SEAL Team 666

17

The entrance to the hold reminded Ruiz of the West Virginia mines his family called home. Black to go in and black to come out, his father would say to his son when asked about the black coal dust that coated his every pore and crevice. He never really did come clean. The closest he’d ever come was one Christmas when the mine had shut down for two weeks. His father’s skin had taken on a burnished tan those fourteen days, the only reminder of his work in the mines the deep creases in his knuckles, which wouldn’t let go of their deep veins of black.

With a flick of a switch, the hold went from nightmare to green. Ruiz descended carefully down the steel-cored stairs. First into the hold, he stared eagerly through the green-tinged darkness, examining each shadow for movement or an untrue color, like a deeper green or a deeper black.

The hold ran the better part of the length of the ship—probably sixty meters. All of that space was filled with row upon row of wooden boxes. Each about six by six by six, they were packed so closely together that there was little room between the topmost crates and the deck above. Nor was there any room between the crates. That also meant there was no air circulation. Only here and there was there more than an inch or two, usually because of an odd-shaped crate. The Ruiz clan knew volumes about this subject, having been on one side or another of a cave-in where miners drank air like it was made from Dom Pérignon.

“Report, Ruiz.”

He described what he was seeing, standing on the second-from-the-bottom stair, waiting, watching, ever-careful, his Super 90 moving along his line of sight, an extension of himself.

A large area, probably a dozen feet across, was open at the bottom of the stairs. A single crate rested against a floor-to-ceiling wall made of more crates.

“Frat, get the rear. Laws, move next.”

Laws descended and swung the barrel of his MP5 around in a tight arc. Holmes came next, followed by Fratty.