Chapter 1
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Castello Moran, former Delta Force Team Lynx Commander, and current Commander of Task Force Ambra, ignored the fly that sat on his skin just above the rim of his SFK-7 night-vision goggles. Damn things wouldn’t leave him alone, despite the mud and clay he had smeared over his skin along with the grease and war paint. He continued studying the scene playing out before them at the site of an illegal diamond mine. “Whatcha think?”
“Don’t know.” Zack McGuire, his second in command muttered, leaning forward slightly, as if moving those couple of inches would give him a better view of the man currently being questioned by members of the LRA.
“I can’t see his face to ID him through the fat dude’s ass.”
Their intel told them this was where they would find their target. One former Private Second-Class Gavin Kony. The asshole hadn’t reupped after his four years were done in the army, but instead was reported to be working as an enforcer for the Diamond Mob, who were now based in Florida. ATF
had requested the US Military’s help in tracking the fucker when he took a flight to Europe before taking a connecting flight to The Congo. An informant had told ATF that Kony was en route to buy diamonds. Gems purchased directly from illegal mines would give Brendan Givens, the current head of the Diamond Mob, an untraceable way of purchasing drugs in South America for distribution throughout Florida. ATF was determined that would not happen.
Once Gavin Kony left the United States, the job was assigned to Castello and his Criminal Investigations Team. Task Force Ambra’s job was to capture and retrieve former military personnel working with militant and terrorist groups across the globe. Most of their bread and butter jobs were in the countries they had spent a lifetime fighting in. Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, collectively nicknamed ‘the Stans’ and their friends Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Kuwait… places almost all members of Task Force Ambra knew like the back of their hands. Those were countries they were comfortable operating in, along with multiple countries in South America.
Castello was still trying to figure out what the hell had possessed him to
agree to this, to working a job in The Fucking Congo. He’d been here before, with his former Delta Force team; he’d hated it then, and he hated it now.
The faint sound of a choked off scream drifted toward them on the breeze, but still Castello couldn’t see a damn thing. “Lynx Three, this is Lynx One, do you copy?”
“Lynx One, this is Three, go ahead, Boss, we got you loud n’ clear.”
Sage Razlaff, the team’s comms specialist, who had worked with Castello on his Delta Force Team Lynx, prior to following Castello to Task Force Ambra, answered immediately from his location almost five miles away at the temporary mobile tactical operations center they had set up.
“Three, we can’t see jack shit,” Castello kept his voice to a murmur, he knew Sage would hear him through the military-grade equipment he was wearing, and the last thing he wanted was for sound to travel and give away their presence, “Can you send a drone?”
“You got it, Boss.”
Through his earpiece, Castello could hear Sage calling for Sawyer McKinnon to deploy one of their modified civilian drones. Castello didn’t bother saying anything else, he knew his guys would update him as needed.
Within ten minutes Sawyer’s voice hailed him over coms.
“Lynx One, this is drone controller on air.”
“Go ahead, Four.” Castello could not call Sawyer ‘Drone Controller,’ no matter how much his bomb disposal expert tried to make it happen. Nope, Sawyer was Lynx Four. “Tell me what you see.”
“It’s not our target.”
“Fuck.”
“Boss, this dude is wearing a US 1% MC patch.”Sawyer informed them.
Castello winced, if Sawyer’s drone was close enough to see an MC
patch then the drone was close enough to be seen. “Watch the drone, Four.”
He warned, “If we lose another one it’s coming out of your pay.”
“Nah, Boss,”Sawyer snorted,“I have this puppy sitting on whatpasses for a window ledge and as long as nobody moves too much to theleft, I can see and hear what’s happening.”
“Okay,” Castello’s orders told him he was to pull back if their target wasn’t at this location. But his instincts were screaming at him that he needed to take another look at this man with the MC patch. He didn’t know how or why this voodoo shit worked, he only knew, after spending most of his adult
life in warzones, that it did.Fuck.“Four, this is One, can you see the patch and get a clear view of his face?”
“Yes, Boss,”Sawyer answered,“He’s facing the drone.”Then he called out to his teammate in the background.“Sage, can you send thatscreen shot to the Boss?”
“Sure thing.”Sage’s voice answered,“One, this is Three, image iscoming on your wrist-held computer.”All the team wore the smartphone-like gadgets which operated as both GPS units and a method of transferring intel, including images, on a secure tactical network.“I’m running theimage through my databases, although it may take a whi—, fuck.”
