That was how, a mere two months after resigning, I found myself in a combat operation once again. I had been assigned right back into my old position with my old team, SEAL team five. Which also explains why there were bullets flying over my head. Again.
The mission was supposed to be simple. We were supposed to be out within the hour. But then again, we were in Somalia. “Dragon tamer, this is bravo two. do you read me?” “Roger that Bravo two. proceed with message.” “Dragon tamer, we’ve got a bit of a situation developing here. We need a hot extract. I’ve got six packs, zero wounded. Over. How do you read me?” “Loud and clear. Six packs, zero wounded, hot extract necessary. Over.” “ETA?” I screamed to be heard over the shooting. “Two minutes. Over.” “Roger. ETA two minutes.” I looked over my shoulder at the rest of the team. “Get that RPG ready. I want you to use it on the next hostile to appear over that ridge. Got it?” “Got it.” Five seconds later, a truck came over the hill. ten seconds after that, the truck exploded. I scanned the waterline, looking for SWCC operators. Thank god, not a minute and a half later I was pushing my last man onto a SWCC boat from behind a thick screen of red smoke.
three days later, I was back at Oceana, living on base. Every pack member had found a way to be assigned to either a SEAL, SOAR, Marine Recon, or Delta force unit. And most of us were able to keep our families out of the loop. Most of the time. Of course, things headed south on occasion. And today was one of those occasions. It started out just like any other. I woke up, ran through my daily routine, went to training, then I got the phone call. My worst nightmare was coming true. “What the HELL do you mean? The twins have been kidnapped? When the FUCK did that happen?!” I was screaming. Tears of agony were falling down my face as I flung myself down the corridor to James’s temporary room. “James! Open up! It’s important!” He pulled open the door, took one glance at my face and said: “Oh shit! something happened to the twins?” “They’ve been kidnapped. From the house on base. MP is on scene running an anylasis now. CIA and FBI are on the job, but I don’t think they can do it alone.” James somehow knew where I was going with this. “You do understand that you will be fired if you go through with what you’re planning, right?” “Do I actually care if I get fired? There are more important things in life than my future career, and family tops the list.” I knew what I had to do, and I was willing to deal with the fallback on my own.
My plan included comitting several highly illegal acts, which meant I was going to have to block Damon out of my mind and keep James out of the loop. I dialed a contact of mine in the FBI, codename Rose. “Rose, it’s Carmen. I need your help.” Ten minutes later, I was getting a call back from Rose, who had dug up information for me. She had gotten a lead on their location. Tickets had been bought out of American Airlines by a woman who had two sleeping children with her who matched their descriptions. The tickets were one way to Russia. The flight hadn’t left yet, but I wouldn’t be able to get there by car before it did. So, I did the one thing that was absolutley gauranteed to get me court-martialed. I stole a helicoptor, a motorcycle which I loaded into the back, and enough grenades and other various weapons to wage a war. When I was satisfied with my cache, I drafted plans for a route that would allow me to avoid radar towers and trackers. Speaking of... I ripped off every tracker but the one in my tooth.
Once the route was finalized, I took to the air. I was going to make a bit of a pit stop when I got to France. From France, all travel was going to be done by motorcycle. Hopefully, the fact that I wasn’t going to leave a string of broken cars trailing behind me would play out to my advantage.
I managed to evade radar detection until I was well past united states territory. I was flying over france when I realized that I did in fact have enough fuel to make it to Italy. My cell phone was ringing off the hook by the time I landed, so I decided I would pick up, get them started on the same trail I was on. “Hullo?” “Cortez, where the fuck are you?” It was my unit commander, Blake. “Blake, I’m going to save my siblings.” “What the hell do you mean, Cortez?” “If you read the MP file report, you’d know that my younger siblings were kidnapped yesterday evening while I was away on a training excersize, and now I have a lead. If you want to know what it is, you’ll have to work for it. The contact information for my FBI informant is in my computer.” More literally than he could possibly imagine. “Why didn’t you tell the CIA?” “They screwed me over once before and I know they wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.” I hung up and turned off my cell phone, not wanting to be traced.
