Swift Strike (SEAL Team 14 Book 2) by Loren Mathis Page B

extended out there, though. The closest extraction team that I would be able to call is on assignment in Burkina Faso.”
    “Copy that, sir.”
    Luke slowed the car down when the target vehicles veered off the main highway. Jesse and his team traveled in silence for another five minutes before the two target vehicles stopped in front of a small, dilapidated farmhouse.
    Luke sped up and drove past the structure, parking the car a thousand yards up from the house. Vacating the vehicle, all of the men loaded up on ammunition and weapons. Even though they only had clearance to monitor and grab, they weren’t taking any chances if things went sideways in a hurry.
    By now, the sun had fully set. Darkness crept up beside them as they moved soundlessly through the woods. The rundown, post and beam farmhouse sat in an unusually deep valley with trees bordering each side of the property. Even at its current derelict state, the house was a lot nicer than many of the other crudely built homes in the surrounding village. Jesse and his teammates hiked up the north side of the ridge, through a stand of tall trees before stopping at the edge.
    “Fallback torque position,” Malcolm ordered, and the rest of the men obediently spread out to their practiced posts. Jesse dropped where he stood and set up his sniper rifle. This position on the ridge was at the highest spot looking down on the targets and would provide him with the best vantage point and cover. From this location, he also had a good view of the country road that they’d just exited.
    Peering down into the night-vision scope, Jesse discerned that the men had moved their hostage from the interior of the structure back outside.
    “Visuals, Spider?” Malcolm asked. Callum “The Spider” Kincaid was a senior member of Team Fourteen. He’d been recruited by the Navy straight out of Cal Tech, and had worked his way up to the SEALs. He was more than a little nerdy, but was also more than a little solid when it came to hand-to-hand combat. On the surface, his personality seemed to be entirely mild-mannered and Poindexterish, but that was just a veneer because Spider knew how to scrap. Basically, he was exactly the type of guy you would want covering your six if you ran across trouble in a dark alley sometime. Like the other men, Spider had disappeared somewhere into the night, but his voice came in crystal clear over the headset.
    “Two guards on the east side of the building,” Spider replied back over the static in the line. “From this angle I have an obstructed view of the woman. I have a bad feeling about this, Lieutenant. Something isn’t right.”
    “Join the club,” Malcolm said. The fact of the matter was that all of the SEALs were feeling a little hinky right about now. Whoever these clowns were, they surely hadn’t brought this woman to this remote house for polite conversation over a cup of tea and biscuits.
    “Okay, here we go,” Luke announced. “Look alive, people.”
    Refocusing his gaze, Jesse saw a flurry of movement around the front door of the shack.
    Shifting his grip until the stock of the rifle rested comfortably against the pocket of his shoulder, Jesse looked down the valley below to the unfolding scene.
    The woman had been transported from her position sitting on the front stoop of the house to a kneeling position in the backyard. Five of her captors formed a tight circle around her as one man broke formation in order to stand directly in front of her. He was saying something to the woman, who was still crying frantically, but from this distance it was impossible for Jesse to decipher the man’s words.
    And then, the woman collapsed. Slumping to her side, the woman’s head—or at least what was left of it—fell to the ground. Motionless, her sightless eyes now stared unblinkingly at her killers.
    Jesse reflexively winced. He hadn’t seen it coming. He should have been paying closer attention to the man standing directly in front of the