their approach, the jungle tightening around them, thick and humid, the scent of damp earth clinging to the air. Ahead, a dark outline lay just beyond the tree line. Brawler’s grip on his rifle flexed, muscles coiled, every inch of him primed for the fight about to go down.

Miguel " El Lobo " Herrera. The insurgent who thought he was untouchable. The bastard who had turned himself into the face of resistance, preaching revolution while funding his war with blood money. Los Hijos de la Sangre , The Sons of Blood. A network of ex-military defectors, cartel enforcers, and brainwashed recruits, all willing to burn Venezuela to the ground if it meant keeping him in power.

"To the people, he’s a hero," Emma had said, flipping through satellite imagery of insurgent rallies. "To them, he’s the only one with the balls to stand up to the government. The military brass calls him a radical, but in some areas, he’s more powerful than the government itself. He controls the food, the fuel, and the weapons. People don't have a choice but to follow him."

Mass executions. Bombings. The slaughter of American aid workers. His war wasn’t about justice, it was about power. He was about to lose some of it, and if they caught him inside…all of it.

Baxter wasn’t just some hostage. As a DSS agent, he carried intel that could compromise every US asset south of the border. The embassy’s defenses, counter-terrorism coordination, American informants buried inside the Venezuelan government. If Herrera cracked him, the fallout would be catastrophic.

That wasn’t happening.

Not on their watch.

"You think you can come into my country and kill my blood? You think you are untouchable? You are wrong. You are already dead…you just don’t know it yet." Emma’s words echoed in his mind. “We intercepted that transmission four weeks ago ,” Emma had said grimly. “Two days later, an American journalist was executed in the plaza. Herrera’s men left a message carved into his chest.” Brawler had seen the picture. The words Perros Falderos Del Oeste , scrawled in jagged, uneven lines, translated to Lapdogs of the West . There was no doubt that Herrara had done it when the poor bastard had been alive for maximum pain. Brutal. Condescending, the slogan dripped with Herrera’s arrogance. It made one thing clear. He saw SEALs as mindless, weak, and disposable.

A murmur had gone through the briefing room back in Virginia Beach. His teammates weren’t immune to the brutalities of the people they fought, but then every jaw hardened, every gaze spoke of a reckoning. Herrera had no idea who they were. That was his mistake, his mindset, his fatal flaw.

Arrogant men toppled like Goliath did from David’s slingshot.

Herrera wielded his nationalist, anti-American rhetoric like a blunt weapon in an attempt to maim them. But he was all bite and no teeth. They had heard it all before, from cartel bosses, from warlords, from dictators thinking words could turn the tide.

Insults bounced off them like rubber balls. They knew how to handle balls.

They balanced them perfectly. Juggled them effortlessly. Made sure the rubber ones bounced and the glass ones, the lives, the mission, the brotherhood, never hit the fucking ground.

But Brawler’s job wasn’t just to protect his brothers.

It was to be their shield.

That’s why he handled the dog.

A dog wasn’t just a weapon, it was a guardian, a protector, a lifesaver. Special forces were a small, determined bunch, but they were a big, ugly, and blistering bunch, walking into warzones knowing the odds. Beast leveled the playing field. He could smell the enemy before they moved, could hear the sniper before he fired, could find the IED before it ripped them apart.

He saved lives.

Brawler’s fists clenched. That’s what Herrera didn’t fucking understand.

Herrera was fucked the moment he screwed with anything American.

Herrera had called them out after Ramos went down, swearing revenge, thinking he was coming for them. Hoo-yah! They were coming for him.

Brawler’s pulse stayed steady, his breath even. Beside him, Beast moved like a phantom, red coat blending with the shadows, black mask barely visible in the low light. He was laser focused, body taut, waiting for the moment Brawler would give the word.

Somewhere inside, Joseph Baxter was waiting for that promise made to every American: Sit tight. We’re on it.

Brawler glanced down, watching Beast scan ahead, nose twitching, body alert but steady. He was already processing this world, already locking onto scents and movements that no human could detect. When the time came, when Tex gave the command, there would be no hesitation.

Beast would search. Beast would fight. Beast would resolve.

They were getting Joseph Baxter back.

The jungle heaved around Dagger, that breathing, observant green monster now acting as their shield against the force that hid away in the jungle, so-called revolutionaries hellbent on taking over from a government they considered ineffectual. But to Dagger, they were part of the problem.

