Hybrid

A Novel from the Universe of The Tide

Anthony J. Melchiorri

Contents

-Dedication-

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-For the Reader-

-About the Author-

Hybrid

Copyright © 2021 by Anthony J. Melchiorri. All rights reserved.

First Edition: April 2021

http://AnthonyJMelchiorri.com

Cover Design: Eloise Knapp Design

Edited by Erin Long

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

-Dedication-

For Captain Vincent Melchiorri selflessly dedicating yourself to protecting the lives and freedoms of America and her allies. And of course, for being a brother and best friend.

-1-

Chief Petty Officer First Class Brendon O’Neil had spent the past decade conducting missions abroad. He had fast-roped into hotbeds of relentless insurgents in Yemen, rescued an Army Corps of Engineers worker in the mountains of central Afghanistan, raided terrorist cells in the Horn of Africa, and hunted down militant groups operating out of Iraq.

He never expected to deploy in his own country.

Especially not against an enemy like the one he now faced.

But this was far from the first time he was being sent somewhere into the United States with a troop of fifteen other SEALs on an assault squadron.

He was certain it wouldn’t be his last.

No matter how many times they were sent into the shit, it sure as hell never got easier being told the group was executing a direct action mission in Connecticut or special recon in DC or security assistance in Florida.

Or like tonight, personnel recovery in Durham, North Carolina.

The thrum of the UH-60 Black Hawk resonated through his nerves. He tightened his grip on the suppressed M4A1. Pre-mission jitters usually got his fingers shaking. Despite the years of experience abroad and now in the States, jumping, diving, or running into a mission, his body never quite got used to it.

Those jitters, that creeping fear seeping into his mind never truly disappeared with experience.

He just got better at dealing with it since his first ride in the sandbox.

Back in Iraq, he had done his requisite deployments with SEAL Team 5, learned how to prepare himself mentally and physically to execute real-world missions, then put in his special request chit for a chance at SEAL Team 6.

Soon as he made the cut, he had found himself hopping in and out of Afghanistan with the US Naval Special Warfare Development Group.

And everywhere he went, those pre-mission jitters accompanied him.

The United States had been no exception.

Those jitters might have even gotten worse. O’Neil wondered just how long he could keep compartmentalizing the horrors he had seen across his own country before he lost it. Wouldn’t be the first person in the service who had to leave the frontlines out of sheer despair and depression.

Across the United States—hell, across the world—a bioweapon had turned men, women, and children into twisted abominations, perverting their normal biology. The bioweapon hijacked their bones, brains, and muscles, turning people into twisted ravenous creatures the science-geeks in the rear echelon called Skulls. Those creatures could strip a man down to his bones in a under a minute. O’Neil had seen the results of Skull attacks more than he cared to.

A group of researchers in what was left of the US government, named the responsible bioweapon the Oni Agent. It was a nod to its origins in Unit 731 in Japan. Oni meant something like demon or troll. Made sense when dealing with the infected.

Those infected with the Agent were so terrifying O’Neil often wished he was back on the mountains of Afghanistan in the middle of winter chasing Taliban fighters instead.

Hell, he would go back there with no boots or cold-weather gear. He would even trudge through those mountains alone, snow up to his hips if it meant they could find a cure for the Skulls and rid the States of the monsters over the next year.

But he knew the chances of that happening were about as good as a brainwashed jihadi renouncing his ways, trekking all the way to Tibet, and joining a Buddhist monastery to live life in peace.

Only way to fight back against the monsters was to retake their country, street by street. And to do that, he needed to focus not on the oppressive state of the world but on the mission ahead.

The Black Hawk took the sixteen-man SEAL troop over dark forests. Trees wet from recent rain glowed softly in the pale light of a waning moon. Looked almost peaceful if it weren’t for the distant fires breaking the blanket of darkness. Those fires flickered and flared as they chewed through what used to be towns and cities. Pillars of smoke rose from the destruction and blotted out many of the stars.

O’Neil thought he could even detect the ashy scent of that smoke between the smells of gun oil, body odor, and earthiness in the troop hold.

This was the troop’s second mission today. Hardly enough time between unloading and loading into the choppers to grab a coffee and take a leak, much less take a shower to rid themselves of the smell of combat lingering on their uniforms and bodies.

He looked at the fireteam he led, Bravo. His ‘swim buddies.’

Petty Officer Second Class Jackson Loeb checked over his rifle for the fourth time, his tawny face painted black. He kept licking his lips, brow furrowed like he was deep in thought, four-tube night vision goggles locked up on his helmet. When he wasn’t wearing a helmet, he preferred a leather cowboy hat. Said he’d had it since he was a kid dreaming of competing in the Houston rodeo. Didn’t matter how much crap the other guys gave him, he never got rid of the hat. Said he wouldn’t until the rodeo in the States was over.

And if this mission was any indication, the rodeo was a long way from over.

Next to Loeb was Petty Officer Second Class Michael Van with face-paint to match Loeb’s. He was holding a silver cross attached to a thin chain, eyes closed, praying. The guy was the son of Vietnamese refugees who had opened a banh mi shop in midtown, Houston. Grew up in the same city as Loeb, but they couldn’t have come from more different worlds. Van got picked on for his short stature as a kid and vowed he would grow up to be the baddest kid on the block.

Proved he was good on his word when he made the teams and became a SEAL.

O’Neil had known the two since BUD/S. They had been his assigned swim buddies since those first intense days running and swimming and practicing combat diving at Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL Training.

Petty Officer Third Class Sherman Tate was on O’Neil’s right.

“First time on a real mission with Six,” O’Neil said, catching Tate’s eyes. “You ready?”

“I was born for this,” Tate said, eyes narrowed.

The man’s skin was only a couple shades lighter than his black face-paint. He had been on an Explosive Ordinance Disposal, EOD, team before being recruited to SEAL Team Six. Guy hadn’t actually ever been deployed overseas, but he had served his time in the United States running missions in his hometown of Chicago before the city was lost.

Van had told O’Neil he thought Tate had lost his whole family—parents, brother, two sisters, and a gaggle of nephews and nieces—but Tate hadn’t talked much about it. Said the past was the past, and all he could do was look forward, heading toward whatever plan his Creator had in store for him.

O’Neil wanted to believe there was someone up there looking out for the team but he wasn’t sure the Creator or God or Brahma or whoever was up there had planned any of this. He sure hoped not. Because the world had turned to hell and his troop’s missions had turned into jumping in the middle of that hell, grasping for small victories as humanity rapidly receded into all but certain extinction.

Wasn’t exactly a nice plan by the omnipotent being supposedly in charge of this world.

“Should be a piece of cake, right?” Tate asked.

“You watch my back, I watch yours,” O’Neil said. “Van and Loeb kill any movers we miss. We find our packages, then get our flyboy friends to pick us back up. Piece of cake, yeah.”

Van opened his eyes, tucking his cross back beneath his combat utility uniform. “Nothing’s a piece of cake when Skulls are involved.”

Loeb polished his rifle with his sleeve, then checked the chamber again. “Skulls make things about as easy as ballet with a bull.”

O’Neil thought it sounded like Loeb was putting on his Texas drawl affect a little strong. “No one’s interested in what you do in your free time.”

Loeb laughed. “I miss the days when I could hit up a BK after we got back from deployment, grab myself a Whopper—no cheese, thank you very much—then head home to the ranch for a couple weeks while we waited to spin up again.”

“Much as I hated them when I was a kid, I could actually go for a banh mi right now,” Van said.

“What the hell is a banh mi?” Tate asked.

“You like bread?”

“That a serious question, man?”

“I’m talking the kind of bread that’s got a crunch on the outside, soft on the inside. Real bread. French baguette style.”

Back in the sandbox days, this would have been where Loeb made some smartass comment like, “You talking about a sandwich or what it’s like in bed with your mom?”

Van would have punched him in the shoulder. Loeb would laugh.

But now, Van’s parents were gone like Tate’s and everyone else’s. Swept away when the Skulls took Houston.

‘Your mom’ jokes had gotten considerably less funny since.

“Everybody likes bread,” Tate said to Van.

“Imagine crisp cucumber, pickled carrots. Add some cilantro.”

“The soapy tasting stuff?” Tate asked.

Van shook his head. “And meat. Usually some kind of pork. Delicious.”

“Tell you what,” Loeb said, “when we get back to Maryland, I’ll have Sophie cook you one up real nice.”

Sophie was Loeb’s wife.

“It wouldn’t be the same,” Van said. “Especially since most of the garbage we’ve been eating is stuff that’s been sitting in cans.”

“’Course it wouldn’t. But she’s a mean cook, and she’s been busting her chops managing the slop lines at Detrick. Y’all need to understand how inventive she’s gotten. That woman can take dog food and turn it into a feast fit for the White House.”

“Not hard to do when the White House is overrun by them,” Van said.

The pilot’s voice broke over the troop hold’s PA system. “Five minutes.”

Just about showtime.

“Cut the chatter,” O’Neil said. “We got one mission. Whatever else is going on in the world can wait. Including banh mis.”

The troop chief, Master Chief Petty Officer Craig Reynolds stood from his jump seat. “All right, SEALs, you know the drill. Stick close to your swim buddies. Alpha, Bravo, we’ll be on the eastern approach. Charlie, Delta, south. Maintain overwatch. In and out quickly, and we’ll be home in time for breakfast.”

The smell of smoke became almost suffocating as they swept over Durham. It grew worse when one of the bird’s crew chiefs flung open the side door.

Reynolds signaled to put their NVGs down. O’Neil clicked his in place. The world lit up in a storm of blacks and greens and whites. He saw the fires raging through downtown Durham, churning through the husks of restaurants and hotels. Abandoned vehicles clogged the streets, and broken glass sparkled with the glimmer from the fires like millions of tiny stars dropped to Earth. Ragged bits of soiled clothing flapped in the wind, stuck under car tires or fluttering from the desiccated remains of what O’Neil could only assume had once been bodies.

“One minute,” the pilot said.

They swept over a neighborhood where houses had been flattened and turned to splinters. Craters pocked the overgrown lawns, and trees had been torn apart. A few tanks and abandoned armored personnel carriers sat parked in the streets next to abandoned weapons, helmets, and other gear.

Not to mention the bodies.

Gray. Ripped to pieces. Everywhere.

The place looked as bad as anything O’Neil had ever seen overseas.

Worse, really.

“We’re at the first LZ,” the pilot called.

The chopper began its descent, and a crew chief unrolled the fast ropes out the side of the chopper. Reynolds sent the four-man fireteams Charlie and Delta out first. Soon as they slid down the rope, their IR tags on their NVGs showing them break for a group of trees, the chopper took off for the second LZ.

Reynolds signaled for Bravo to secure the insertion site.

O’Neil fast-roped from the chopper, his boots hitting the soft ground. Loeb, Van, and Tate followed in quick succession, dried leaves filling the air around them, kicked up by the rotor wash. As soon as they all set down, O’Neil shot them hand signals, directing them to spread out over the grassy terrain.

He didn’t much like where they’d chosen to set down.

Their insertion site was Maplewood Cemetery, just across from Duke University where their targets were supposed to be. Trees with wide branches covered the rolling landscape, stretching over gravestones of all sizes and shapes. The rest of his team took up overwatch positions behind those grave markers, ensuring no Skull came tearing out of the surrounding forest to greet them.

Already, sweat made his shirt stick to his back. The air was humid enough he might as well be trying to breathe in a pool.

“Site secure,” O’Neil called over the radio, staring down his sights.

Alpha began fast-roping out the chopper, with Reynolds coming down first. Petty Officer Darion Henderson went after. The tall operator was built like a tank and wore a thick black beard. O’Neil recalled the SEAL’s family had grown up outside Durham. He would hate to be in the guy’s shoes, coming back to run a mission in the same place he used to play Little League.

Next came Petty Officer Second Class Lenny Stuart. Every square-inch of the guy’s skin was tattooed—within regs—to make a hip-hop icon jealous. Despite the guy’s hard appearance, O’Neil knew he had moonlighted as a dog walker at the Frederick, Maryland shelter that took in abandoned pets. Finally, Petty Officer Second Class Ryan McLean hit the ground. The guy’s long hair and beard were so red, O’Neil thought he could almost see them glowing through his NVGs. McLean was the type of guy to loan a man on the teams a thousand bucks without ever expecting it back, no questions asked.

Soon as the other three members of Alpha made ground, they took positions just ten meters north of O’Neil.

The chopper immediately took off. Its engines faded into the night.

Once again, the troop was on their own in Skull territory.

O’Neil signaled for Van to take point. He followed close behind with Tate on his flank and Loeb on rear guard. They advanced through the graveyard, careful not to crunch too loudly through the dead leaves blowing through the overgrown grass.

A distant howl wailed into the night. A chill shivered down O’Neil’s back.

The fireteams had to put as much ground as possible between themselves and the LZ as fast and quietly as they could.

Skulls often chased loud sounds like wolves smelling the blood of a wounded deer, and that chopper wasn’t exactly quiet. O’Neil watched for any signs of the twisted beasts, finger on his trigger guard, ready to stop the first monster that charged them from the woods.

Problem was, even with a suppressed rifle, the shots weren’t really silent. And each time one of those Skulls shrieked or growled or his team fired, that would only draw more of the rabid beasts.

He had dealt with the humans-turned-beasts on more than one occasion, but he always preferred avoiding them entirely. Avoiding Skulls instead of engaging them could mean the difference between his team climbing onto the Black Hawk headed for home on their own two feet or him dragging his buddies’ ravaged bodies into the troop hold.

Once they hit the edge of the graveyard, they paused and watched for contacts as Alpha advanced. Reynolds’s fireteam filtered between the gravestones and under the trees, moving as smoothly as spirits haunting the woods. They posted up at the edge of a street separating the graveyard from the university under a wall of tall, spindly trees.

Once it was their turn to move, O’Neil led his team past Alpha toward a truck that had rear-ended a minivan in the middle of that street. The windshield of the truck was nothing but glass pebbles on the cracked asphalt.

A body lay across the hood.

Or rather, what was left of the body.

Like many corpses O’Neil had seen in the field, this one was nothing but bones. Claw and teeth marks scored most of those bones. Some of the long bones had been cracked open, the marrow sucked dry.

In the back of the truck, O’Neil spotted a cooler and tent mixed in with other camping supplies. There was a shotgun in the front seat, and, to O’Neil’s horror, he noticed a second, smaller skeleton that had been dragged halfway through the passenger window. Much like the first, it had been cracked and gnawed on, only a few leathery flaps of skin and tendon left.

He tried to ignore who these people might have been before the Skulls had spread through the country. What mundane lives they might have led, shuttling between the office and fishing on the weekends. Mundane lives that O’Neil wished they had gotten to keep on living.

