The Complete Delta Force Warriors Read online

  She set it down after only the one lone bite.

  “You don’t like it.” She had always been the best cook he’d ever known. They had sung his praises in Bogotá, but none of that mattered. What mattered was what Estela thought. And she had set it down after one bite.

  Then she slipped a finger under his chin and forced him to look up at her. It might be the first time they had ever touched.

  “How?”

  How had he failed? He didn’t know. “I was trying—” foolishly “—to impress you. That was always why I cooked. You remember how my father would beat me, but I never let you know why. It was because I wouldn’t join a cartel and take the easy drug money, instead I cooked. For you.”

  Her thumb brushed his cheek so gently.

  If he was any less of a man, he would cry. But he had his pride, and that didn’t include crying in front of Estela. He would leave. He would take the remains of his meager savings and go back to Bogotá. There he would open a restaurant in the finest neighborhood where they understood him, rather than some barrio where he no longer belonged.

  Her kiss was flavored with his oblea.

  Estela’s lips were softer and warmer than he’d ever imagined. They were like her cooking, so complete and perfect that he didn’t know why he’d ever even tried to compete.

  She eased back ever so slightly, but still her hand was on his cheek.

  “It was amazing, Ramiro. You captured the flavors of the Paisa—the flavor of the people—but somehow you brought it a new life without losing the heart of the food. And I will never make another oblea when I could have one of yours instead.”

  “It was all for you, Estela. You’re the only thing I ever wanted.”

  She smiled. “I understand that now.” And she leaned back in for another kiss.

  He closed his eyes just as their lips met and—

  A hand grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and tossed him aside. He crashed into the line of stools and landed in a painful tangle on the floor.

  “Don’t be taking what’s mine, Ramiro. You know better than that.”

  Jesús Rivera tipped up a stool and dropped into it beside Estela. He reached out with a hand and grabbed a fistful of Estela’s hair, but hissed with pain as if she had spikes in it.

  “Hand hurting, Jesús?” Estela’s sarcasm earned her a sharp slap across the jaw with the back of his other hand.

  “No Americano here to protect you now.”

  And Ramiro understood.

  Estela hadn’t been trying to steal his Americans. She had recognized Delta Force operators and gambled that they were the only ones skilled enough to take on Jesús. He had not become the leader of Pablo’s Domingo Guerrilleros with his gentle ways—he’d left a trail of the scarred, the crippled, and the dead in the wake of his success.

  But they weren’t here now.

  Ramiro tried to move silently, but was too tangled in the stools.

  “Get me something to drink.” Jesús didn’t even bother to turn. Neither did he release his fistful of Estela’s hair.

  Ramiro could feel Estela’s eyes on him as he stepped through the gap in the counter and found a bottle of Aguardiente. Ramiro of the past would have served it in a glass. Would have scurried away and tried not to think about what Jesús did to his women.

  But that was a Ramiro he no longer knew. Estela had kissed him. Had told him without words that she loved his food. And that maybe, just maybe she had real feelings for him.

  He uncorked the bottle and set it on the counter by Jesús. He could see Estela’s eyes die a little as Ramiro backed away. As Jesús would expect.

  Backed away, while Jesús twisted Estela’s head cruelly one way and another. Backed away until his hand landed exactly where he intended, on the ten-inch chef’s knife that he always put in the same precise spot on his counter.

  By shifting behind Jesús, he blocked Estela’s view of him. Then, lunging through the server’s gap in the counter, he plunged the knife into Jesús’ back. It was like plunging it into stone. The shock slammed up his arm as Jesús roared in fury. He spun on Ramiro as the small stream of blood ran down from his shoulder blade.

  Stupid. He should have thought about a man’s anatomy. Where were you supposed to stab a man? How would he know? In the kidneys might have been good if he had thought of it in time. Instead his knife had bounced off Jesús’ shoulder blade and only infuriated him.