I landed fifty miles east of Venice. When I got to venice, I broke into the airport and stole a fully fueled single-engine brushplane off the tarmac. It was a Cessna. I again loaded all of my gear into the back, and took off down an empty runway. I flew from France to poland, and from Poland I stole another helicoptor, and flew straight to Moscow with an hour to spare before the flight was due to arrive. I managed to sneak three Desert Eagle Service Revolvers and all the parts for an AT-4 Grenade Launcher in with me. I arrived at the terminal with two minutes to spare. I watched in horror as Angel walked out, followed by Alex and two other pack children, who were being followed by eight guys who were all carrying concealed weapons. I managed to sneak around behind them undetected, but I knew I was going to need backup on this. I dialed Blake. “I’ve found all four missing children. No time to explain. I’m in Moscow international airport, and I need backup. Now!” I whispered. “Cortez, I will do what I can to get backup to you as soon as possible. For now, you need to hang back. follow them. keep me updated.” “Understood.” I knew there was a possibility I’d loose these guys, so I slipped close enough to plant trackers on the two older kids and one of the creepy captors. each tracker was smaller than a peice of pocket lint.
Three minutes later, I got a call from Blake. “Spetznaz guys will be on scene in less than two minutes. I’m going to put you on the line with their commanding officer so you can keep them updated.” (Spetzanz is the name of russian special forces) “Okay. Let me talk to them.” About thirty seconds after I hung up, I got a call from an unkonwn number, which is what Blake had told me would happen. “Hello?” “Is this Carmen Cortez?” “This is she. Who am I speaking to?” “Commander Dmitry of the Fifth Spetznaz unit. Please update us on your position.” “We’re less than a mile from the eastern edge of the airport.” “How will we know which car is yours?” “I’ll pop green smoke and tie it to the sunroof.” “I could hear an edge of laughter in his voice when he spoke next, but I was a little too preoccupied with how the bloody hell I was going to tie a green smoke can to the roof to waste brain space on it.
About five minutes later, the can was tied to my roof and streaming green smoke as the Spetznaz guys pulled up behind me. When they got there I cut off the smoke can.
We ended up following them for fifty miles before they pulled off at a cabin. When they did, we drove up another block or so before pulling over. What I hashed out with Dmitry was that his men would cause a distraction at the front of the house while I went in from the back and got the children out.
I found out that the Russian idea of a distraction was to cause a bar brawl in the front yard. I picked the lock as quickly as I could. I found all four of the children being held in the living room with two guys holding guns to their heads. ‘Not on my watch.’ my wolf and I agreed. I used the couch for cover and grabbed the first guy in a blood choke while his buddy’s back was turned, then shot the second guy through the heart. I had put a silencer on my service revolver before we moved in so we could stilll escape if I had to use the gun. The children looked around, the two older ones adopting a protective stance in front of the twins. The older ones could only have been sixteen or so. “Guys, it’s okay, I’m here to rescue you.” I stood up from behind my cover, and all four of them ran towards me. “Shhh... guys we’ve got to go now.” I handed a revolver to each of the older kids and showed them how to use it. “Don’t shoot unless I’m not there to protect you, got it?” they nodded, and I led them out of the cabin. I called Dmitry when we got halfway to the cars. “We’re clear. get your guys out now.” “Understood.”
I stood guard by the car while we waited for the Spetznaz guys to return. While I was on guard, I was also thinking of how I was going to train the pack kids to defend themselves, because I knew we needed to take reasonable preventative measures to ensure that nothing like this ever happened again. I also dialed Blake. “I have the kids. We should be on our way home within two hours.” “Good job Carmen.” “I couldn’t have done it without the Spetznaz units, Blake. They deserve more credit than I do.” “We’ll argue about that when you get home.” We hung up after that, and the Spetznaz guys arrived and insisted on escorting us to the airport. “Thank you for having my back in there, Dmitry.” To both of our suprise, I hugged him goodbye before getting the children loaded into the C-130.