Maybe they used to get out to the Blue Ridge mountains, a few hours away, for long weekends to hike and camp. Looked like they had been desperate to embark on another camping trip—this one to escape the apocalypse—but the apocalypse had gotten to them first.

Get it together, O’Neil admonished himself.

He had to keep his mind in the game. Prevent himself from being distracted. Because he knew these would be far from the only bodies he saw tonight.

As they pushed toward the campus, buildings rising behind the trees, the fetid odor of death drifted over the teams. Smelled like a hundred corpses had been piled up and left to rot outside. That’s when he heard it. The telltale scratching and clicking. The rattle of bones against each other, an almost gentle sound, like distant wooden chimes.

The creatures responsible for that noise were anything but gentle.

Skulls.

He took in a deep breath.

Nearly gagged at the stench.

If he sat there too long, if he didn’t get moving soon as Alpha covered them, he would start to think about the hundreds of Skulls that must be lurking on the campus. Hundreds of beasts that would be more than happy to turn him and his team into their next meal.

Another howl cut through the night. That monstrous voice echoed between the trees. This time, other voices rose to meet it, shrieking in an ear-shattering clamor.

O’Neil’s blood ran cold, and a voice in the back of his mind told him to run. To get the hell out of Durham as fast as he could.

He held up his fist.

His team froze, peering through the trees, watching for contacts.

Those haunting voices alone were enough to make a man cower in fear. To whimper and cry—and O’Neil wouldn’t blame the person that did.

But that wasn’t what SEALs did.

Especially not SEAL Team 6.

There was a saying in DEVGRU.

One the brass especially liked to repeat.

‘The only easy day was yesterday.’

Problem was, yesterday was damn hard.

Really damn hard.

-2-

O’Neil couldn’t see it as they advanced, but deeper on Duke’s campus they would find the Levine Science Research Center. The building had once hosted a plethora of cutting-edge laboratories, institutions, and research.

Today, it was the last refuge for a group of seven scientists and medical professionals. That group had been working in the nearby hospitals and adjacent laboratories as the world had crumbled around them. They were desperate to find a way to reverse the biological agent that had weaponized the American population against themselves.

From the mission briefing, O’Neil knew the seven researchers had been receiving intel passed on by USAMRIID researchers up in Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland, where DEVGRU had recently been assigned. That intel had been obtained from a group of covert military contractors that called themselves the Hunters. O’Neil had been skeptical of anyone who relied on intel from a group of operatives, but their troop commander had assured him this particular contracting organization had a long history with the United States. They had spent years providing critical intelligence and executing dangerous missions to combat illegal biological and chemical weapons projects pursued by rogue states and terrorists.

O’Neil had been on his fair share of classified missions and covert ops. He guessed the bioweapon responsible for the Skulls was unlike anything the Hunters had ever encountered, even if they had faced the worst of the worst. Because the operation to stop it sure as hell was the most nightmarish scenario O’Neil had ever faced.

Most of the Skull voices silenced except for a single howl drifting over the woods. O’Neil held his fist up again, bringing Bravo to a halt. Alpha was behind them, situated in their overwatch position near a semitruck trailer next to what used to be a dormitory.

He waited for a few seconds, his nerves sparking with electricity, listening to see if the hunting Skulls had gotten closer or if they were still prowling through the woods, calling out to each other in anticipation of finding fresh prey.

Every time the breeze shifted, the odor of rotting meat swirled around him. He had long-since learned a Skull smelled like a body left outside for a month in the hot, humid North Carolina summer.

And tonight, the air smelled like someone had committed a massacre and forgotten to bury the bodies.

Somewhere high above, a drone circled. It bathed their path in IR light to help them see with their NVGs. Problem was that their sightlines were limited by the dense trees between buildings and walkways. Even with the area bathed in IR, O’Neil couldn’t see much more than thirty to fifty feet in front of their position.

He could only guess what lay beyond visual contact based off that overwhelming scent. No matter how he wound through the trees, no matter how he tried to avoid what he guessed might be the most populated segments of the campus, he feared, sooner or later, he was going to run into the beasts.

He prayed that it would be later.

Much later.

Another thirty seconds passed without another howl.

Maybe the beasts had grown bored.

All he knew was that he didn’t want to give them another reason to start their howling again.

O’Neil led his team between the trees, each step carefully placed to avoid snapping branches until they made it to the corner of another dormitory. The building sat across from a wide lawn full of tall, swaying grass and gangly weeds. He couldn’t quite see the crisscrossing sidewalks and wide streets because of the wild plants, but knew they were there thanks to the map he’d studied.

The team posted up against the building’s stone façade, pressing themselves flat against it. Tired, haunting footsteps clacked out from the broken windows of the dormitories along with that familiar rattle and smack of bony appendages clicking together.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and he tried to slow his breathing, willing his heart to settle. Worried that even the tiniest crunch of his boots might attract the monsters lurking inside that building.

Alpha bounded past them toward the vehicles parked in the middle of the street in front of the dorms. O’Neil roved his aim over the vehicles, looking for movers. Ready to fire at the first sign of an aggressor moving in on Alpha.

His finger twitched near the trigger guard, prepared to move soon if so much as a shadow shifted. But the only movement between those vehicles with their busted glass and wide-open doors was fireteam Alpha.

Soon as Alpha settled into place, O’Neil led Bravo forward at a hunch, their boots rolling smoothly across the lawn, then the asphalt. He had to watch his step, careful not to tread over the broken bones scattered in the street or the torn suitcases, their contents spilled across the road.

He prowled toward their next destination—a medium tactical vehicle parked in the middle of a clearing between the campus buildings. That truck had been one of the army vehicles sent to evacuate students, staff, and faculty from the university. Judging by the picked-over skeletons scattered around it and the glimmer of spent bullet casings, they had been wholly unsuccessful.

O’Neil was determined that he and his people didn’t share the same fate.

When he reached the truck, he took stock of his surroundings again, pressing his rifle tight to his shoulder, searching up and down the overgrown lawn for movement.

The lawn stretched north and south.

North led to the quad neighboring the medical campus and hospital.

Hospitals were absolute slaughter-zones filled with hostile contacts. As the bioweapon spread, people had been corralled into every available patient bed in clinics, emergency rooms, and medical institutions across the country. And then as those people had gone mad, their mind wrecked by the Oni Agent, their bodies slowly transformed by it. They had helped spread that agent by attacking medical personnel and volunteers trying to help them. Those medical institutions were at the epicenter of the disaster.

So O’Neil hated hospitals. Hated that their mission even dragged them close to one.

Toward the west and east, buildings with stone facades and parapets made him feel like he’d wandered into the middle of a medieval battlefield surrounded by castles. While the trees lining the streets and sidewalks down this long strip of grass blocked his view into most of the buildings, he could use his rifle’s optics to see through a couple of the broken windows of the West Campus Union. He recognized the structure from his briefing.

Through one of the Union’s windows, he caught a dark silhouette moving in a pane of bleeding moonlight. He could just make out the strange growths spiking from the monster’s shoulders before the creature disappeared deeper into the building.

He moved his aim away from the window, back toward the shoulder-high brick wall surrounding the buildings. Banners peeled away from the wall, flapping noisily in the wind. A few advertised the upcoming football season that was as dead as the skeletons scattered around them.

Alpha made it to the center of the lawn, taking the north side of the abandoned military truck. O’Neil was getting ready to move when the voice of the drone pilot sounded over his earpiece.

“Alpha, Bravo, Eagle Eyes One. Four movers headed your direction, coming from the west.”

O’Neil caught Reynolds’s gaze. Couldn’t exactly see his expression with the four-tube NVGs blocking his eyes, but he gestured to Reynolds to see if they should engage.

Reynolds shook his head, then signaled to the truck.

O’Neil passed that onto his team.

He understood the decision. No need to engage yet. Not if they didn’t have to. Because if they fired a shot now, it wouldn’t just be four movers sprinting toward them. Soon enough it would be eight, then sixteen, and then God only knew how many would worm their way out of the campus buildings in search of prey.

“Alpha, Bravo, Charlie Actual here,” another voice called. “We have overwatch.”

“Copy, Charlie Actual,” Reynolds called back, his voice coming in at a whisper over the comms. “Hold fire for now.”

O’Neil belly-crawled underneath the truck. He pushed aside half a ribcage and a broken long bone to situate himself behind the driver’s side front wheel. Tate squeezed in beside him, with Van and Loeb to the rear of the truck. Stuart, Henderson, and McLean all lay flat on their bellies at Reynolds’s direction.

“Movers ten yards from your position,” the drone pilot called.

O’Neil lifted his rifle slowly as possible, ready to fire should one of the beasts drop down to investigate under the vehicle.

Then he heard the click of the beasts’ talons on the street. Heard their raspy breathing.

He had seen enough of the beasts to have a guess at what these ones would look like. From the sound of bone clattering against bone, these ones were probably in the advanced stages of the Oni Agent infection. Their bones would have become overgrown, bursting out of their rotten flesh, jutting in fins and bulbous growths.

He tried not to let his imagination run too wild as the beasts approached, their feet smashing through the mud and grass, kicking up the gnawed bones around the truck. Between the blades of grass, he could just see their shins and the bones that had once been inside their toes now pushing out like talons, peeled-back flesh puckering around the bones.

Two of the beasts rushed past the truck like they had spotted a hapless animal bounding through the grass. But the other two paused near the vehicle.

Scientists said these creatures’ senses weren’t much different than a healthy human. Perhaps worse. Though they were easy to excite, they responded mostly to sight and sound.

Of course, those scientists usually made those assumptions from behind the fortified walls with the rest of the rear echelon pogues who didn’t venture out into the shit like this.

O’Neil held his breath, frozen. One of the beasts remained standing, pawing at the side of the truck, its claws scraping against the metal like it was trying to climb into the passenger’s seat.

The other scooped up one of the bones near the truck’s hood. O’Neil heard a loud crunch, then a sickening slurp. Soon as the bone cracked, the other beast ran toward the one feeding. They growled at each other. Then it sounded like they were shoving and clawing at each other as best as O’Neil could tell from their shuffling feet and the clashing thud and scratch of bone against bone.

One of the monsters suddenly pushed the other to the ground.

O’Neil’s heart began hammering, thudding against his ribcage, threatening to tear out and sprint across the lawn. His lungs screamed at him for oxygen, but he dared not take a breath. Couldn’t risk attracting the attention of the fallen Skull.

Maybe it was his imagination, but he thought he felt Tate tense beside him.

The Skull had fallen on its back into the grass and bones. Most of its body was concealed from O’Neil by the long strands of grass and the bones and fragments of decaying clothing waving in the wind around them. But if the Skull looked to its left, turned its head just a bit, it would see O’Neil’s NVGs pointed straight at it.

Slowly, he moved his finger to the trigger.

One shot right to the creature’s face would end its life. Another well-placed shot would take out the second creature when it naturally dove to investigate the ringing gunshot that would come from beneath the truck.

With those two shots, the howls of neighboring Skulls would erupt from within the dormitories and student union and everywhere else the beasts were hiding. That commotion would no doubt attract the hundreds, if not thousands, wandering the corridors of the hospitals and clinics, too.

This was the shot he would take if he had to. But soon as he did, he had to be ready to fight not just one or two of these beasts, but a whole army.

He stared down his sights, praying for the Skull to look the other way.

Hoping that it would simply ignore the SEALs and be on its way.

But then the Skull turned its head.

-3-

O’Neil went absolutely still.

Had the monster seen him?

Could those beady eyes see past the grass and garbage to recognize him as prey?

Should he fire? Should he wait?

Would the beast start howling?

Then it slowly pushed itself back to its feet. With all those plants and bones obstructing his view, O’Neil couldn’t tell if the monster was looking at him or not.

The Skull let out a long growl. Instead of diving at O’Neil, it squared up again with the other creature. They slammed against one another, and the sounds made O’Neil think of a pair of male lions ripping into each other for dominance over their pride.

O’Neil wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, but he was still holding his breath.

His brain was now screaming for oxygen. He didn’t want to inhale suddenly and bring all that animalistic ferocity toward him. As the corners of his vision started to turn black, his body going into panic mode, he focused back on BUD/S, when he had had to complete a fifty-meter underwater swim. It had been either pass or fail then. If you so much as bobbed up before you made it down the length of the pool and back, you lost your chance to join the teams immediately.

O’Neil had felt the same then as he did now.

Back then, he thought it would be the end of his life if he didn’t make the team. He had no backup plan outside of becoming a SEAL. Being a SEAL had been his life’s goal, and the stakes had seemed so high.

Now that breath could mean the end of his life.

If not the end of his life, then maybe the end of his brothers’ lives. They all relied on him to keep his composure. He would rather suffocate of his own volition than kill the rest of his team because he couldn’t fight his body’s natural urges.

But before he passed out, the Skulls seemed to finally settle their disagreement, pushing away from each other, then lurching from the vehicle. They headed eastward once more.

O’Neil wanted to gasp for air as he let his finger off the trigger. Instead, he did his best to breathe in gently, paranoid about giving those beasts a reason to turn back in his direction.

“Bravo, Alpha, you are clear,” the drone pilot said.

They crawled out from under the truck, pushing back through the grass and weeds, avoiding jostling the skeletons and bones. O’Neil caught his breath, lungs heaving as he brought his rifle back up to his shoulder, sweeping his sight lines.

With the assistance of the IR floodlights from the drone, he could see more Skulls silhouetted against the broken windows of buildings at the edge of the wide lawn. The monsters seemed to have been drawn out of hiding from the scuffle between the two beasts in front of the car.

He felt horribly exposed, standing in front of the truck. Had to remind himself that while he could see the lawn and buildings clearly thanks to his NVGs, the Skulls could not.

Or at least they weren’t acting like it yet.

He counted at least ten contacts, almost all of them lingering inside the buildings, peering out. They were difficult to see well, looking mostly like white blobs in the distance. A few meandered across the lawn to their north, disappearing into the trees.

Another three perched atop the roof of one of the dorms behind them. The beasts seemed to be scanning the lawn, waiting to pounce from the three-story building.

“Eagle Eyes, we’re seeing multiple contacts,” Reynolds whispered into his mic.

“Roger that,” the drone pilot called back, his tone measured. “I’m watching the lookers. Doesn’t seem like they noticed you yet.”

O’Neil still didn’t like that. The teams would have to cross the lawn, squeeze between the vehicles, and make it past the cathedral to reach their objective in the research buildings. All that without alerting the Skulls.

Reynolds signaled for O’Neil to take his team forward. O’Neil took a deep breath, then started across the lawn, doing his best to push through the tall grass, trying to look like nothing more than a passing shadow. His team followed in a single-file line.

A warm, humid wind rustled through the tall grass and weeds. O’Neil listened for any shrieks or howls, his muscles tensed, ready to respond.

