SEAL Team 666

6

According to the big blond guy who was apparently the leader, they were going to Chinatown, where an anomaly had been identified. An interagency intelligence unit composed of operatives from the Air Force Office of Special Investigations and the Defense Intelligence Agency had discovered what they felt was the nexus for organizing illegal tech transfer to China. Informants had infiltrated the area and come back with an entirely different story, one that included rumor of human sacrifice, mysticism, and some kind of cult.

“So we don’t really know what we’re dealing with here. It’s mainly an intelligence-gathering mission. We engage hot only when we are engaged or if there’s a justifiable threat.” He nodded to the administrator. “Miss Billings doesn’t want us making the national news. I don’t even want you making the local news. You aren’t supposed to be operating on U.S. soil, but you have to. It’s not like we have a local supernatural SWAT unit standing by to handle these things.”

“Maybe we should,” Laws said.

“What do y’all want to do, run a mobile training team and teach them the best and most efficient ways to kill a demon or dismember a ghoul?” Ruiz asked.

Laws grinned. “Sounds like fun.”

“Barring the Sissy authorizing that, we have to go in ourselves.” Holmes pulled out a map. “Based on current mission parameters, there’s no utility in deploying a sniper for overwatch, so Walker, you’ll stack with us inside.”

“Yes, sir.”

The rest of the mission briefing came and went. Everyone was given their mission particulars, including the dog. Walker had noticed the Belgian Malinois when he’d boarded the plane and thought of it as a mascot. But it seemed as if it was going to join them for CQB. This was something entirely new.

They were issued the primary and secondary frequencies for the MBITRs. They checked ammunition and tied, buttoned, snapped, and twisted anything that needed to be secured. When they were suited up in their helmets and gear, Laws came over.

“Excited for your first mission?”

“I’ve had other missions.”

“Not with SEALs, you haven’t.”

“No, but I spent the last five years with Kennedy Irregular Warfare Group,” Jack said. It was always the same. Everyone wanted to know where you worked and what you’d done. It was how you were measured and he’d done it many times. “I joined eight years ago. My first tour out of A School was as an intelligence specialist on the destroyer USS Forrest Sherman. I spent three years aboard, then was assigned to KIWG in Maryland. That put me on repeated deployment rotations to Iraq, conducting riverine operations against suspected insurgents, interdicting weapons from Al Quds, and collecting intelligence on Iran. I did that for almost five years. So, yes, I’ve had other missions.”

Laws grinned. “But those weren’t SEAL missions. Let me ask you again—are you excited for your first mission?”

Walker grinned. “Yeah, a little.” His heart was hammering in his chest.

“Sure beats doing push-ups and flutter kicks back in Coronado, doesn’t it?”

“Four weeks,” Walker said, holding out four fingers. “I only had four weeks left.”

Laws remained silent for a few moments; then Walker asked a question that had been bothering him. “Why is the dog coming with us?”

“She’s part of the team.”

“But it’s a dog.”

Laws grinned as he reached over and scruffed Hoover’s neck. “So what about it?”

“Shouldn’t the dog be lying on some front porch, or maybe smelling pot at some border checkpoint?”

“Not too loud or Hoover will hear you.”

“The team I saw on the USS Ronald Reagan had a Belgian Malinois, too. That dog looked like it could do some serious damage, but it was kept around to sniff out explosives.”

“They can do serious damage. They can smell explosives, drugs. They can smell illegal aliens. Hoover can smell all that plus fear. She can also sometimes smell something unsmellable—the presence of the supernatural.” Laws noticed that Hoover was staring at them, and reached down and petted her again. “Don’t you make no mind of this rube. He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.” To Walker, he said, “This Malinois can also smell death before it comes. I won’t try and explain it, but you’ll see for yourself if you stay with the team for any period of time at all.”

Walker digested what he heard. He could almost believe what was being told to him, except for the part about how the dog could smell death and the supernatural. That was a little too much.

“One last question,” he said. “Why Hoover? You named a dog after a vacuum cleaner? There has to be a story behind that.”

Laws laughed. “No story at all. And it’s not the vacuum. It’s the president. This team has been in play since before the formation of our country and with it, in each incarnation, there was a dog, most often a Belgian Malinois, named after a president.”

“What about the first one?”

“What about it?”

“If the team was formed before the country was, then we didn’t have a president.”

“Give the boy points for paying attention. The first dog was named George.”

“As in King George?”

“The boy knows his history.”

“All right, girls,” growled the hulking team leader. “If we’re done with Dogs 101, it’s time to cut the chatter and focus on the mission.”