  His punch slammed Ramiro back against his stove; the pain such an explosion that he could only collapse to the floor.

  Jesús was also screaming in pain, holding his hand close to his chest. But his face was almost black with rage. Jesús bent down to pick up the knife that the force of Ramiro’s attack had knocked out of his hand. There was no question he was about to die on his own blade.

  Unwilling to witness his own death, he squeezed his eyes shut against the coming blow.

  Then he heard a deep voice. “Thought we told you that little boys shouldn’t play with knives.”

  Jesús’ roared with fury. Ramiro opened his eyes and managed to lean far enough to look through the counter’s gap. The Americans caught Jesús’ charge as if he was a butterfly on one of the My Little Pony cards.

  “Didn’t realize you were Jesús Rivera,” Chad continued. “Been looking for you for a bit. Might have saved these folks some trouble if you’d bothered to introduce yourself earlier. Excuse us.” He offered both Estela and him pleasant nods as if they were passing each other on the street.

  They marched Jesús out the door and into the night.

  Rumors sprang up of magnificent final gun battles or dark American prisons, but no one ever saw Jesús Rivera again.

  Ramiro and Estela had kept their thoughts to themselves.

  Months later, Ramiro could only wonder at Estela’s brilliance. She had been right as usual. He had wanted to cut a wide arch between their restaurants, but Estela had only let him cut a window between their kitchens. It was enough of an opening that he could see her cooking whenever he wanted to, but not so much that their restaurants would merge as their lives had.

  She’d insisted that what he did was art compared to her simple food. But he never doubted that comfort food was what kept a Paisa happy. “To protect your art, there must be a wall between us,” she’d insisted. But it was the only part of their lives that stayed separate. She had married him and soon they would have their first child.

  And the Americans had come. Sometimes to one restaurant, sometimes to the other. They often brought their friends, which had attracted others, both military and from the city center. Their restaurants had thrived.

  But there were only two things that ever passed through the small window between their kitchens.

  Estela had insisted that he provide a constant supply of his “magnificent” obleas for her customers as well as his own.

  And the deck of My Little Pony playing cards, depending on which restaurant the Americans came to eat and play wild games of Truco.

  Carrying the Heart’s Load

  Delta Force Captain “Killer Kristine” knows how to carry the load, right down to her very bones. Yanking some scientist out of a Venezuela prison is just another burden to bear.

  But the man she rescues is no average nerd. His tough questions force her to face how long she’s been carrying that load. And just what’s possible if she could ever set it down.

  Introduction

  This story was written on a challenge. My friend Blaze Ward is also an anthology editor. He created an antho titled An Interpretation of Moles. He then invited about a dozen of us to come up with crazy and innovative stories about moles.

  A mole is:

  a measurement in atomic chemistry

  a feature that sometimes appears on the skin

  a small brown furry critter

  a Mexican chocolate-based sauce

  …a fun, multifarious word.

  Of course, being me, I decided to use all of those and more.

  But still, a
ll I had was a word, I needed a story.

  As I was contemplating this story, I happened to be reading yet another article about President Maduro of Venezuela finding new ways to destroy his own country, starve his people, and blame it all on anyone else he could, especially the US.

  That a country with so much bounty is dying at his hands is beyond criminal. Curiosity led me to poke around a little. If international forces actually were to invade Venezuela to depose him, what would they be up against?

  One of the things that caught my eye was a pretty little (57’) patrol boat built in the US. Just perfect. If the US military ever did go into Venezuela, they’d be facing some of their own hardware.

  Which sounded like a job for Delta Force.

  Add in one of the US’s very worst Superfund sites—so bad that they still haven’t figured out how to clean it up even though it was one of the first named sites and lies in the heart of Brooklyn—and I had my story of moles.

  1

  “Gonna be a cakewalk, Captain Killer Kristine.”