Every step he took, he wondered if he would step on something beneath the leaves, hidden in the tall grass. Like fragments of a human skull or an aluminum can. A sound that would contrast harshly with the gentle breeze.

But he managed to navigate toward the vehicles parked in front of the cathedral without incident. His team settled down in the shadow of the sedans and trucks, once again falling into position to watch over Alpha’s approach.

Reynolds led his three men toward them, clinging to the shadows, quietly pushing through the weeds and grass. They walked at a hunch, barely disturbing the grass.

Normal humans might not even notice them, such was their skills on the teams. But O’Neil wasn’t sure if the Skulls’ predatorial instinct, despite their tunnel-visioned focus, would make them even more alert to every little movement in those blades of grass.

Alpha was nearly halfway to the vehicles when the drone pilot’s voice came back over the comms.

“Alpha, Bravo, be advised, you’ve got movers headed your way.” There was a pause, then the pilot spoke more urgently. “I’m counting twenty. From the north, filtering between the buildings. They’re coming fast.”

Alpha continued their pace, quietly sneaking toward O’Neil’s team. But already O’Neil could hear the rattle of bone against bone as the creatures hurtled toward their position. If he looked to the north, between the buildings and trees and vehicles, he could see the white forms of the Skulls in his NVGs.

“Alpha, you need to be faster,” the drone operator said. “Bravo, Alpha, be advised, more movers. Coming from the west this time. I’m seeing another ten, fifteen. Hard to tell between the trees.”

O’Neil couldn’t see past the cathedral to where the monsters were, but in his mind’s eye, he could picture them rushing toward his position. The two packs of beasts would converge on them in a minute. Maybe less.

He stood just enough to catch Reynolds’s attention. With a wave, he indicated the church. That was their only option, their only sanctuary from the violent madness that was sure to follow when the Skulls arrived.

With another gesture, he commanded his team to go. They rushed toward the tall wooden doors under the arches beneath the chapel’s looming belltower. O’Neil reached the door, Loeb hitting his position next.

O’Neil put his hand on Loeb’s shoulder, squeezing it, preparing for close-quarters combat and room clearing maneuvers. Tate and Van piled in close behind them.

With another squeeze of Loeb’s shoulder, O’Neil signaled for them to enter. Loeb pulled on the door handle. It didn’t budge. He tried the one next to it. Again, no luck.

The snapping and clicking of the Skulls grew louder. Shrieks rose into the night in a burgeoning clamor of hungry voices.

They tried the other set of double doors at the entrance. But again, the doors did not open.

Loeb threw his shoulders against the wood. Someone must have barricaded them from inside.

Reynolds stacked up beside Bravo with Stuart, Henderson, and McLean.

O’Neil signaled for both teams to head around the southern approach, under a walkway of smaller arches. Past those arches, he thought he saw movement. The first of the Skulls lurching their direction.

They rushed alongside the chapel, sticking close to the wall. O’Neil saw another door nearly halfway down the length of the chapel under the arched walkway. He hoped this one might not be blocked off from the inside. It might be their best option to get inside safely.

But then he noticed the sparkle of broken glass along the walk. Claw marks gouged the wood and stone around what used to be a stained-glass window.

Even better, he thought.

Maybe whoever was up in the sky really was trying to help them.

With the window already broken, they wouldn’t have to shatter the glass, drawing the attention of all those Skulls tearing toward them.

Another squeeze to Loeb’s shoulder, and together they climbed up into the window, then lowered themselves inside, immediately kneeling, rifles at their shoulder, surveying the pews and altar for movement.

He turned toward the entrance as the rest of his team and Alpha threw themselves inside. The SEALs spread silently into combat intervals.

As O’Neil scoped out their surroundings, he saw the front doors had indeed been barricaded with pews. No question why they hadn’t been able to bust through them.

The side doors, too, had been bolstered with pews.

Already, outside, the clatter of claws against the sidewalk grew louder, the noise ricocheting through the broken window and up into the tall, arched ceilings of the massive nave.

Streaks of dark stains dragged up the stairs to the chancel surrounding the altar. Bones were scattered around the altar, along with tattered pieces of cloth. Like all the other bones O’Neil had seen tonight, these had been picked clean of flesh.

But that was no indication whether this person had been devoured months ago or in the past few days. The murderous creatures responsible might still be skulking around inside the chapel.

“Alpha, Bravo, movers are outside the chapel,” the drone pilot reported. “Both packs are converging.”

The shrieks and clatter of the beasts rushing past the chapel was enough to tell O’Neil more than the drone pilot could tell him. Those creatures were whipped up into a frenzy. No telling what had set them off—but he couldn’t help thinking of what was toward their west.

Their destination. Their targets. He hoped that the people the troop had been sent to rescue hadn’t already become victims like the others who had sought refuge in this chapel.

He squeezed Loeb’s shoulder again to signal for the man to advance. He stuck close behind O’Neil, pressing his rifle squarely against his own. Across the way, Reynolds moved with Stuart, Henderson, and McLean. The four of them watched those approaches that O’Neil couldn’t see from his position. Tate and Van shadowed them, rifles sweeping past the towering columns behind them, ensuring no hidden monster took them by surprise.

As O’Neil and Loeb neared the chancel, the sweeping pipes of the organ soared above them, looking almost ghastly through the NVGs, like the teams were inside the ribcage of some giant beast. He swept his aim over the toppled lectern and the fallen candlestands.

The din of the monsters outside continued to echo in through the broken window.

“Alpha, Bravo, movers are meeting at the truck. Seems like a scuffle.”

“Are they clearing out?” Reynolds whispered over the comms, paused just outside at the north transept.

“Negative. They’re fighting and howling.”

That meant the teams weren’t escaping the chapel out the front door. Likely not going to make it out the window where they had entered, either, without risking being seen.

The longer the Skulls held their gruesome party, the more other monsters would be attracted to the commotion. Unless those beasts moved on quickly, the situation risked growing unsustainable, quickly growing into a horde of angry Skulls whipped into a frenzy.

O’Neil feared that would mean they would have to scrap the mission because Alpha and Bravo would get stuck inside the chapel until the situation improved.

But the evidence was clear: the chapel wasn’t impenetrable.

They were better off getting to their targets, reconnecting with Delta and Charlie, and reaching their exfil point as planned.

Reynolds gestured toward O’Neil to clear the next room. Apparently, the chief had made the same calculations.

O’Neil lined up behind Loeb by the next door. Sucked in a breath, ready to make the next move. For a second he just listened, hoping that if there was a beast in the space beyond that door, he would hear it scratching across the floor or at the wall. Anything to let him know what he was about to walk into.

But he had found far too often when clearing a room—whether he was after Skulls or Taliban fighters—the enemy was usually frustratingly quiet.

He squeezed Loeb’s shoulder.

The operator pushed open the door to a corridor, which O’Neil scanned with his rifle. Saw nothing but three more doors, one on the right, two on the left, and the hall cut to the right about twenty yards ahead.

He squeezed Loeb’s shoulder again, getting him to move to the next doorway. Shot a hand signal to Tate and Van to clear the room on their left. As they did, Loeb pushed open the door on the right. O’Neil swept the darkness.

He saw what appeared to be a wide cabinet with shallow drawers. Crosses and a stole were lying on top of it. Crumpled linens and a chalice were in a pile on the floor. But no creatures.

Back in the hall, they met up with Tate and Van. The duo signaled that their room had been clear, too.

O’Neil could still hear the calls of the beasts outside and their talons and claws scratching over the pavement. Sounded like some were drawing dangerously close to the chapel.

The drone pilot’s voice came over the comms again. “More movers, this time from the northwest. Maybe five. Ten or so creatures are dispersing from the scene. Two sniffing around the entrance to the church.”

O’Neil and Loeb moved to clear the last room on their left, with Van and Tate watching the hall. The doorway had long scratches near the handle and across the doorframe. O’Neil prepared himself to take out the monster responsible for scarring the wood.

Soon as Loeb pushed open the door to a bathroom, O’Neil caught a dark silhouette in the darkness. The stink of rotting meat hit him with an almost palpable force. His heart caught for a second, his instincts kicking into overdrive. He had been through so many scenarios like this in close-quarters combat, CQC, training. Scenario after scenario had been thrown at him where he was forced to react within the second, judging whether a target was a hostile contact or an innocent.

Even now, he fought back against the rush of adrenaline, unwilling to fire if he didn’t have to. The shape was situated alongside the toilet, almost as if the person had fallen around it. He took a step forward, just enough to get a better look at the person. He made out the form of woman, the front of her t-shirt and jeans stained dark. He aimed his rifle at her, ready to fire if she decided to stand and attack.

But she had a gaping hole where her throat had been torn.

No doubt the work of a Skull.

She wouldn’t be getting up any time soon.

All around her, the floor was stained dark. Her bones appeared to be pressing up against her skin, starting to push at her joints and the tips of her fingers.

O’Neil lowered his rifle slightly. Looked like she had been attacked by a Skull, then retreated here to die as the infection took hold of her body.

This body couldn’t be more than a couple days old.

O’Neil and Loeb backed out of the room.

Reynolds was waiting with McLean, Stuart, and Henderson at the doorway where O’Neil had entered the hall.

O’Neil signaled to them that the bathroom was clear, then started toward where the hall curved to the right. He hoped that would finally lead to their exit, their safe passage out of the chapel. And once they made it out, they just had a short advance until they reached the research center and their targets.

He would be only too glad to put this chapel and the rest of the Skull-ravaged campus behind him.

Together, he and Loeb swept past the corner in the hall.

Just as he had hoped, an exit sign hung above a wooden door barricaded by a couple of chairs.

But in front of those chairs stood a terrifying beast covered in blood.

A Skull.

-4-

A beam of moonlight speared in through the cracked window beside the Skull. The beast slowly turned, twisting on its taloned feet, moving into the light. Its shoulder blades jutted out from the gray flesh along its back, so overgrown that they appeared to be the shorn-off remnants of a demon’s wings. Each vertebra had pushed out of its skin. They formed a line of gnarled, bony knobs up and down its back. The creature’s ribcage had seemingly metastasized, too, bulwarking its chest in what looked to be organic armor.

The Skull’s long, skinny arms were a mixture of roping muscle throbbing against nearly translucent flesh and spiky nodules where uncontrollable bony growths had erupted from beneath its skin. Each finger bone had grown long enough that they had pierced the tips of the creature’s digits, hooking inward slightly, gleaming in the moonlight. Those finger bones had become claws that would rival any tiger’s, and O’Neil had seen claws like that rip out a person’s guts on more than one occasion.

As he caught sight of the beast’s face, O’Neil let his rifle fall on its strap and pulled his fixed blade knife from his thigh sheath. Closing in on the beast was the last thing he wanted to do. But if he didn’t kill this monster silently, then he might as well just yell for all the hellish beings outside to come join them in the chapel.

He took one fast step toward the monster. Its bloodshot eyes seemed to bore straight through his NVGs. Bones pushed out from its brow, creating a hard-ridged line.

Somewhere beneath all those wild bone formations, O’Neil could see the man that the creature used to be. But any pity he felt for this beast that had once been human was dashed when the Skull’s cracked lips tore back into a snarl, revealing a mouth of stained and jagged teeth.

The creature tensed, looking ready to pounce. It sliced out with one hand, claws aimed for O’Neil’s face.

O’Neil ducked under the beast’s attack and stabbed his KA-BAR up straight through the soft flesh beneath the Skull’s chin. He felt a familiar bit of resistance before the blade punched up through the roof of the abomination’s mouth and into its brain. The creature snapped at him, teeth clamping over the blade, eyes bulging. Warm blood poured out from the wound, dripping over O’Neil’s hand.

The monster flailed, trying to tear at O’Neil. Loeb rushed at the beast and pinned one of its arms against the wall so it wouldn’t tear a chunk out of O’Neil’s neck. Van grabbed the other hand of the creature, cranking it backward until the snap of bone echoed through the hall.

Just a single scratch from those claws would lead to an infection that would turn O’Neil into one of the beasts in days.

Supposedly that team of contractors called the Hunters had developed a rudimentary preventative technique using existing medicine to stop the transformation in its tracks.

But O’Neil didn’t trust the mercs or their medicine.

He fought to avoid the beast’s claws and teeth. Preferred not to be scratched or bitten.

The monster might have been half-dead, but it strained against Van and Loeb, threatening to break free.

O’Neil drove the knife in deeper. Van and Loeb fought to hold the monster against the wall. With its mouth opening and closing on the knife, the beast tried to shriek. But the only thing that came out of its mouth was blood popping in sticky bubbles.

Finally, with another twist of the knife, the beast went still.

He tried to catch the back of the beast’s head, preventing its heavy weight from slamming loudly against the ground. Loeb and Ven helped gently lower the creature. They let it rest against the wall. Blood trickled from between its fanged teeth.

The stench of the monster lingered on O’Neil’s uniform. He tried to ignore the way it stung his nostrils and made his eyes water as he removed the chairs barricading the exit door with the help of his team.

He took a moment to catch his breath, willing his thundering heart to settle. No matter how many times he had to kill one of these things up close, it never got easier. The stinking breath, the warm blood, the organic armor, and the threat that one wrong move could turn him into one, made every kill a challenge.

This precision, this teamwork that had led to the Skull’s demise was precisely the reason his SEAL team had been sent on tonight’s mission.

O’Neil rallied Bravo around the exit door as Reynolds led Alpha a few yards back, ready to provide cover.

At Reynolds’s signal, O’Neil and Loeb pushed out the exit door and onto the sidewalk just behind the chapel. They took cover behind a screen of bushes, waiting for Alpha to take their positions between the trees.

Yard by painful yard they advanced through the trees, following the path that would take them toward the engineering and research buildings.

The voices of Skulls penetrated the tree cover. With the shadows and darkness suffocating their surroundings, O’Neil couldn’t see much farther than a few yards at a time. The stench of the beasts ebbed and flowed with the breeze swishing through the leaves. He could hear them crunching through the undergrowth, the tap of their talons on concrete paths.

A constant chorus of moans and howls sounded from nearly every direction of the campus. The beasts seemed agitated. Like they sensed an intruder was in their midst.

If these monsters were already rushing around the campus like that, they either really did have some inclination that the SEALs were here—or they had already been involved in a feeding frenzy.

The scientists they were supposed to retrieve had lost contact with Frederick two days ago. That hadn’t been entirely unexpected. They had warned they were out of fuel for their generators and the Skulls had spread around Duke, so they had no intention of trying to find fuel to resurrect a noisy generator. They had also since run out of batteries for their radio equipment, so they were effectively in the dark.

Which meant, for all O’Neil knew, his team was risking their asses to save people who might already be dead.

He shook those thoughts from his head.

He couldn’t worry about what might be or might have been. There was only now. He thought of something his dad used to tell him when he was a kid asking about all the bad things that might happen in the future, from terrorists to nuclear wars to disease outbreaks.