Dagger eased his grip on the M4 and glanced at Brawler’s retreating figure, recalling the determined set of the K9 handler’s jaw when he’d murmured, “Beast would find him.” The hushed jungle set them on edge, bracing for the coming conflict. The air was damp and heavy with the scent of wet leaves and churned mud. Even though the heat clung like a second skin, a trickle of anticipation ran cold down Dagger’s spine. Herrera’s trail had led them out here, to the outskirts of Caracas, to a rotting husk of a hospital that seemed to lurch from the darkness.

The facility, once called Hospital San Vicente, rose on the horizon like a dark bruise against the canopy. The few windows that weren’t shattered were boarded over, and vines had threaded themselves through the cracks in the walls. Dagger checked the perimeter through his NVGs. Minimal movement, faint signs of foot patrols or posted guards. An eerie quiet hung over the place, as though it breathed in shallow rasps.

“Brawler,” Tex signaled quietly, voice low against the constant hum of insects. Brawler nodded, Beast close by, his pink tongue lolling in the heat as he panted, alert for any threat. “Circle right, take Twister with you. See if there’s any back entrance. Dagger, Bondo, Easy, Flash, we’ll take the south approach.”

They fanned out beneath the dense canopy, the leaves overhead blocking out most of the star-glimmer. Only a few headlamps and the glow of the team’s night vision illuminated their path. Then a hushed murmur from Twister on the comms. “Hold up. Got something here.”

Tex halted, raising a fist to freeze the formation. Moving with measured speed, they slipped through a cluster of thick ferns and found Twister crouched over a prone figure dressed in a one-piece black suit that looked like alien-tech. The man’s dark skin was slick with sweat and streaked with dirt and blood. His eyes fluttered as Twister pressed gauze against a ragged wound on the side of his head. Bullet graze. He was lucky.

Dagger knelt. The man’s breathing rattled in his chest. “Who are you?” Dagger asked softly, in Spanish first, then English.

The man’s gaze flickered around until it finally landed on Dagger’s face. He clamped his jaw, eyeing them with open suspicion. Was this one of Herrera’s men? If so, Twist would patch him up even though he was a combatant. They didn’t kill hostiles who were unarmed and injured.

“We’re American military,” Tex said, his voice authoritative and impatient. “Tell us who you are. We have no intentions of hurting you, but if you’re with Herrera?—”

The man spit. “I’m not with him.”

Tex’s face hardened. “We don’t have time–”

“Stonewall stands unbroken,” he whispered, his eyes darting around them.

Tex released a breath. “And holds the line.”

That was their special code for the Shadowguard if they were to meet in the field while on separate missions. CIA black ops assassins, which explained the elite gear, and he could guess who they were after. That fucker…Herrera. This man was on their side. But his gut tightened. They always worked in pairs. Where was his partner?

Relief slackened his features. “N–Ndhlovu,” he croaked. Zulu, but his accent was purely American. Dagger knew they chose their code names from their ancestry. Dagger spoke seven languages and dabbled in many and recognized Ndhlovu, a word that meant elephant.

“You’re in safe hands,” Dagger assured him. “Where’s your partner?”

He let out a shuddering breath. “Lechuza...” he managed. “They have her… Herrera’s men... Keep her alive until they learn everything.”

Twister gently cleaned the gash, looking up at Tex grimly. “We can’t leave him, and he’s in no shape to help us. We gotta evac him.”

Tex depressed his radio, and through their earpieces, he explained the situation and the solution. TOC confirmed their leader’s on-the-fly plan.

Dagger glanced at Tex, who was also crouched low. Their LT’s voice was tense but calm. “Twister, you stay with Ndhlovu and do what you can. Get him stable enough to move. Then I want you both at the extraction LZ. Keep me posted when you’re moving and when you arrive. The rest of us will continue.”

Twister nodded, already pulling out a saline bag and hooking Ndhlovu to an IV drip. “Copy that, LT.”

“He’s in the hospital,” Ndhlovu rasped, grabbing Dagger’s sleeve with surprising strength. “Large force… Be careful… Ambush.”

Dagger patted the man’s shoulder gently, swallowing a hot surge of anger at Herrera. Two hostages: Joseph Baxter, an American they’d come for, and now a Shadowguard operative, code name Lechuza…a woman. Damn. That fucker had an American woman hostage. He gritted his teeth, the urgency in him, the oath in him ramped up. They had to get to her A-SAP. That urgency was also in Tex’s eyes. The whole team shifted at the news. Finding her untouched? That would be a miracle, but he prayed for one anyway.

His team had seen that brutality everywhere there were helpless females.