  “Pretty arrogant for someone who doesn’t have a clue, Mankowski.” She’d be damned if she’d call him by his first name. And being the only woman in the squad, there was no way she was using Master Sergeant Connie “Girlie” Mankowski’s tag. Having “Girlie” be her only other option just wasn’t going down.

  Command must have it in for her. Actually, Command notoriously had it in for all Delta Force operators but she seemed to draw the short end of the stick a hell of a lot—or maybe it was the electrified end.

  “Hey,” Mankowski protested as he rewrapped his MREs. “I’m not arrogant. I’m awesome.” A Delta operator who liked to talk too much—and of course he ended up on her team.

  They were both sitting on the hangar deck of the USS Peleliu helicopter carrier doing the standard mission prep. Last she’d heard, this ship had been decommissioned. But here it was as big as life, a secret floating base for the Night Stalkers Spec Ops helicopter guys. Too bad the air jocks couldn’t do shit to help on this one except dump them five klicks off the Venezuelan coast and wish them luck.

  Standard mission prep included pre-dissecting their Meals-Ready-to-Eat. With a little judicious opening and culling, they could cut down the volume-per-meal they’d have to carry in their packs by as much as fifty percent and mass by thirty percent. Wrap the retained meal packets in a strip of hundred-mile-an-hour duct tape and they were good to go. Every kilo less food equaled an additional pair of thirty-round magazines for her HK416 rifle or five seventeen-round mags for her Glock sidearm.

  The mission was only supposed to be ten hours. The last one-night mission she’d been on had gone for five days, so she packed enough food for two people to last three days as a compromise.

  “I’ve walked Syria and Afghanistan. This ain’t no worse.” Like he was trying to impress her.

  She was so immune to that crap. Her big brother had thought she was an ideal playground, until she’d nutted him so hard that he hadn’t walked right for a week. That had set the tone of her life. Uncle Juan, Steve who’d missed a whole season of high school football because she’d had to shatter his foot to back him off, three guys she’d left bloody in Brooklyn, and five she’d left dead out in the Congo.

  That had been another fine command decision, Puerto Rican dark didn’t pass for African black anywhere except in the two-tone colorblindness of America—white and not. Sure as hell hadn’t passed her in the Congo. This time at least they were sending her into Venezuela, so her skin would be okay, if not her accent. Of course Mankowski was a Chicago white boy—target right on his fucking face—she was so screwed.

  “Besides, walking beside a hot number like Killer Kristine, nobody’s going to be looking at this old boy anyway. I’m safe as can be.”

  Kristine wondered who was going to kill this guy first, her or the nightmare that was modern-day Venezuela.

  It was a bum assignment anyway: walk into a major military base in an exceptionally paranoid country, find idiot scientist, extract him out of whatever shitstorm political hole he’d gotten himself stuck in, and make sure he comes back alive and in one piece. Command had really stressed the alive and intact part of the mission—while being equally careful to not say one word about what condition men like Girlie Mankowski had to be in upon their return. Or her for that matter. But they were hella concerned about one Dr. Ray Ewing.

  You know, he’s one of “those” kind of scientists, her mission briefer had said.

  Yeah, and you’re one of “those” kind of briefers who would be clearly happy to eat his own shit and spew it back out again.

  One of “those” scientists? Absentminded, unworldly, or just an arrogant know-it-all pain-in-the-ass? She so couldn’t wait to find out which.

  “Where you from, Killer?”

  “Hell.”

  “No really.”

  She stopped slit-packing MREs and looked at him until he stopped opening his and faced her.

  “What?”

  “Hell. Really.”

  2

  Once she was done with organizing meals, water, and ammo, she started considering how she was supposed to extract a civilian alive. She sure wasn’t going to give him a weapon; he’d be as likely to shoot himself or her rather than the bad guys. But she stuffed one in her pack just in case by some miracle of Mother Mary he did know which end to hold it by.