His dad had told him that to survive the future, you had to survive your present.

While his dad had never served, instead pursuing a career as a biology professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder, those words still seemed just as prescient now as they did then. They were perfectly applicable to his life as a SEAL. He needed to focus on his current position and the threats around him before he worried about what might happen thirty minutes from now inside the Levine Science Research Center.

Because if he and his team didn’t survive the present, then the scientists waiting on them in the building definitely wouldn’t have a future.

He tried to pinpoint where every clicking footstep was coming from, every loud growl, every crunching leaf. The drone pilot reported movers around the main campus, but the pilot couldn’t see through all the trees and buildings surrounding O’Neil’s team. There would be no warning from the pilot when a beast erupted from the shelter of the trees.

All O’Neil could hope to do was meld into the shadows. The chorus of monsters never let up, and the stench never left his nose. He wound past silhouettes lurching between the trees and guided his team as far as he could from every sound that might indicate a Skull until they could finally see their destination—a three-story building with thin concrete columns stretching up the first two floors. Large glass windows lined all three levels. Most of the panes were covered in filth and dust, neglected since the beginning of the outbreak, preventing him from seeing what lay beyond.

They followed a short, stone wall at a crouch, Bravo leading, Alpha covering them. It led to another breezeway where there was an entrance the scientists had told them would be open.

Only, O’Neil had not counted on just how open it would be.

Crystalline shards of glass were sprinkled across the concrete, reflecting the wan moonlight. Trails of dark blood were spread all over the tiled floor inside the small lobby, where a few fabric couches and chairs had been upended, stained in dark splotches.

It was impossible to tell whether that blood belonged to a human or Skull. O’Neil did his best to soften the crunch of his boots over the broken glass, rifle pressed tightly against his shoulder as he followed Loeb into the entrance. The rest of Alpha and Bravo came after, occasionally pausing to cover each other.

They spread out to secure the lobby. There were far too many offices and laboratories in the building for them to clear each one, so the plan was to head straight up to the research team’s refuge while disturbing as few Skulls as possible. Because they knew, as soon as the helicopter flew in to pick them up, the beasts that filled the hospitals neighboring the research building would flood their position. They would likely have one minute, maybe less, before the beasts overwhelmed the facility after the choppers arrived.

Reynolds whispered into the comms. “Delta, Charlie, Alpha Actual. In position.”

“Copy, Alpha. Charlie is in overwatch,” Charlie’s leader said.

“Delta is in overwatch,” another SEAL called.

“Proceeding to targets’ location,” Reynolds whispered.

“Copy. Standing by,” Charlie’s lead said.

Delta and Charlie teams had made it to the upper floor of a three-story parking garage just northwest of the Levine Science Research Center. The parking garage would serve as the secondary exfil site should the research center be compromised by aggressor contacts.

Reynolds signaled for Bravo team to take the stairs toward the western side of the lobby. O’Neil and Loeb once again led the team up the stairs. They made it to the third floor without running into contacts. But as with the lobby, the dark corridor stretching before them was filled with broken glass and blood. Down this hall was where they were supposed to meet up with the researchers.

O’Neil could already feel the disappointment in his gut as they navigated past shattered computers scattered on the floor and chairs that had been turned to splinters. He peered into laboratories where microscopes and lab benches were broken, and then offices where the cracked desks, toppled cubicle walls, and destroyed monitors made it seem like a herd of elephants had rampaged through the place.

Thick streaks of blood dragged toward the room where the researchers were supposed to have been sheltering. And the closer they got, the stronger the scent of death became.

O’Neil was already thinking the mission had been a waste, but he recalled his father’s words. To survive into the future, focus on the present. Because that’s all that truly mattered in this moment.

Loeb and O’Neil positioned themselves in front of the door where the bloody trails led. The door was closed.

He nodded at Loeb, and the operator pushed open the door. O’Neil came in after him, the powerful odor of rotting meat hitting him. The room was taken up mostly by a wide conference table. Sleeping bags had been laid out around the floor, and all the chairs were piled into another corner. A few laptops and notebooks were scattered across the conference table.

And while there was blood all over the floor, a single body was slumped in a chair at the end of the table.

“Is that one of our targets?” Reynolds whispered.

“Shit,” Tate said.

O’Neil slowly approached the body. This might be the only researcher they found, and by the looks of it, they were already far too late.

As O’Neil stepped closer to the body, the man actually stirred. O’Neil’s heart leapt. Maybe they had one target after all. And if this guy knew anything about the Agent that had caused the Skulls, anything at all that could help at Detrick, then they might come away from the mission with some small success.

“US DEVGRU,” O’Neil said. “I’m Petty Officer Brendon O’Neil. Here to rescue you.”

The man looked up at O’Neil. His skin was pale, his hair matted down and oily, his cheekbones pronounced. Looked like he hadn’t eaten in weeks with the way his white lab coat hung down over his thin frame and the ratty sweater he wore beneath it.

“Sir, we’re here to rescue you,” O’Neil reported.

The man’s head bobbed like he was nodding. But he let out a soft groan.

“Alpha Actual here,” Reynolds said into his mic. “We’re going to need a medic on exfil.”

“Sir, I’m getting you out of here,” O’Neil said. But the closer he got to the guy, the more the scent of death and filth filled his nostrils. At first, he wondered if the guy had been injured. Or maybe he was so disoriented by hunger and thirst, he couldn’t stand.

But then O’Neil saw the slight scratch on his throat. It had healed. Or at least, looked like it had healed. O’Neil could tell that the scab over that scratch wasn’t the typical dark red, graininess of a scrab. It was white, even in the NVGs.

If O’Neil had a microscope, he was sure he could confirm it was almost bone-like. Just like the growths on the Skull he’d killed in the chapel.

This guy, as human as he looked, was no longer an innocent researcher waiting to be rescued.

He was a monster, waiting for prey.

O’Neil took a step backward as the man shot up, then tore his head back and let out an inhuman shriek that hammered O’Neil’s eardrums. The man spread his arms back, the vessels bulging in his neck and his forehead, his lips peeling back to reveal teeth that had just started to grow and sharpen. His hellish screams echoed past O’Neil and shook through the hallway.

O’Neil squeezed his trigger. Planted two shots into the man’s chest.

The man’ wailing stopped, and he crumpled to the ground, scratching at his chest, peeling back the cloth and his own skin as he bled out over the floor. Another bullet to the head kicked his skull back, and he fell still.

But the damage had already been done.

From somewhere within the building, the first handful of howls shrieked back in response.

As those first calls reverberated through the building, they were answered by more outside.

Then a voice came over their comms, sounding almost distant as O’Neil absorbed the words.

“Bravo, Alpha, Delta Actual,” the drone operator said. “Movers headed your way. Hundreds of them.”

-5-

O’Neil knew they needed to get onto the roof for immediate evac.

But the mission wasn’t over.

“We have to find the targets,” O’Neil said.

“We found one.” Van nodded to the dead man.

“Only one,” O’Neil said. “But we didn’t see any bodies. Maybe the rest are still here. Alive.”

“Alive?” Loeb asked. “Sorry, boss, but I’m not so sure.”

“O’Neil’s right,” Reynolds said. “If there’s even a chance they’re alive, we owe it to them to search. We’ll clear the rooms on our way down the hall toward the roof access. Then if we don’t see anything, we’re gone. Got it?”

That wasn’t really a question, and no one bothered to protest when the chief spoke.

They tore down the corridor, busting into other offices with walls adorned in plaques and awards and bookcases full of scientific journals and textbooks. They found a custodial closet, two computer labs, a server room, and another space that appeared to be a stockroom for chemicals—glass and plastic bottles lined the shelves with various hazard symbols emblazoned on their labels.

“Alpha, Bravo, you need to make your way to extract immediately,” the drone pilot said over their comms. “Movers surrounding your building.”

“Alpha, requesting permission to open fire,” Delta’s lead said.

“Do not open fire,” Reynolds replied. “I repeat, do not open fire.”

O’Neil could imagine the other fireteams desperate to provide assistance but looking on helplessly from the top of the parking garage. They would want to help their brothers as much as O’Neil would have had he been in their position.

If Delta and Charlie opened fire now, they might succeed in cutting down a swathe of the incoming Skulls. That would hardly quell the tide of beasts. They might only really succeed at drawing attention to the parking garage, compromising the secondary exfil and the other SEALs.

Alpha and Bravo worked their way down the halls, busting into doors, clearing rooms. Still finding no evidence of the scientists, dead or alive.

Henderson tried to open one door that looked like the entrance to a walk-in freezer. The door was a good six feet wide and nearly seven feet tall. He pulled on the handle.

“Won’t budge,” Henderson said. He started knocking on the door. “US DEVGRU. Here to rescue you!”

No one responded from inside.

Henderson tried again.

“Leave it,” Reynolds said.

O’Neil was about to signal his guys to move on when he thought better of it. He recognized a door like that.

“Chief, if the targets are here, they’re behind that door,” O’Neil said.

The monstrous calls in the building kept getting louder, echoing up the stairs. O’Neil could hear the clatter of talons on the tiled floor and the claws scratching at the walls and doors from just down the stairwells. Would only be a matter of seconds before the creatures made it up here.

“No one’s answering,” Reynolds said. “We move.”

“Chief, respectfully, if they’re here, that’s it.” O’Neil hated contradicting orders, but they needed to find those targets. “It’s a warm-room. Thick steel door to keep in the humidity and regulate the temperature. Walls just as thick. If they’re inside, they can’t hear our voices. Just us pounding on the door. They would probably think we’re Skulls.”

“How the hell do you know all that?” Stuart asked.

“Dad was a prof. Cell biologist. Trust me.”

Reynolds blew out a breath, then looked at Stuart, Henderson, and McLean, and pointed at them to take up positions down the hall. Then he gestured at Tate. “Breaching charge. Now.”

“You got it, Chief,” Tate said.

The rookie Team Six operator fished a small charge from his tac vest and placed it near the locking mechanism on the door. He set a short fuse, then backed away, turning his head.

“Breaching,” Tate said.

A muffled pop burst from the door in a puff of smoke and bright flash of white light. If the Skulls didn’t know they were on the third floor, they did now.

The door groaned, and Loeb tore it open. O’Neil swept the room. Like he’d suspected, the place was filled with stainless steel racks. Each contained stacks of test-tubes and vials. He recognized devices used to shake small vials and plastic containers to mix the contents inside for experiments.

But none of that mattered. What did were the three men and two women huddled at the far end of the room. One of the women held a fire extinguisher like she was going to bash O’Neil’s head with it.

“US DEVGRU,” O’Neil said. “Tell me you’re human.”

“We… we’re human,” the woman with the extinguisher said.

She had blood over the front of her suit jacket and blouse.

“What’s that from?” O’Neil said, lowering his weapon only slightly and pointing at the stains.

“It’s not mine. I wasn’t scratched.”

“Then what’s it from?”

“Bao. Uh, Bao Nguyen. One of our colleagues who turned.”

“Was that Bao in the conference room?” O’Neil asked.

She shook her head. “That was Lennar. We don’t know where Bao went. We hid in here when Bao attacked Lennar. We didn’t realize Lennar had been scratched until it was too late and we—”

“Doesn’t matter right now,” O’Neil said. “If you all aren’t going to turn on us, we need to get you the hell out of here.”

“Yes, sir,” the woman said.

The other four seemed to stand straighter next to her now that they realized they were being rescued. They began hoisting backpacks over their shoulders, and two of them carried boxes filled with files and what appeared to be portable hard drives.

Reynolds was already speaking into his mic when O’Neil led the scientists back into the hall. “Nightwing, Alpha Actual. We have thirteen packs.” He looked at the SEALs, then the scientists. “Eight sierras, five packages.” The Skulls’ shrieks kept growing louder. “This will be a hot extract at primary extract.”

“Alpha Actual, Nightwing One,” the pilot of their Black Hawk said. “Roger and copy. ETA two minutes at primary extract.”

Reynolds signaled for his team to reconverge. But before they made it more than a few steps, the tap of talons against tile exploded from the hallway where they had originally entered the building.

A Skull appeared at the top of the distant stairwell. Its head swiveled their direction, and it let out a shrill cry. The monster sprinted at them, its bony plates rattling together, the overgrown shoulder blades pumping behind it.

Stuart and Henderson centered their IR lasers from their rifles on the center of the beast’s chest. They opened fire, the staccato burst of their rifles filling the halls and muted flashes burst from the end of their suppressed rifles.

Armor-piercing rounds punched into the beast’s organic armor. Bone splintered away with each impact. The monster sprawled forward, sliding across the floor, carried by its own momentum. Soon as it went down, another three beasts took its place, arms flailing, barreling toward the team.

More shots rang out. Bullets lanced down the hall, tearing into the monsters. Each shot and every cry from the dying monsters only served to rile up the other Skulls inside the building. The clatter of footsteps grew fiercer, their voices booming through the halls.

“Move, move, move!” Reynolds said. “Bravo, you take point!”

Tate and O’Neil began sweeping ahead, watching the doorways, making sure no monster came bursting out from an office. Van and Loeb stuck close behind, corralling the scientists, keeping them close.

At the end of the hall, O’Neil spotted the doorway that would lead to a stairwell that was supposed to take them to the roof. They were halfway down the hall. Almost to the door. Almost to extract.

Gunfire continued to explode behind them. The wet slurp and thud of bodies hitting the floor came between the gunshots as Reynolds’s team called out the positions of more and more Skulls rocketing toward them from the intersecting hallway.

“Almost there,” O’Neil said to the scientists. “We’re getting you guys—”

More monstrous voices exploded behind them as beasts burst up from another stairwell. Van and Loeb opened fire. At the same time, one of the scientists took off, yelling in terror. He started to run ahead of O’Neil and Tate.

Tate lunged after the man, grabbed his collar, and threw him backward, where the woman who’d had the fire extinguisher took hold of his wrist. She scolded him, but O’Neil couldn’t hear exactly what she was saying over the noise of the gunfire and the Skulls.

Just as Tate started to fall back toward O’Neil, a shape erupted out of a doorway in front of him. O’Neil fired. His shots slammed into the side of the aggressor, but not before the hostile charged into Tate. The attacker was more man than monster. It had been infected just long enough that its bones jutted out the end of its fingers, and it swung those budding claws right at Tate’s chest, tearing into his vest.

A couple of the scientists began to scream, adding to the din.

O’Neil planted a boot into the monster’s ribs and knocked it backward. He swung his rifle up and sent a quick burst of rounds chiseling through its sternum. The monster collapsed backward, fingers twitching.

“That’s Bao!” one of the scientists cried.

Van rushed to Tate’s side as O’Neil scoped the hall, making sure no other creatures would come charging out.

“You okay?” Van asked, helping the man to his feet. The front of Tate’s uniform and vest were in tatters.

