Reign of Evil

CHAPTER 3

Timothy Laws watched as Jack Walker reached airport security, then was waved through. Such a fucked-up thing to happen to such a great couple, Laws thought. The universe was a fickle bitch. As was their controller. Holmes had been on the phone for two hours last night trying to get clearance, but Alexis Billings had ordered them to stand down. Where SEAL Team 666 might be able to go into places like Myanmar or Mexico with little political blowback, conducting operations in Mother England was another thing altogether. They were forbidden to lift a finger, England was handling it, and they were not to get involved. End of story.

But no one said that Jack Walker couldn’t go on a little Bereavement Leave to England. And no one asked permission either. After all, it was an administrative function, which could be approved by the team leader.

Holmes grabbed Laws’s shoulder. “Let’s go. We don’t want to miss our flight back to San Diego.”

Laws turned and confronted him. YaYa and Yank stood nearby and stepped forward. “Listen, why don’t you put us all on leave? I’m feeling bereaved.”

“I’m fucking bereaved too,” Yank said.

“Me too.” YaYa placed his right hand on Yank’s shoulder. “Bereaved times ten.”

Holmes lowered his gaze. “As am I, but we can’t all take leave.”

“Why not?” Yank asked. The white scars on Yank’s African-American face stood out when he was angry and now they looked like a road map of rage. “There isn’t a place on the planet we can’t be in twenty-four hours. In fact, if the balloon went up, it would make it easier if we were in the same place.”

“What he said,” YaYa added. Ever since the replacement of his left arm below the elbow by DARPA doctors, Yank had been helping YaYa by using martial arts as therapy and they’d become as close as brothers.

“It’s not that easy,” Holmes began, but Laws interrupted.

“Sure it is. It’s as easy as we make it. We all go on leave and help Jack out. If we happen to get into a firefight then it was one of those wrong-place-wrong-time things.”

“That’s what I’m talking about. I have the bigger picture to keep in mind. It’s what one does when he’s the leader. There could be political consequences for our actions. We also don’t want to bite the hands that feed us.”

Laws knew his boss and best friend was right, but he didn’t like it at all. Helpless was not a feeling he appreciated. “So we just do nothing?”

“I never said that. We’re going to do something. It’s just that I don’t know what it is yet.”

“Is that a promise?” Laws asked.

Holmes looked up sharply. “Is this kindergarten? Is it recess? Do you want me to fucking pinky swear? This is a goddamn military organization, Laws. I am the commander and I said we’re going to do something. Do. You. Get. That?”

Laws grinned. “You look good when you’re angry.”

Holmes’s face remained granite hard.

Yank interjected, “Meanwhile back at the Batcave, Jen’s people are working on getting data from the NSA. They should have something by the time we get back.”

Holmes sighed. “We’ve been told to stand down.”

“Getting information is not an operation. Using the information is,” YaYa pointed out.

Holmes shook his head and walked away. “We’re going to miss our plane.”

The others caught up.

“I know you have a plan,” Laws said, unwilling to let it die. Then he saw it. A twinkle in the corner of Holmes’s eye. Laws laughed. “I knew you had a plan.”

They walked another twenty feet and Holmes asked, “You’re not going to ask me what it is?”

“No. I figure when it’s set, you’ll let us all know.”

“Finally. Someone acting like this is a military unit.”

“Hoo-aahh,” said YaYa and Yank simultaneously.

They were indeed a military unit. Lieutenant Commander Sam Holmes, the blond-haired, square-jawed paradigm of a SEAL, life dedicated to the cause of freedom; Chief Petty Officer Ali Jabouri, or YaYa, Arab-American, dark skinned, dark hair, built like a runner, trying to prove that he was as apple-pie American as everyone else; Petty Officer Second Class Shonn Yankowski, African-American, shaved head, tattoos, burns along the left side of his face from a house fire back home in Compton; Senior Chief Petty Officer Tim Laws, blond haired, lanky, unable to forget anything he ever read or saw; and Petty Officer First Class Jack Walker, blond haired, dead fiancée, hair-trigger sniper, and supernatural early warning device. Together they were SEAL Team 666 and by god they better have a plan, because they were the last line of supernatural defense for America. And if they didn’t have Walker when they needed him, then they didn’t have a team.