  She didn’t wear issued armor. Between the weight and freedom of movement issues, she typically wore no more than a Dragonskin vest—even if it wasn’t official issue. It worked better and weighed a quarter of the fully-plated Improved Outer Tactical Vest with its heavy ceramic plates, it just wasn’t politically correct. But then she wasn’t either. This time, she’d layer up with both Dragonskin and the heavy armor of the IOTV, then she’d let the eminent Dr. Ewing wear the heavy shit on the return leg.

  Over that, she pulled on her MOLLE. The Modular Lightweight Load-carrying Equipment was a fancy way to say a harness vest. Its entire surface was covered with inch-wide horizontal straps, spaced an inch apart. Every Delta operator’s was unique because it was wholly configurable. The base MOLLE—pronounced Molly—carried eight magazines. Then various holders of the PALS—Pouch Attachment Ladder System—were added on to an individual’s preference. The various pouches interlaced through the straps in such a way that you could probably do a helicopter hoist extraction by any of them, though it had the ring on the front for that.

  A lot of operators put the med kit on the very back of their rucksack—Not gonna need it anyway. She kept it front and center so that she didn’t have to dump her pack to access it every time she was patching up some asshole who was too injured to reach the kit on their back, or worse, had dumped their pack in order to survive an op gone bad. Flares, breaching charges, timers, hydration bladder, extra mags for her sidearm and ankle piece, satellite radio, backup radio, batteries…the list was endless of what she wanted to carry. And now she had to dump half of it so that she could carry gear for some civilian who’d probably bitch the whole way.

  Girlie Mankowski only whined a little about how much of it there was, but took his share after she offered to remove his pelvis with the Benchmade Infidel blade she wore in a wrist sheath if he said another word.

  “Just jokin’, man,” he muttered to himself.

  By some mutual agreement, she didn’t point out that she was a woman and he didn’t mutter “bitch” aloud, even if she could hear it anyway. Oddly, that’s how she’d gotten her tag, she’d threatened to kill the next bastard who called her a bitch. It was Day Two of the month-long Delta Force Operator Selection. “Killer Kristine” had sounded from a Green Beret wag…and it had stuck. As had she. The Green Beret hadn’t made it to Week Two—not her doing either.

  Besides, the name was far too appropriate, even if no one would ever know. She let it stick because it was God’s honest truth.

  Cursing herself before she even did it, she tied another MOLLE harness onto her pack along with a dozen emp
ty utility pouches threaded into the straps. Whatever the good Dr. Ray Ewing felt he needed to take out of the country, he could damn well carry it in his own rig.

  “Ready, Mankowski?”

  “Gotta pee.”

  “You’ve got until I reach the helo, then we’re leaving you behind.”

  “Sure, Killer.” But then he looked at her face and hurried toward the can.

  Yeah, “Bitch” versus “Killer.” Everyone meant it the same way. Thank God that Delta Force favored individual capabilities over team capabilities or she’d be out on her ass. Delta operators worked in solo or pairs and only came together when they had to. SEALs, however, hated breaking into smaller teams even when they had to—it tended to make them snivel like sad puppy dogs.

  She did take the steps from the Hangar Deck up to the flight deck slowly, so the Black Hawk was just easing off its wheels when Girlie Mankowski dove through the cargo door.

  “What’s wrong with you, man?” He was seriously ticked, probably about the long, wet dribble down his pantleg where he’d pulled it in before he was quite done.

  She knew only too damned well what was wrong with her.

  3

  “Five klicks back out,” Mankowski whined.

  The sea had been kicking up rough and their small Zodiac boat had made hard work of reaching the coast from where the Night Stalkers had dropped them. They’d made it, but a glance at the charge on the batteries said there was no way the electric motor was getting them back to the pickup point.

  “We’ll find some other transport. Sink it.”

  Mankowski groaned, but did as she instructed. She felt battered as well, but the weather was picking up and it would an even harder ride back out. No way his doctoral eminence would make it in a rubber boat even if they had the power.