The gunfire was growing more desperate.

“Changing!” McLean yelled.

Tate brushed himself off, then lifted his rifle again. “I’ll live.”

“He got attacked,” the scientist that ran said. “He’s going to turn!”

O’Neil feared that the researcher was right. That if Tate had been scratched, that would be it for him. O’Neil would’ve failed—and the newest member of their team would be gone.

If that damn scientist hadn’t run, if he hadn’t freaked out, then Tate probably wouldn’t have been ambushed. The guy was new to Six, but he wasn’t new to the SEALs. He deserved better than to be taken out because some damn egghead couldn’t keep his cool.

But the infection that would turn Tate into a Skull wasn’t immediate. The guy had days, maybe hours before he would turn. Tate’s metamorphosis was a curse waiting for them in the future. It wasn’t a problem now.

At least, not yet.

Those words rang through his head again.

Survive the present.

“Keep moving!” O’Neil said as two of the scientists stared at the corpse of their former colleague, their eyes wide with shock.

He and Tate made it all the way to the door to the stairwell. Hostiles continued to pour in behind them, growling and snapping, shrieking and clawing at the floor, racing to make it past the barrage of gunfire from Alpha.

“They’re gaining!” Stuart yelled over the din.

With the amount of lead the team was pouring down the corridor, O’Neil wondered just how much ammunition they would have left as they waited for the chopper.

He hoped it would be enough, but the ungodly voices of the damned only grew the more of them Alpha dispatched.

As soon as they reached the door to the stairwell, Tate pushed it open, O’Neil covering him. The click of talons against stairs echoed up from below. Beasts raced up from the lower levels, jostling with each other to be the first up the stairs toward prey. O’Neil fired into the monsters leading the pack, ending two of them with shots that tore into their chests. Loeb and Van provided more suppressing fire as Tate continued to clear the stairwell leading upward.

“Clear!” Tate called.

The beasts on the floors below poured over the bodies of their dead brethren, climbing over each other up the stairs. Their shrieks and the scratch of their claws against the concrete walls and metal stairs rose in a deafening cacophony that filled O’Neil’s veins with another blast of gut-churning adrenaline.

“Keep moving,” Reynolds said, straining to be heard over the clamor. The last of his team, McLean, made it through the door, slamming it shut behind them.

O’Neil and Tate lunged up the stairs. Made it to the door leading to the roof, then pushed it open. They were met with a storm of hungry voices calling into the humid night.

Stuart and Henderson made it out of the stairwell with the scientists. McLean threw the door shut behind him, the lock clicking. That meager clink seemed so weak.

The Skulls weren’t smart enough to use a door handle, but with the number of beasts that O’Neil had seen chasing them down the hall, he didn’t think it really mattered. They were just as liable to push the door out from its frame through sheer willpower alone.

Not more than ten seconds after McLean had slammed that door shut, the first Skull reached it. The scrape of its claws against the door and the thumps as it threw itself at the metal resonated out with a massive boom. Reynolds had Stuart and Henderson brace the door against the assault. More and more of the creatures scratched and howled from behind it. Stuart and Henderson grunted, cursing, as they pushed back at the door, struggling to keep the Skulls from breaking through.

O’Neil searched the sky, looking for their bird. Should have been only a minute or so away now. He thought he could even hear the thump of the rotors. Hard to tell with the sounds of the beasts.

“We need help!” Stuart called.

McLean joined them, and O’Neil sent Loeb, too. The four of them pushed against the shaking door, the screeches of the beasts escaping each time they managed to push the SEALs back from the door even just an inch.

The five researchers huddled together, shivering, all as gaunt and weak-looking as the man that O’Neil had killed in that conference room.

That bird better get here soon.

O’Neil surveyed the rest of the flat roof, looking for any sign of creatures rushing toward them.

So far, the roof was empty. They just needed to hold out for a bit longer. Keep the beasts from busting out of the stairwell.

“Alpha, Bravo, you got movers climbing up the building now!” Delta’s lead called. “They’ll be on your position in twenty seconds!”

O’Neil clenched his jaw.

Soon enough, the roof wouldn’t be so empty.

-6-

“Delta, Charlie, open fire!” Reynolds called back from the middle of the roof.

O’Neil saw the IR lasers piercing the black from the other SEALs’ position across the street at the parking garage.

A second later sparks of suppressed gunfire burst from their position. The bullets cracked into the side of the research building, followed by the smack of bodies against concrete.

“Tate, take the southwest corner,” O’Neil cried. “Van, southeast!”

O’Neil took the northeast corner of the roof, the farthest point from where Delta and Charlie were located. The thrum of the helicopter beat louder. It was getting closer, but he feared it might not arrive in time.

Might not make it before the Skulls flooded over the roof.

He took a knee, willing his breathing to slow. Clenched his jaw.

Convinced himself it didn’t matter when the chopper arrived. He had to focus on survival.

Those Skulls would pay for every inch they tried to take from him. He would rather die than let them take his team.

The first beast emerged over the lip of the roof, its clawed hands dragging its thick, armored body up.

O’Neil aimed at the beast, his laser tracing over the Skull’s chest as the monster pushed itself up and over the side of the building. Saliva roped off its hooked fangs, its maw cranked open in a terrifying shriek. With a squeeze of his trigger, O’Neil painted the creature in rounds, sending it tumbling backward off the roof.

His next target rose close to where the first had. It appeared to have once been a woman. Long, knotted hair wrapped around the bony horns and growths pushing up from its head. Another squeeze of the trigger, and it shrieked, falling away from the roof.

He heard the chatter of his teammates’ weapons as their rifles struck out against their enemies in a storm of miniature lightning strikes. But he focused down his lane. Each man was responsible for the space in front of them, for their own individual zones as the creatures suicidally threw themselves onto the roof.

The drone continued to blast its IR light across the roof, illuminating the combat zone. Creature after creature emerged over the edge of the roof. Each appeared in various stages of transformation, their bodies messes of bony plates and claws and crowns of twisted horns. Some with shredded remnants of clothes, others nothing but muscle, flesh, and bone.

O’Neil lost count of how many beasts he sent back to the earth when his bolt locked back.

“Changing!”

He sent a new magazine home. Fired until it was spent, too.

Changed again.

The cycle repeated. The beasts drawing farther up onto the roof. Some made it to race toward him, claws slicing through the air. Bodies piled up in tangles of sinewy limbs.

All it took was just one more monster to break through his or Van’s or Tate’s or Reynolds’s fire. One beast tearing into a SEAL, then their whole defensive effort would fall. The researchers would be shredded, whether Stuart, Henderson, McLean, and Loeb could hold back the monsters from the stairwell door or not.

Sweat coursed down O’Neil’s back, his shirt sticking to his spine. He acted like a machine, focusing only on the task at hand, fighting to stay alive for one more second. Then the next. Then another.

He palmed in a fresh magazine once more. Pulled the trigger, sending bursts of rounds into the beasts, finding he had less and less time with each successive kill.

One of the monsters dodged his attack and tore off across the roof, lunging over its dead comrades, claws reaching toward O’Neil. It was built like a linebacker, thick plates of armor wrapped around its shoulder.

O’Neil’s laser traced over the monster’s body, centering on its chest as it loped toward him. He sent a spray of rounds tearing into its armor. Flesh and bone flew from the wounds. The monster lurched forward like it was about to collapse, but then righted itself, blood trickling from those puckered wounds.

The beast let out a roar that shook O’Neil to his core.

Made it to only a few yards from O’Neil. So close he could practically smell the monster’s rancid breath.

He fired a quick burst again, then adjusted his aim, sending bullets coursing through the gnarled bony structures erupting from its head. Rounds punched through its jaw, obliterating bone. One cored through its eyeball, and the beast took another couple of steps before finally hitting the roof hard, its body grinding to a halt.

O’Neil thought he had a moment to take a breath. That he could recover from what had almost been certain death.

But the Skulls proved him wrong.

Another creature lunged up over the roof. A second and third followed in quick succession, beasts rolling up over the lip in a relentless rush.

“It’s here!” Reynolds yelled.

O’Neil had been so focused on stopping the monsters, he had nearly drowned out the drone of the chopper. But true to Reynolds’s word, the rotor wash blasted over O’Neil, pushing against the Skulls.

He started backpedaling toward the lowering bird, his rifle shuddering against his shoulder with each shot. The monsters fought against the rotor wash, torn clothing flapping from their bodies, their matted hair flicking in the wind. They had nearly formed a circle around the chopper, SEALs, and researchers when the helo’s wheels touched down.

A crew chief jumped out. He waved the researchers huddling in the middle of the roof onto the bird. Another soldier manned the M-240 mounted on the side of the craft, raking gunfire over the assaulting beasts.

“Bravo, get on that bird,” Reynolds yelled over the comms.

Tate hopped on first, followed by Van. O’Neil got on next. They stayed close to the open side doors, covering Loeb as he ran from the door that the beasts were hammering.

The other three struggled to keep it closed. As soon as Loeb made it to the chopper, Reynolds signaled for his team to make a run for it. They sprinted away from the door. Soon as they did, it exploded open, Skulls rushing out. The first four or five of them tripped over their own taloned feet in the stampede, and the other creatures trampled them, smashing their bodies into the roof.

O’Neil covered them as best he could with the support of his team and the door gunner. The Skulls were mere feet behind McLean, the last guy on Alpha’s team, as they ran. Reynolds’s men jumped aboard the chopper, with Van and Loeb pulling McLean on last.

“Fly!” O’Neil said, slapping the bulkhead of the chopper.

The helicopter started to rise, the engines roaring as the rotors spun, yanking the chopper away from the roof of the research center. One of the Skulls threw itself up at the accelerating bird. Its claws gripped the deck, and the Skull started to climb its way into the troop hold.

O’Neil smashed his boot onto one of the clawed hands, grinding at it with his heel. The beast lashed out with its other set of claws, nearly slashing open O’Neil’s leg. He leaned back just enough to avoid it, then lost his balance nearly, falling forward.

Someone grabbed him from behind, pulling on his pack. Gave him just enough leverage to smash his heel into the Skull’s face. Its jaw slammed shut, the top of its mouth breaking into bony shrapnel, and its claws slipped. The monster plummeted back toward the roof. Its body cracked when it hit the building, quickly disappearing in the throngs of beasts, leaping and climbing over each other, desperate to get at the Black Hawk even as it soared from their reach.

O’Neil finally let himself fall back inside the chopper.

“You all right, man?” Tate asked.

Tate had been the one to save O’Neil’s life, this time.

“I’m good, brother,” O’Neil said, straining to be heard over the engine noise. “Thanks for that. You?”

He looked down at Tate’s shredded uniform, the torn vest. Now that he had fought his way out of the research center, he had no choice but to face the reality of the current situation.

If those claws had penetrated Tate’s skin, they might not make it back to Frederick in time for the USAMRIID scientists there to use the experimental treatment that those Hunter mercs had helped them develop.

As the two medics that were on board began examining the research team, O’Neil helped Tate undo his tac vest. He pulled away the ripped parts of his uniform with one hand, reaching for his Individual First Aid Kit with the other. Pulling open the IFAK, he took his chest seal, ready to at least stop the bleeding of any wound the Skull had left behind.

But as he checked over Tate, he saw no scratches or scrapes beyond the plate carrier ballistic vest.

“I think I’m good,” Tate said, looking down at his chest, probing his neck and shoulders. “I think they just got my body armor.”

Loeb clapped Tate on the shoulder. “Hot damn, bro. Thank all that is holy.”

Van gave him a solemn nod, and Tate started pulling what was left of his jacket back up.

Now that O’Neil knew Tate was safe, he felt only raw anger. Rage.

All directed at that scientist now getting the attention of a medic. The man who had bolted like a frightened deer. The guy couldn’t even hold it together a second. He’d nearly got one of O’Neil’s swim buddies slaughtered by a Skull that shouldn’t have even been a real threat.

“If that dumbass hadn’t run…” O’Neil started.

He wanted to yell at the egghead. To chew him out and curse at him until the guy’s ears were bleeding.

But a fat load of good that would do.

“They’re not as strong as us,” Tate said, his NVGs up on his helmet now. “It’s all good to let it go, man.”

O’Neil stopped staring at the frightened scientist. The guy deserved his ire. Hell, Tate should be pissed at him, too.

“We’re SEALs,” Tate said. “We didn’t make it through BUD/S for nothing, you know what I mean? You remember Hell Week.”

At that, O’Neil had to pause. “I hate that you’re right.”

“Not everyone is cut out to wear the trident, man. And that’s okay.”

O’Neil gave Tate’s shoulder another squeeze. “I’m just glad you’re all right. That was your first time really in the shit with us, and you handled yourself well.”

“Just following your lead.”

O’Neil gave him a playful punch. “I’m not giving out points for ass-kissing.”

He turned back toward the side door as the crew chief closed it. He almost wished the crew chief had left it open. The odor of rot and blood hung thick off their uniforms. Half the smell was probably coming from the research team they had rescued. Those people had been living in their own filth for far too long.

And for that, O’Neil had to give them some credit.

Eggheads or not, these people had been working in far from optimal conditions trying to help stop the engineered disease raging across America. Despite the campus’s decaying infrastructure and the constant threat of Skull attacks, they had been doing their part.

Tate, for a young guy, was astute. Everybody’s role in this war looked a little different, and not everyone was cut from the same cloth as a DEVGRU operator. For that matter, most people shouldn’t be. Then there might not be as many people to staff the labs at the end of the world trying to find a cure.

After all, bullets might be effective at stopping individual Skulls, but they wouldn’t stop the microbiological crap that created the beasts.

If O’Neil was going to keep his team alive for the duration of this war, however long it lasted, then he needed these geeks with the advanced degrees, whether they could hold their own in the shit or not.

Out the window in the side door, he could see Delta and Charlie’s bird shadowing theirs.

Loeb leaned in toward O’Neil. “We survived another night. One more mission done.”

“And everyone made it,” O’Neil said.

“Thank God,” Van said.

“Thank us,” Loeb said.

Tate bobbed his head. “I didn’t see God down there tonight. Plenty of the devil.”

Van shook his head, thumbing the cross he’d pulled out from his shirt again. “He’s looking out for us.”

“That’s called the drone pilot, bro,” Loeb said, tapping the side of his helmet. “Get that through your thick skull. We’ve been operating with those things since the sandbox.”

Tate laughed, but then his expression grew serious. “Only problem tonight was we couldn’t help those two other targets.”

“You win some, you lose some,” Loeb said.

“We did everything we could,” O’Neil said. “We didn’t lose a soul tonight. Not so much as a scratch, because we did what we were supposed to. We cut it close tonight, but you guys did well.”

Loeb whirled his finger in the air. “And tomorrow night, we do it all over again.”

“We got a mission already?” Tate asked. “I didn’t hear anything about that.”