They had seen it in the scorched villages of Afghanistan, where the only things left standing were the ghosts of war. In the jungles of South America, where men had nothing but disdain for their women, for power, for greed, for control. In the deserts where life was measured in grains of sand and the price of survival was paid in blood. The world had a way of devouring the helpless, and women were always the easiest prey. It didn’t matter the country, the culture, the war, wherever power was abused, they suffered first.

They were bought and sold, treated like currency in the hands of men who saw them as nothing more than collateral. Used to send a message, to punish, to break. In war, they weren’t just casualties. They were weapons, bargaining chips, afterthoughts.

The ugly truth wasn’t confined to one country, one enemy, one war. It was everywhere. Humanity’s worst instincts, dressed in different flags, speaking different languages, but all feeding the same hunger, violence, control, destruction. Different landscapes, same cruel truth.

But CIA Shadowguards weren’t helpless. Women like that never saw themselves as victims. Herrera would have to kill her before she was out of the fight.

Yet, he knew how brutal Herrera could be, especially to a woman. He wouldn’t waste her potential. He’d break her apart, piece by piece, until she gave him what he wanted. Along with Baxter, the rebel was sitting on a goldmine of intel.

Dagger hoped Quinn would never have to experience anything like what he’d seen. She might be struggling, but she still held onto that sliver of innocence, that belief that the world was still salvageable. He didn’t want to see that stripped from her, shredded like the lives of too many women who had fallen into the hands of men like Herrera.

If Herrera thought he could use that same cruelty against a woman in their care, he was about to learn how fast the hunted could become the prey.

In that hospital were two people who had no way out.

That just changed.

They wasted no time. The jungle was a living thing, thick and unrelenting, pressing in with a weight that even the night couldn’t ease. The SEALs moved in silence, shadows slipping through the dense undergrowth as they neared the hospital compound. The structure loomed ahead, a concrete relic of rot and neglect, its edges blurred by vines and decay. A husk, but one that still housed the living.

Dagger swept his gaze over the area, cataloging details with a honed efficiency. Broken fence. Overgrown courtyard. Rusting vehicles, potential cover or potential traps. A place like this didn’t just sit untouched. It was waiting. Everything went quiet as if the jungle held its breath in anticipation.

They fanned out, weapons up, scanning for tripwires, movement, anything that felt off. The ambush was coming. No surprise.

Tex’s voice was low over comms. “Brawler, take Beast and Flash, move to the rear.”

“On it,” Brawler murmured, already breaking off, his boots silent against the damp earth. Beast padded alongside him, ears pricked, the hulking dog just as aware as they were.

Tex turned to Bondo. “Sniper overwatch. We’ll handle the front.”

Bondo nodded, peeling off, climbing an abandoned scaffolding to get a vantage point. That left Tex, Dagger, Shark, and Easy to push forward.

No ISR. No drone overwatch. Too much jungle cover, too much risk of alerting Herrera’s men. This was old-school CQB, eyes, instincts, and firepower.

A flicker of movement. The glint of glass, a scope’s reflection.

Adrenaline surged into Dagger’s bloodstream like a shot of nitrous oxide into a car’s engine. “Contact!” he snapped.

Gunfire ripped through the silence. A bullet cracked past his head, punching into the tree beside him. Wood chips exploded, stinging his face, bouncing off his protective eyewear.

Bondo fired before the enemy could get off a second shot. A sharp crack split the night, pure velocity shattering the sound barrier, gone before the mind could register its path. The hostile was dead before he even heard the retort. He slipped from the rooftop and plunged to the ground.

“Move!” Tex ordered, and they surged forward, weaving between rusted-out vehicles as the night ripped apart with the sound of automatic fire, a relentless staccato of death pounding the air, chewing through the area like a buzz saw. The first wave was brutal, pinning them down with the sheer volume of flying lead.

Shark rolled behind an overturned truck, firing in controlled bursts. “You ambushed the wrong goddamn people,” he said, low and pissed. Easy flanked wide, catching a hostile breaking from cover. Dagger pushed up, squeezed off two shots, one to the chest, one to the head, dropping another enemy before he could reach a firing position. They were all in sync, solving the problem, adjusting, watching everyone’s back, and taking the fight straight to the enemy, a brutal push to the entrance. Bullets slammed into concrete, the night erupting in chaos. The moment they reached the doors in a dash for this hard-won real estate, Tex signaled.

Easy moved in with his shotgun poised, growling, “We’re about to ruin their entire night.”

“These assholes think they have the upper hand. Let’s change that,” Tex said grimly.

“Execute.”