Fatal Honor: Shadow Force International
Read Fatal Honor: Shadow Force International Online
Authors: Misty Evans
Fatal Honor
Shadow Force International, Book 2
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Misty Evans
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To Mark, my favorite wizard
Acknowledgements
An author can’t do without feedback. It’s been an honor to bring this new series to readers and have them embrace the troubled heroes and heroines of Shadow Force International so whole-heartedly. Thank you to my fans many times over from the bottom of my heart for your love and support!
An author also needs her tribe. Adrienne, JB, Nana, Amy R, Amy A, and Steph, you made me brainstorm harder and were always around when I needed an ear to cry on or someone to bounce an idea off of. Miles and Charlotte are two very unique, out of the box characters that challenged me at every turn. Plus, my life has been complicated so far this year. I have my sanity because of all of you!
Lastly, oodles of gratitude to my new/old beta reader Tiana for offering to read for me once more. It’s been awhile since
The Perfect Hostage
, but I’m so glad you’re back in the crazy world of my stories, T!
From me & my Gypsy ancestors to you and yours:
Kushti bok
Shadow Force International
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A group of former SEALs, abandoned by the United States and labeled as rogue operatives, who now work as a black ops team performing private intelligence, security, and paramilitary missions for those who have nowhere else to turn.
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Cine seamana vant culege furtuna.
Who sows wind will harvest storm.
How shall I hold on to my soul,
so that it does not touch yours?
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
Fatal Honor, Shadow Force International Book 2
Copyright © 2016 Misty Evans
ISBN: 978-0-9966470-4-5
Cover Art by Sweet & Spicy Designs
Formatting by Author E.M.S.
Editing by Linda Beaulieu, Marcie Gately, Patricia Essex
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Please Note
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
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T
HE
O
NE
T
HING
Navy SEAL Miles Duncan would never do was betray his SEAL team brothers.
On a cold January night in a castle on the right bank of the Danube River in eastern Serbia, he did just that.
“You are one ugly terrorist, mate,” MI6 operative Andrew Hardy joked as he and Miles crawled across the cold parapet, working their way toward the corner tower of the castle where the object of their mission was located.
The British Intelligence officer looked like Henry Cavill and sounded a little like Alan Rickman, drawing out some of his words here and there like Snape in the Harry Potter movies. Miles wondered if he practiced in the mirror back home in London. He probably tried different hairstyles there too, aiming for the latest Bieber look.
Even with the face paint Miles had layered on Hardy, along with the dark camo suit, the operative looked like a movie star. A movie star taking on a role in an action film that would make him look like a badass while in real life he got manicures and ate caviar while men like Miles and his SEAL teammates gutted it out with MREs. “I didn’t realize being beautiful was a requirement for being an AK-47-toting terrorist. In that case, you should take the lead on this mission, pretty boy.”
That garnered a chuckle from the terrorist team listening in on their comms. Miles’ teammates and several of Hardy’s were the good guys this round, while Miles and Hardy and a handful of SIS pretended to be the tangos. The good guys had stores of weapons, ammunition, and food. The bad had none of that. Miles and Hardy were in charge of setting off a bomb to distract the guards so their teammates could confiscate the resources they needed.
Hardy, good natured as well as slightly egotistical, laughed along with their tango buddies. “I’m good, chief. Lead the way.”
The night was cold, the bite of the fast-approaching winter in the air. A partial moon hung over the castle’s east turret, a half-lidded eye watching them as they attempted to breach the tower where they would set off the bomb.
The bomb wasn’t real, but the training lesson was serious. It was quite possibly their last tactical engagement together and Miles had every intention of making it a success.
The joint team training operation with the CIA and SIS had come about on short notice. MI6 agents had been in the area working with CIA agents to track down a British operative who’d gone undercover with the Romanian crime lord and was now believed to have gone rogue. The operative was identified only by a code name, Butter. Apparently the Queen didn’t take kindly to her agents going off the reservation and wasn’t about to share the details.
So the British guys were waiting on orders to come from Vauxhall Cross on the double agent’s whereabouts and bring in the crime lord, a guy named Bourean, with her. Both SIS and the CIA wanted Bourean. Problem was, no one could pinpoint exactly where the MI6 gal was hiding out. Every lead from Vauxhall, every expedition into the nearby towns and countryside, had turned up zilch.
Miles and his team had also been on standby along the border, waiting on orders to carry out a complicated extraction of an Islamist Syrian terrorist who’d once been with Al Qaeda and was now traveling Europe to set up splinter groups. He’d formed his latest group with former Guantanamo Bay detainees and the U.S.—along with a dozen other countries—wanted him bad. Latest intel suggested he was working with Bourean to get his hands on weapons and had holed up in the mountains to ride out the winter months.
Not ones to sit on their hands and do nothing, they’d been training relentlessly day in and day out. The big wigs at the SIS and CIA had decided a joint training op would benefit all parties involved. The SEAL team had gone on a couple of scouting missions with the spies to see if they could scare up Agent Butter. With no luck, the MI6 guys had wanted to play terrorist for a while. Win-win.
Hardy wanted his double agent. Miles wanted his terrorist. Looked like neither of them was going to complete their mission, however, because now, a nasty storm system was moving into the area within the next twelve hours. Planting their fake bomb might be their one and only success this round.
Which sucked, but Miles had learned that sometimes you had to take whatever success you could eke out and be happy with it.
Before he and Hardy could breach the tower, however, even their plan to plant the bomb eluded him in the end when Senior Chief Hunnan called a halt to the exercise.
The senior chief was big, burly, and gruff, barely giving his men time to file into a circle around him inside the flanking tower where he’d set up their HQ before he started barking out a change in their mission. “A plane has gone down in the Southern Carpathian Mountain range. It was carrying a high-value asset. A nuclear physicist named Alexander.” He marked a spot on a map and then tapped a large tablet to blow up the same map with a more detailed topography. “DIA believes he was kidnapped by several Syrian sympathizers through a deal with Romanian crime lord Nicolae Bourean. He was being transported to Turkey where the kidnappers planned to meet up with a Syrian intelligence operative and turn him over. Syria wants to develop nuclear weapons. The plane was shot down and an intercept from the crash suggests our scientist is still alive.”
The exfiltration mission they had been waiting for was finally here. Only now, it was a search and rescue of a completely different target.
Hardy danced on the balls of his feet as he eyed the map. “Bloody hell, that’s the area our girl was last spotted.”
The Carpathians, a rugged arc of mountains that stretched nearly a thousand miles from one end to the other, were nothing to fool with, especially with a blizzard approaching. The second longest mountain range in Europe, they’d been divided into three sections: Eastern, Western, and Southern. They were separated from the Alps by the mighty Danube. Getting in and out of the rugged area was challenging for their kind of missions.
Hardy’s boss put a hand on his shoulder. “Sorry, mate. We’re pulling out. With no new leads and the storm coming in, we have to go. Butter got the best of us.”
A few minutes later, as Miles’ team suited up for the helicopter ride to take them deep into the Romanian mountain range, Hardy pulled Miles aside.
“Agent Butter,” he said, handing Miles a snapshot of the woman. The profile view showed pale blond hair, a perky nose and lovely skin. Her hair, no doubt the reason for her codename, was pulled back behind her ear and a lightening bolt earring nestled in the lobe. “Keep your eyes out for her. She’s dangerous. If you do come across her, do not engage. Notify us.”