“Not yet, we don’t,” Loeb said. “But we’re in the business of eliminating Skulls, and business is booming.”

Tate cracked his fingers. “Fair enough if that’s how it’s been working on Team Six. Call me crazy, but I can’t wait ‘til we can sit on our asses and share a drink after a mission.”

“Sitting on my ass is my least favorite part,” Loeb said. “The waiting. The knowledge that at any time the brass is going to make the call to spin us up on our next op… no, I’d rather know I’m going to be out there where I’m useful, because when I’m back at base or home or wherever and I’m not cracking Skulls, then what good am I?”

“You’re good at talking yourself up,” Van said, a slight grin breaking through his face paint.

“I’ll tell you what,” O’Neil said. “We aren’t going to rest until the last Skull on Earth is nothing but decaying rot six feet under. Then, and only then… I’ll make you all a deal.”

“What’s that, man?” Tate asked.

“I’ll crack open that Macallan Twenty-Five I’ve been saving.”

“That sounds delicious,” Loeb said.

“He didn’t say he was sharing it with you,” Van said. “Just that he’s cracking it open.”

O’Neil shot Van a smile. “Listen to our boy Van. Smarter than he looks. But I will share it with the three of you. Loeb, this isn’t the type of shit you mix with coke, either, got that?”

Loeb held his hands up in a defensive gesture. “I wouldn’t dare.”

“Might even give you two full fingers’ worth if I think you three deserve it.”

“If we deserve it?” Loeb asked. “You already know the answer to that.”

Of course O’Neil did. Even amid the thump of the chopper engines on their journey back to Maryland, they kept shooting the shit, sharing in the excitement that came with every successful mission. It was a phenomenon the people who sat behind desks or in the hundred-story buildings counting beans before the outbreak couldn’t understand.

They seemed to like thinking that O’Neil and his fellow operators were darkly serious every damn second they were breathing.

Their humor, their shit-talking was something that only his brothers and sisters who looked death in the face, told him to screw off, then returned home alive could understand.

They might seem a little crazy to the outside observer. But what that outside observer didn’t see was the flagging adrenaline leaving O’Neil. Didn’t see the sting of nausea as it wore off. The way his fingers shook if he didn’t clench them or clap his swim buddies on the shoulder, congratulating them for pulling off the impossible once again.

That outside observer wouldn’t see the hundreds of times O’Neil had been crouched behind a wall, taking fire, or looked a fighter in the face as he’d had to pull the trigger with the knowledge that if he didn’t end that man’s life, the guy would end his or his brother’s. And now, every time he stepped foot outside the fortifications surrounding Fort Detrick, he came face-to-face with monsters that had once been fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, sons, and daughters. Americans who had been corrupted by a biologically engineered marvel that had been abused, turned into a weapon.

Even in the oily black smoke rising from the scattered towns and cities, he could still hear the cries of people being torn apart by the beasts. He could still see the monsters with crimson beards dripping down their faces, their hands wrist-deep in someone’s guts. Someone he might’ve been only a minute too late to save.

So, yeah, if his team didn’t share in the wins when they did win, it was just one quick step over the edge into oblivion. One foot from falling into a pit of despair and depression so deep, he didn’t think any sane human could find their way out.

His job wasn’t just to get his brothers’ bodies to the finish line of this war. It was to get their minds there, too.

However, each day got harder and that was the one skill they hadn’t taught him in BUD/S.

Like everyone else in this war, they were figuring it out on the fly.

“All right, ladies,” Reynolds said over the troops’ comms. “I just got word from the commander. Soon as we get back, throw your gear into your cage, then report to our AAR immediately.”

“So quick?” Tate asked, looking between Bravo team. “We’re hardly even getting a piss break.”

“Told you,” Loeb said. “Business is booming.”

-7-

The sun was just beginning to climb from the tree-filled horizon as the Black Hawk made its final approach to Frederick, Maryland. Crumbled and charcoaled buildings lined most of the city’s streets, strewn with picked-over corpses of normal humans and littered with just as many dead Skulls.

The army grunts based out of Detrick spent most of their time manning the walls that had been constructed from Hesco barriers and razor wire along the base’s perimeter. When it looked like too many Skulls were accumulating in the nearby parks or city, those guys were often sent out to cull the numbers to prevent a stampede of monsters into the base.

Because the base had indeed been ransacked before by the beasts, Detrick’s leadership had learned the hard way to stay vigilant and proactive.

In fact, when those infamous mercs, the Hunters, had been at the base consulting with Detrick’s science teams, the Skulls had breached the base’s defenses. O’Neil couldn’t help but wonder if there had been any connection between those guys’ presence and the base being slammed by monsters.

Whatever the case, Detrick had come into its own, looking more like an active and well-fortified base that would make the Green Zone in Baghdad pale in comparison to its security measures. As the war against the Skulls and the biological agent that caused them raged on, what was left of the US government clearly recognized the importance of the scientific resources behind the walls at Detrick.

The place had become the epicenter of much of the military’s efforts, including DEVGRU.

Ever since Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia had been compromised early in the outbreak, SEAL Team Six’s home had shifted to Detrick to help protect USAMRIID and its army of researchers.

The Black Hawk hit the tarmac of the makeshift airfield outside one of the research buildings. A handful of Detrick personnel ran toward the chopper, ducking under the rotor wash as the crew chief flung open the side door. The soldiers escorted the research team out of the bird, ushering them into the research building, helping them carry their boxes and backpacks.

“Guess I was feeling sorry for myself for having to get back into action so quickly,” Tate said, “and look at these poor saps. They’re probably going straight into the labs, and they haven’t even had a chance to mourn their two friends who turned to Skulls.”

“When the whole country is invaded by the enemy, everyone’s a soldier,” Van said.

“That from some book you read?” Tate asked.

Van shook his head.

Loeb started to stand as the rotors began to wind down, and Alpha team started hopping off the bird, carrying their weapons over their shoulders. “Sometimes, Van likes to think he can say something profound.”

“It’s true, though,” Van said. “We all do our part when our backs are against the wall. Even those people.”

“Well, time to do our part and get ready for Reynolds,” O’Neil said, getting off the chopper, the blades slowing. Already crew chiefs and other personnel were running out to the bird to refuel it and perform safety checks. A second pilot team raced to take the place of the ones who had flown O’Neil and his guys out of North Carolina.

Supplies and machinery were limited at Detrick. That bird was going right back up into the air within the hour, O’Neil figured.

The warmth of the morning sun only made O’Neil feel more exhausted.

He saw Van yawn.

“Keeping vampire hours isn’t easy,” O’Neil said as he led them toward the warehouse where their cages were.

“I don’t mind the whole living in the night and sleeping during the day thing,” Loeb said. “It’s just the racket around base that makes it hard to sleep.”

O’Neil might’ve suggested earplugs, but they all had them. Brass wanted to keep DEVGRU in tip-top shape, so they ensured they had certain creature comforts to keep them functioning properly.

After the missions they ran, even being in as good as shape as they were, they always came back exhausted, every muscle sore, the faded adrenaline leaving them with nothing but a heavy weight tugging on their eyelids and a burning desire to hit the hay wherever they were.

Even a little hammering and shouting and rumbling truck engines wouldn’t wake them… if they could actually close their eyes.

Sleep was getting harder and harder to come by. O’Neil feared it had nothing to do with the commotion around base. Rather, it was those pictures he saw behind his eyelids when he was in his bunk.

The images of everything they had seen, from the Skulls to the burning towns and cities turned to rubble, made finding peace in sleep difficult.

But they didn’t usually talk about it.

Like Loeb had said, SEALs weren’t weak. Didn’t much like even insinuating that they might be feeling a tinge of pain, either physical or mental.

They reached the warehouse where their cages were. Each of them had a stall separated by chain-link fencing. Given the swelling numbers in personnel, equipment, and refugees at Detrick every day, their cages were less than a third the size of what they had been at NAS Oceana.

O’Neil usually kept a bag for each type of mission, whether it was direct action in an urban landscape or special recon with an aquatic element. He had neatly color-coded his equipment and had loadout lists to check over every time their troop commander gave them their missions. But in these cages, he could barely organize his equipment into their own individual sections and bags.

Everything was more of a neatly stacked pile, which made him cringe each time he saw it. Part of his job was to stay in control of his team and the conflict when he was out on a mission. To start a mission in control, he liked to have everything back home in control, including his organized loadouts. It almost pained him to see how his equipment had been reduced as their supplies had encountered shortages and his organizational methods had been compromised as a result.

But he had to work with what he had.

He cleaned his weapons and hung up his gear, putting them back as neatly as he could in the cramped space.

Loeb tapped him on the shoulder. “I’m going to go see the wife and my girls.”

O’Neil looked at his wristwatch. “You got fifteen minutes before AAR.”

“Quick hugs and hellos,” he said. “Nothing more.”

“Tell them I say ‘hi’, too.”

Loeb was already jogging out of the warehouse and mimed giving O’Neil a tip of his hat.

“Be on time,” O’Neil called to him.

“I’ll be early.”

Loeb disappeared out the warehouse door.

Amid the clicking and chatter of the rest of the troop unloading their gear, O’Neil headed toward the back of the warehouse where a stainless-steel coffee dispenser was. He picked up one of the communal mugs and poured himself a cup.

Took a sip and winced.

Lukewarm. He started brewing a new batch for the rest of the team as he choked down the coffee.

Tate and Van joined him. He warned Tate about the coffee when the operator reached for a mug.

“I like mine cold anyway,” Tate said.

“You’re a monster,” Van said. Then he started to look wistful. “You ever had Vietnamese coffee?”

“Do you serve it with banh mis?”

“The hell are you talking about?”

Tate shrugged and took a sip of his veritable mud-water. “I assume your parents served it at their shop.”

“They did,” he said. “You brew it strong in a metal cup over your mug. Some people like condensed milk with it. Always strong, always good.”

“You miss it,” Tate said.

“I do.”

Tate took another sip of his coffee. Seemed to think better of it, then dumped in a load of sugar.

“Told you the coffee wasn’t great,” O’Neil said. He indicated the pot he was brewing with his thumb. “If you’re patient, you don’t have to doctor that up so much.”

“Caffeine is caffeine.”

“That much sugar in coffee that bad will ruin your gut,” Van said.

“I’m not scared.”

“You should be.”

“Nah, I’m like this man,” Tate said, nodding at O’Neil. “No fear.”

“What do you mean?” O’Neil asked.

Tate tried his sugar-filled coffee. Paused as if he was considering it, then gulped it down. “Man, when you were dealing with that Skull in the church, you just walked right up to it like you were going to shake your pastor’s hand. No big deal.”

“I did what I had to do. Doesn’t matter if I was scared of that thing or not, it needed to go.”

“Still, no fear,” Tate said.

Van chuckled softly as he watched the fresh coffee drip into the pot. That coffee aroma was starting to finally cover up their post-mission funk.

“Why you laughing?” Tate asked.

“You’ve never seen O’Neil around a dog.”

“Come on, you’re full of it.”

“I’m not.”

Tate looked at O’Neil. “You scared of Rover?”

O’Neil pulled up the sleeve of his right arm. Thin white scars crisscrossed his skin. Every time he looked at those scars, he could picture it clearly. The neighbor’s dog tackling him. Tearing into his skin. He imagined what he felt then wasn’t too different than what it would feel like to have a Skull ripping into him.

Truthfully, a Skull was probably way worse. But that didn’t stop that childhood memory from affecting him.

“I had a bad experience when I was six,” O’Neil said. “Neighbor had a big dog. No idea what breed. They were shitty trainers. Kept the dog outside all hours of the day and night, and all it did was bark. Every day I walked to school, it barked and snapped. I thought the thing’s bark was worse than its bite, right?”

Tate nodded, listening with rapt attention.

“The monster ripped at part of its wooden fence each time it saw me. Until one day, it tore the panel off the fence. Charged me, and that was that. My parents took me to the emergency room with half my muscle hanging out and the bone broken in four different places.”

“Good lord,” Tate said. Then looked at Van. “God, man, I’d be scared of dogs, too.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m scared,” O’Neil said. “Just cautious.”

“You grew up in Boulder, though, right?” Tate asked.

“Sure did,” O’Neil said. “Why?”

“Because I had a buddy that moved out to Denver. He told me everybody either got themselves a dog or a tattoo when they moved out to Colorado. Sometimes both. He told me every time he went out into the mountains to hike or climb, there were dogs all day, every day. People loved their canines out there. How’d you deal with that crap?”

“Same way we deal with Skulls,” O’Neil said.

“You didn’t shoot the dogs,” Tate said with a laugh.

“No, but I faced them,” O’Neil said. “I learned that fear wasn’t something you could prevent. It wasn’t something you could control. But you sure as hell can control your reaction to it.”

Van nodded, pulling the coffee pot out. He dumped it into the coffee server, then started brewing another batch. “O’Neil is like a monk when it comes to fear.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” O’Neil said.

“I would, and I did.”

“I believe him,” Tate added.

O’Neil checked his watch. “I’ll tell you what I am scared of. Smith and Reynolds getting pissed because we’re late. Let’s get moving.”

-8-

They started back down the walkway between the cages toward the opposite end of the building where their AAR would be held.

“You know, man, when we’re talking about fear, I miss being feared,” Van said.

“How’s that?” Tate asked.

“When you fast-rope onto a house or after you breach a nest where all the fighters are hiding in Afghanistan, those people might attack you, but they’re afraid of you,” Van said. “Sure, they do stupid shit. I can still remember busting into a room, and a fighter had his rifle sitting next to him but started tying up his Cheetahs first. Like those shoes were more important than his weapon.”

“Cheetahs?” Tate asked.

“If the Taliban had an endorsement, it would be from that Pakistani company that makes Cheetahs,” O’Neil said. “Seems like all of them wear those stupid-ass white high-tops.”

“Weird, man,” Tate said.

“Weird,” Van agreed. “But Cheetahs or not, those guys might shoot at us, they might even fool themselves into thinking they’re making their way up into jihadi paradise, but deep down they were humans, right?”

“Sure,” Tate said as they rounded the cages toward a hall bustling with men and women in uniform rushing to their duty stations.

“Sometimes they screamed and cowered. Might throw down their weapons. Or they might not pick a weapon up at all so we couldn’t shoot them. Rules of engagement, and all. I didn’t much like that the fighters got away with taking advantage of our own rules, but at least it meant our people didn’t get attacked that night.”

“No rules of engagement with Skulls,” O’Neil said.

“And no fear for their lives either,” Van said. “Those beasts throw themselves at us with less concern for their lives than those assholes who wore suicide vests. They don’t care about death. They don’t care whether they see SEALs or some defenseless civilian. They only see food.”

“That’s what the Oni Agent will do to you,” O’Neil said. They squeezed against the wall as a pair of grunts wheeled a cart full of lab supplies past. “The Agent turns your brain into mush and your bones into weapons.”

“How’s it work?” Tate asked.

“You guys weren’t briefed on it in Chicago?” Van asked.

“All I know is that these nanobacteria things are in the claws and talons and all that other bone shit that covers the Skulls,” Tate asked. “And you don’t want that shit inside of you.”

“True enough,” O’Neil said. “I guess we get all the hottest intel since we’re in the heart of the scientific mission. Those nanobacteria make prions, too, which I heard is something like the crap that causes Mad Cow disease.”

“Mad Human disease,” Tate said.

“Kind of. It gets worse the more those nanobacteria spread in your body.”

“What the hell is a nanobacteria?” Tate asked.

“Like bacteria,” Van said. “But smaller.”

“Thanks, smartass.” Tate looked at O’Neil.

“Hell, I don’t know,” O’Neil said. “I’m not a scientist. Only thing I really understand about it is that it works like a coral reef.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tate asked.

“You been diving,” Van said. “You’ve seen the reefs. Each coral animal is tiny, but together they build those colonies, right? Same thing goes on in your bones with the nanobacteria. Those tiny organisms make the bones grow.”

Tate shivered. “I don’t like that at all. Scientists here at Detrick found all that out?”

“Mostly,” O’Neil said. “We were told the Hunters helped figure some of that out.”

Tate pulled a hand over his cleanly shaved head. “Crazy. I hear so much about those Hunters and haven’t met a single one.”

“They’re full of shit,” Van said. “I think they had something to do with the release of the Oni Agent.”

“I thought they were on our side,” Tate said.

“You ask different people, you get different answers,” O’Neil said. “Rumor has it that the Russians are somehow responsible. Maybe the Iranians, too.”

“All rumor,” Van said.

“Seems about as possible as these Hunters being responsible. Probably more likely, even. I get that they’re a well-connected contractor org, but from what I heard, they don’t strike me as the people that would do something like this to their own country.”

Van paused in front of the door that would take them to the conference room where the rest of their troop would be. “I don’t know about that. They’re contractors. We speak in service. They speak in money. Doesn’t take a genius to do the math.”

* * *

As the rest of the troop settled into folding chairs around the small room, O’Neil saw Loeb come in. Just as he’d promised, he was a couple minutes early, his dark hair and beard still a mess. But he wore a content expression.

“How are they?” O’Neil asked.

“Sofie was happy to see me. The girls were pissed because I had to leave again.”

“It’s nice to be wanted.”

“Won’t argue there, brother.”

Another door to the room opened, and Lieutenant Cory Smith strode in.

“Attention!” Reynolds called.

The room fell silent, all eyes on Smith.

While most of the troop wore beards and longer hair—at least longer compared to their brothers in the Marines and other branches where regs prevented them from anything else—Smith was clean-shaven. He had a chiseled chin and a way of standing in front of a room that made him appear confident without the cockiness O’Neil sometimes saw in other commissioned officers rising the ranks. The guy always looked like he’d rolled straight from his room after ironing his uniform and showering.

Some of the guys joked that the scientists had sprayed him with some kind of anti-dirt chemical that kept him clean, when they knew Smith had been running back and forth between impromptu meetings and even, sometimes, direct action when the Skulls pressed too hard on Detrick’s defenses.

“You guys did a good thing,” Smith began. “I know it’s not always easy to run a mission and we don’t save all the targets. You’ve all been a part of worse, patrolling all the way to a hot zone only to find out our targets are already gone. But no matter what happens, I want you all to know how damn proud I am of this troop—and really, our whole squadron. Time after time, you guys have proved you’re the best the Navy has to offer.”

Then he cracked a grin.

“The best the US military has to offer. Don’t tell the boys on Delta Force.”

Just as quickly, that brief moment of levity disappeared. Smith wasn’t here to tickle everyone’s balls and tell them how good they’d done. Definitely wasn’t the kind of officer that let them all pat each other’s backs in one big circle jerk.

He started digging into the after-action report with a seriousness that made it clear there would be no more joking. That as well as the teams had performed, there was no tolerance for errors. Because even if he forgave them, the Skulls sure as hell wouldn’t.

First thing he did was ask what they could’ve done to keep the targets under control and prevent that Skull from punching Tate’s ticket. Then he asked the SEALs about the packs of Skulls they’d encountered on the trek from the LZ to the research center, seeing if the teams had done anything to rile those Skulls up. If maybe they should have taken a different approach or if they could somehow reduce any noise that might’ve set the beasts off.

Some operators suggested setting the Black Hawks down even farther away, spending more time and distance patrolling into the target location. Others suggested maybe the beasts were growing more reliant on their sense of smell now that they had seemingly devoured every last bit of prey in the area.

For the next hour, they troubleshooted the challenges they’d faced.

O’Neil appreciated the honesty of these sessions. That the commander, chief, and rest of the guys could explore what would make them function better as a unit next time, ensuring that their success this past night wasn’t a one-time thing.

That success was their habit, and failure was something they always planned strategically to avoid.

Toward the end of the debriefing, O’Neil could feel his bunk calling to him. Felt the weight behind his eyes. A quick look at his watch showed this was about the usual time they called these AARs to an end, and they had seemingly exhausted every opportunity for improvement they could discuss.

Day had fully taken hold of the base, which meant it was far past bedtime for O’Neil.

But Smith didn’t dismiss them.

Instead, once they were done discussing the previous mission, he took his place at the front of the room once more. Paused a moment as if he was a doctor about to tell someone their loved one had just passed in the OR.

O’Neil didn’t like that.

“All right, boys,” Smith began. “I know you’ve all been wondering how long we’re going to be fighting Skulls in this country. Today, that changes. We’re not just playing defense any longer. We’re going on the offense. So instead of grabbing shuteye in your bunks today, you can sleep as a C-17’s engines sing you a lullaby on your way to Europe.”

Reynolds turned on the screen at the front of the room using a laptop hooked up to it.

A map of the Baltic states appeared.

“We’re headed to Lithuania tonight.” Smith pointed to one of the country’s coastal cities, Klaipėda in Lithuania. “Klaipėda used to be a cruise ship destination and shipping port. From what we know, the city was almost entirely abandoned at the start of the outbreak, except, of course, for the Skulls.

“However, intel reports point to suspicious activity all up and down the Baltic region. We suspect that Russian military elements have been active everywhere from Kaliningrad, a Russian port city sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania, up to Tallin, Estonia. We’re not sure exactly what the Russians are doing.”

“Sir, is this official Russian government activity or independent groups of Russian nationals?” Stuart asked. “Kaliningrad is separate from most of Russia, so it would seem odd to me that they’re basing some kind of military activity out of the Kaliningrad province.”

“Good observation,” Smith said. “Our friends at Langley and the Commander-in-Chief’s administration have been unable to hail any of our former contacts in the Russian government. We are currently operating under the assumption that these Russian military elements are in fact operating on their own volition. Russia may have undergone a coup or fractured. We’re not quite sure exactly what’s going on with their government.

“However, we are sure that these Russian elements are bad players. The groups we’re tracking are suspected to be involved in the production and potential deployment of the Oni Agent.”

“Sir, did this information come from the Hunters or Langley?” Henderson asked.

“I won’t lie to you,” Smith said. “I realize there have been rumors about the Hunters and military action to figure out exactly how this organization is involved with the Oni Agent. Part of the intel does indeed come from them, but most of what we’ve pieced together is from our own sources. What you need to know is that hostile Russian forces are sending a shipment of goods to Klaipėda from Kaliningrad by boat. We have identified a group of non-Skull individuals and trucks in the area thanks to drone and satellite imagery. Once that shipment arrives, we believe these individuals are planning to use this convoy to transport this shipment somewhere inland.”

He paused for a moment.

“We suspect that this shipment may have to do with the Oni Agent, but have not confirmed it. Unfortunately, we don’t know where they’re headed. Which means we may only have one shot at stopping this shipment and figuring out what in the hell it is. Everyone understand?”

O’Neil sure as hell did.

He’d been on high-profile, risky missions where nearly everyone in the military was involved and government bureaucracy made its way into their planning process, thinking of more and more situations and preparations that would have to be considered, delaying the execution of the mission until it was too late.

This was the type of mission that clearly prohibited them from having the luxury of time. If this shipment was less than a day away, they needed to move. Now.

Smith went over the mission plan, rehearsing it with the team, ensuring everyone knew the details of exactly what was expected of them. O’Neil had long since forgotten about his exhaustion and his bunk. He was ready to bring this fight to the enemy. To go after answers instead of responding to attacks.

This could be a turning point in the war against the Oni Agent. A chance to confirm if the Russians were as big a player in the Oni Agent outbreak as they suspected and start down the road toward getting their revenge for what they had done to the United States.

“If you all don’t have any more questions,” Smith said, “then it’s time to load up. Reynolds has your loadout lists for tonight’s mission. But you’ve got to prepare to ship everything over with us. Because once we start our campaign in Europe, we’re not stopping. You all are going to be based across the Atlantic until further notice.”

Finally. This was it. O’Neil was ready to stop running missions in his home country and taking them back where they belonged.

Right into enemy territory.

-9-

Nearly eleven hours later, O’Neil was in one of the uncomfortable jumpseats of a C-17. The vibrations of the massive engines rumbled through the bulkhead and into his bones. Throughout the long flight, he had managed to snag a couple hours of sleep. It wasn’t much, but the anticipation of what they were about to do gave him more than enough energy.

“Ten minutes,” the pilot called over the PA.

O’Neil checked over his suppressed M4A1 again, then his HK45C. He checked that every weapon and piece of gear on his person was strapped in well and every buckle and clip secure. He had over sixty pounds of gear on, from his NVGs to his plate carriers to the explosive charges in his pockets and even the Pirate Gun he wore on a sling. The modified M-79 grenade launcher was a popular addition to most of the operators’ loadouts on the team, with its sawn-off stock and pistol-grip. It packed a hell of a punch with a relatively small profile and lower weight than a normal M-79. Which was important when O’Neil had worked to shave off every ounce he could from his gear for tonight.

This wasn’t going to be a touch-and-go drop-off from a Black Hawk.

“Five minutes,” the pilot called again over the PA.

O’Neil stood, doing his best to stay upright with all the gear. The rest of the operators followed suit, clipping carabiners attached to the chutes on their backs to the line overhead.

Tonight, they would be making a HAHO drop. They didn’t want the Russians or any lurking Skulls to hear the drone of the C-17’s engines, hence the high-altitude, high opening. And if they did a low-altitude opening with sixteen parachutes whipping and snapping open, they might as well be firing off their rifles on their way down.

“Ramp!” the jumpmaster called, his voice ringing over their comms. The ramp at the rear of the plane began to lower, revealing nothing but blackness. It was damn near impossible for O’Neil to make out where the sky met the ground at the horizon, except for the scattered stars he saw.

The SEALs began shuffling toward the rear ramp as the jumpmaster waved them on.

O’Neil made a fist at Loeb, Tate, and Van, his heart thrumming faster in anticipation of the jump. It had been a few months since they had made an insertion like this, much less one with as much riding on them as tonight.

“Over target,” the pilot called over the PA.

O’Neil turned back to his team. “Masks!”

He made a gesture over his face, then turned forward again, placing his oxygen mask over his nose and mouth, breathing in deep. Then he clicked his NVGs into place, the world awash in green.

The light next to the open ramp turned green. One by one, the SEALs shuffled toward the exit and disappeared over the edge as the jumpmaster sorted the carabiners and straps, left by the SEALs, on the line above his head.

Loeb hit the ramp next, heels on the edge, toes hanging over, then he dropped. Van went, followed by Tate.

Finally, it was O’Neil’s turn. He toed over the edge of the ramp. Felt the wind tugging at his uniform, whipping against him. He let himself tip over the edge of the ramp as the strap behind him yanked out the smaller drogue chute. A moment later, the main chute exploded out from his pack, catching hard in the air. His harness pulled back on his shoulders and chest, and he held tight to his steering lines.

Below, dark gray masses floated over their target. A screen of clouds covered the coastline and the port city where they were supposed to land. Soon as his parachute fully inflated, he was left in a world of eerie quiet, with just the wind rippling over the chute and his gear.

“All teams, Alpha Actual,” Reynolds called over the comms. “Visibility is poor. Stay on your buddies’ tags.”

O’Neil watched the IR tags of the SEALs below him blink against the otherwise dark cover of the clouds. He pulled on his steering lines to stay closely stacked behind the others as the C-17 continued its journey eastward, returning to the UK.

For now, the sixteen SEALs were on their own, floating down deep into Skull territory. The cold air tingled O’Neil’s skin. His fingers started to go numb as he pulled on the steering lines.

That sensation only grew worse when they pierced the low-lying clouds. Each drop of freezing moisture beading across his body and gear pierced him like a thousand tiny icy daggers. He lost all hope of visibility, only able to see a couple yards in front of him. Even the blinking IR tags seemed to get lost in the hazy darkness.

Diving through clouds was terrifyingly dangerous. The risk of running into other skydivers was far too high. Normally, DEVGRU would’ve waited for the right weather. A cloudless night. A waning moon, so the enemy would have hampered visuals while they ruled the dark with their NVGs.

But the situation this mission presented had forced their hand. They could not miss the convoy.

All O’Neil could do was steer his chute and hope that every professional, experienced member of this elite team was descending as planned through those clouds. A single tangled line, a diver slamming against another diver, might result in mission failure before they even made contact with the enemy.

O’Neil watched his altimeter as he continued his descent. From above, they weren’t quite sure how deep the cloud cover was. If it was an especially foggy night, they might never escape the clouds.

They had to be ready for landing—and hope that they were indeed headed to their target alongside the Klaipėda port.

“Bravo, check in,” O’Neil called over his team’s line.

“Loeb here.”

“Tate, still floating.”

“Van.”

Even though he couldn’t see them, he took solace in knowing that they were drifting through this pervasive darkness with him. He looked down at the altimeter again.

Five-thousand feet now.

Still immersed in clouds.

O’Neil went through a patch light enough that he could see a couple of blinking IR tags below. He adjusted his lines, following them.

Then they hit four-thousand feet.

More clouds.

Three thousand.

O’Neil’s heart began to race. Once they made it into the city, the last thing he wanted to do was run himself into the side of a building or get his chute’s lines wrapped around one because he couldn’t see where he was going. He might end up hanging somewhere, helpless until his team found him. Assuming the Skulls didn’t hear his tangled chute flapping in the wind first.

Two-thousand feet, still too many clouds.

This wasn’t good.

This wasn’t how this mission should start.

O’Neil remembered his first solo dive strapped down in gear. How he had let panic take him when he had fallen into an uncontrollable tumble, legs and arms spread, trying to regain a stable position, but failing.

At the time, he had jumped with an extra one-hundred-fifty pounds of gear. Might as well have strapped another human being to him.

He had pulled his chute too soon, still in that tumble, when he let the panic win. And the lines had immediately become tangled. The chute couldn’t fully inflate, and he was spinning, rapidly descending at a pace that would leave his body smeared over the target pavement.

He’d had to release his main, then resort to his emergency chute. All he could remember thinking was that if he didn’t get it right with that emergency chute, that was the end of his life—and his SEAL career.

All the hard work, the effort he’d put into proving he deserved a spot on the teams would be dashed across the ground in that single, stupid mistake because he had let his lizard brain win.

He had talked with his chief and instructor then. Realized all the mistakes he had made leading up to that moment. That he hadn’t compartmentalized. That he’d let emotion and fear take over. He was far from the only SEAL who had ever slipped up and let that happen. And he bet he would be far from the last.

But good SEALs only made a mistake like that once. Then they learned, if they survived it. They got better. Stronger.

So tonight, even as his stomach did cartwheels, he knew better. There were fifteen other people in the same boat as him, and all were relying on each other to stay calm. To maintain focus. Because all it took was for one guy to freak out, alter his course, and lead those following him into a pileup.

O’Neil slowed his breathing, going into as close to a meditative trance as he could.

The numbers on his altimeter were just numbers. He tried to picture all the satellite imagery of the landscape that he had worked to memorize on the flight over. Tried to picture where he might be. Remembering that his biggest threat might be the tall Soviet-era apartment buildings near downtown or maybe the defunct cranes looming over the port where freighters listed at the pier, abandoned. Maybe one of the towering steeples of a historic church.

Their destination was between all those hazards. But O’Neil reminded himself that those hazards wouldn’t be a threat until they reached a couple hundred feet. Then, they would be forced to make some quick decisions if the clouds still hadn’t lifted.

One-thousand feet, and it looked like maybe those clouds really wouldn’t lift.

That was going to make patrolling through the town and identifying contacts far more difficult than they had anticipated.

But that was for future O’Neil. Present O’Neil just needed to land first.

“Clouds clearing at five-hundred,” Henderson reported. “On target.”

As promised, the clouds finally did clear at five-hundred feet. The landing zone was still hazy with fog, but they seemed to have caught a fortunate break.

O’Neil could see all the tags from his team blinking below between the skeletal cranes to their west and the churches and office buildings to their north and east. There was a cruise ship still docked at one of the terminals adjacent to their landing zone. It seemed to be listing against the terminal, its decks a mess of chairs and, from what O’Neil could tell, corpses. He couldn’t quite see if they were Skulls or humans, but for now, they weren’t moving.

Already the first of the operators had landed at their target site between the stone-walled ruins of a large castle that had served as a tourist destination. Most of the castle had been lost, but the town had paved the site over, painting it with a two-dimensional diagram of the footprint of the chambers and rooms that had once existed there.

SEALs touched down across that diagram and in the grass surrounding the castle ruins.

O’Neil came down hard, running out his momentum as the parachute collapsed behind him. Soon as he was down, he shouldered his rifle and roved his aim over the foggy streets, watching for Skulls.

Already, Reynolds had set up a perimeter around the LZ with Stuart, Henderson, and McLean. O’Neil detached his harness. As Alpha provided cover for the others, they quickly folded up the chutes and buried them in the rubble of what seemed to have been the entrance to the castle and museum exhibits. Now, it was mostly rubble. The bricks and stones made it easy to secure the chutes and ensure they wouldn’t go whipping away loudly in the wind, warning any Skulls that the team had landed or worse, alerting the Russians to their presence.

“All teams, advance,” Reynolds said once all the chutes were secured and they had stowed their oxygen masks in their packs

They spread into combat intervals. Alpha and Bravo took a path between the massive warehouses lining the port as Delta and Charlie worked their way between the neighboring streets filled with multistory apartments and office buildings.

The fog thickened as they advanced toward the ambush site until O’Neil could only see twenty or thirty feet ahead. Every time the breeze shifted even slightly, he smelled the mixture of oil and fish coming in from the port mixed with the eye-watering scent of carrion. Far in the distance, he heard a Skull shriek. He signaled for his team to halt behind a truck filled with crates of rotting vegetables.

But no gunfire came after. Delta and Charlie reported their route was still clear.

Block by block, they patrolled toward where the A1 highway met the port at a ferry terminal. That was where intel had last spotted the convoy of trucks waiting for the shipment from Kaliningrad.

According to the analysts that had provided them that intel, the Russians would likely use that highway to get out of Klaipėda with the suspected shipment of bioweapons.

That was still a lot of uncertainty for O’Neil, but all he could do was trust and hope the analysts were right.

The fog continued settling in around them. They kept moving from the shelter of shipping containers to abandoned vehicles to dumpsters and piles of scree from buildings destroyed in the Lithuanians’ attempts to stop the Skulls’ invasion.

Occasional howls wailed in the distance, and every few minutes, O’Neil thought he heard the tap and click of Skull talons and claws echoing against the warehouses they passed, sometimes inside them.

But the fog must’ve hampered the Skulls as much or more than it did themselves. They came across mounds of picked over bones, and the decaying remains of Skulls killed in previous firefights, but none that were living.

A quick look at his watch confirmed they were making good time. They had accounted for heavy resistance by the monsters—a common challenge in urban areas of the United States. Perhaps the Russians had done a better job cleaning out the beasts from their supply routes. Of course, if they were responsible for the spread of the Oni Agent, maybe they had a way of getting Skulls out of their way that O’Neil and the Americans were unaware of.

Whether it was some chemical weapon especially suited for the beasts or maybe some kind of sonic device, like a dog whistle that they couldn’t detect, he was anxious to find out just how they’d made this place seemingly safe from Skulls, despite ample evidence the beasts had overwhelmed this city not long ago.

“Approximately ten minutes from overwatch position,” an operator from Delta called over the comms.

“Copy,” Reynolds replied. “Alpha and Bravo are five from the target.”

Already O’Neil could see the hotel where they were supposed to set up their ambush. All along the sides of the road, concrete barricades had been placed. From the charcoaled, skeletal husks of military trucks and civilian vehicles, O’Neil guessed this had at one time been a secured evacuation route.

The blackened skeletons draped over those barriers and even sitting in some of the vehicles showed that those efforts to save the people of Klaipėda had failed.

His boots pressed through ash as they drew closer to the concrete barrier and the jumbled mess of vehicles. With the heavy fog, he could barely see the shadowy silhouette of the auto repair shop and ten-story apartment building where Delta and Charlie would set up their overwatch positions with the snipers on their teams.

Bravo and Alpha just needed to place their explosives in the road and wait for the convoy to approach. With a single blast, they would begin their ambush by disabling the armored personnel carriers they had seen in the satellite images, then they would be able to secure the transport trucks with the suspected bioweapons.

The extra time would give them plenty of opportunity to test their defenses and make adjustments now that they were actually on the ground. Bravo and Alpha clustered in front of the hotel, wisps of fog curling around them.

“All right,” Reynolds said, kneeling behind one of the devasted trucks near the highway. “We’re a good thirty minutes early. Set up the explo—”

The rumble of truck engines captured their attention.

O’Neil stared down the road.

The growl of the engines started to get closer, piercing the quiet of the foggy cityscape.

“Oh, shit,” O’Neil muttered. “They’re early. They’re already on their way.”

There was no time to prepare the explosives. Delta and Charlie weren’t even in position. And judging by the sounds of those engines, the trucks would be on them in seconds.

-10-

O’Neil looked back at Reynolds. The chief seemed to be frozen in thought, debating whether to continue with the mission or scrap it. This wasn’t what they had planned for, and they didn’t have time to readjust with two of the teams still patrolling toward the ambush.

They hadn’t even had a chance to check the nearby buildings and vehicles to see if any Skulls were lying in wait, ready to attack at the first sign of a gun battle. But if they let those Russian vehicles escape, that was it. They would lose them in the fog. No one from the air would be able to track them. They would have none of the answers they had come for.

Finally, Reynolds’s voice came over the comms. “Casper, Alpha Actual, do you copy?”

He was calling for their evac chopper. O’Neil knew they were mired in some bad shit but he hadn’t anticipated Reynolds taking them out of the game so early.

“Copy, Alpha Actual.”

“What’s your flight time to extract? We may need exfil earlier than anticipated.”

“Flight time is fifteen mikes, Alpha Actual.”

“Roger. Stand by for possible early extract.”

The rumbling of the trucks was growing louder. O’Neil could see their headlights starting to bloom in the fog.

“Does this mean we’re taking off?” O’Neil asked Reynolds.

“Hell no,” Reynolds said. “You boys all know what’s at stake. We aren’t leaving here without some answers. Things are just happening a little quicker. O’Neil, take your team across the street. No time for C4. Rockets and grenades at the ready. Wait for my mark.”

“Understood,” O’Neil said, standing from his cover.

He signaled for Loeb, Van, and Tate, then led them across the street, rushing between the concrete barriers. They dropped down behind the blackened cars and the barrier on the other side of the road.

O’Neil took them about twenty yards to their east, ensuring they wouldn’t get hit in any crossfire from Alpha.

The headlights from the convoy were growing brighter, the engines louder. O’Neil could see them pushing through the fog now, slowly but surely.

“Tate, get your rocket ready,” O’Neil said as he loaded a round into his Pirate Gun. “Loeb, Van, cover us.”

He gestured for the team to spread out into combat intervals.

“Bravo, you’re going to take the lead vehicle,” Reynolds called over the comms. “We’ll take rear.”

“Roger,” O’Neil replied.

“Delta, Charlie, we’re starting early,” Reynolds said. “Get into overwatch ASAP. If we’re firing already, you’re weapons free.”

The diesel truck engines boomed through the streets, and O’Neil could see the first one now, a black silhouette in the fog. Looked to be a Ural Typhoon, a Russian vehicle resistant to mines. Even so, they had brought enough explosives to take the beast of a vehicle out, but all those charges were unfortunately safely in their bags.

“Where the fuck are the Skulls?” Loeb asked, rifle pressed against his shoulder as he tracked the Typhoon.

Behind it came what appeared to be three more military trucks with canvas coverings over the cargo bed. O’Neil thought he could make out the last vehicle, another Typhoon, at the rear of the convoy. The five vehicles’ engines rumbled noisily through the street, echoing off the buildings.

“We should be seeing shit tons of the beasts,” Loeb said.

O’Neil thought he heard another distant wail. Maybe a shriek. Hard to tell over the rumbling engines, but Loeb was right. Engine noise like this was a surefire way of ensuring a horde of Skulls poured toward your position. Yet, far as they could tell, no beasts were rushing down the street, barreling over the asphalt to investigate the potential presence of prey.

That made no sense to O’Neil, especially since he had been certain he had heard Skulls around the city on their way to the ambush.

The Typhoon was nearly on them.

He could worry about the Skulls later.

For now, there was only the convoy.

“Bravo, weapons free,” Reynolds said over the comms.

“Rocket,” Tate said, shouldering the AT4.

“Backstage clear,” Loeb reported.

The rocket exploded from the recoilless launcher trailing a plume of smoke. It punctured the windshield of the Typhoon with a heavy thunk, followed by an ear-shattering boom. Flames erupted from inside the cabin of the vehicle, flaring in O’Neil’s NVGs. Smoke poured out from the destroyed windshield. The heat wave from the blast rolled over O’Neil. His eyes watered, his face feeling tight from the inferno.

The vehicle just kept barreling forward as if the driver had died with his foot on the pedal, the engine grinding in a violent cacophony of thumps and miniature blasts.

Before the smoke and fire settled, he used the reflex sight on his modified M-79 and launched a grenade with a throaty wallop. The grenade sailed straight through the fog and smoke into the cabin of the Typhoon. Another explosion boomed through the vehicle. More oily black smoke poured out. Screams erupted from inside.

The vehicle twisted sharply, crashing into a concrete barrier. Its front wheel dragged up on top of the barrier, and it ground to a halt, the vehicle tilted partway up and over the barrier, tires still spinning.

Not more than a few seconds later, another explosion tore through the fog, light lancing up from the rear vehicle in the convoy. The sound of spraying glass and bending metal came after the reverberating boom, followed by two more explosions that sounded like grenades.

O’Neil let his Pirate Gun fall on its sling, then shouldered his suppressed M4A1 as columns of smoke clawed out from the lead Typhoon.

The three trucks behind had hit their brakes, coming to a halt. Between the smoke and the fog, dark shapes moved out from the trucks, posting up along the concrete barriers. They immediately began firing out into the darkness. Tracer rounds coursed past O’Neil like lasers.

He returned fire, fighting to keep the enemy from advancing.

“I’ve got eight, maybe ten contacts on the southside!” O’Neil said over the comms. “All along the barriers!”

“Another seven here!” Reynolds called back, straining to be heard over the gunfire.

O’Neil continued to fire with Tate helping to provide suppression. One of the Russians started to move up toward their position, shots hammering the concrete barriers near him. Dust and concrete chips flew with each connecting round. He signaled for Loeb and Van to push toward the west, closer to the Russians so they could flank them.

The two operators began running at a crouch, sticking close to the vehicles and concrete barriers. O’Neil kept firing with Tate, keeping the Russians’ attention on his position as the two other operators moved in closer.

Van paused behind a sedan that was little more than a blackened chassis with melted tires. He plucked a grenade from his tac vest. “Grenade out!”

O’Neil heard the clunk of the grenade against the asphalt as it landed between a pair of the Russians, their faces lit up in the flash of muzzle fire. Half a second later, a blaze of light erupted between them, both thrown forward from the blast.

As another Russian ran for cover from the explosion, O’Neil stitched his back with rounds. The man went tumbling forward, scraping across the asphalt.

Return fire chiseled into the concrete barrier, forcing O’Neil to duck once more. He signaled to Tate to find another position, and they both ran at a hunch toward a sedan about twenty feet to their east. Loeb and Van provided cover fire all the while.

O’Neil hit the next position, his heart thumping, sending a gush of adrenaline through his body. Time seemed to slow as he posted up and took shot after shot, doing his best to hold the Russians back. Those that were still left had firmly entrenched themselves behind the concrete barriers.

They fired and maneuvered to new defensive positions every time the SEAL teams tried to get a bead on them.

These weren’t inexperienced fighters, and they were nothing like the kamikaze-adept Skulls they’d been engaging for months.

In fact, once the initial surprise of the ambush wore off, the Russian soldiers fought back with an intensity and skill O’Neil hadn’t faced in years. No Taliban fighters, no group of Al Qaeda bastards moved with such precision and pressure, constantly forcing O’Neil to re-evaluate his own team’s tactics.

The Russians spread out down the barrier to prevent another unlucky grenade blast taking out more than one of their guys. Worse, they were seemingly trying to push O’Neil’s team apart, cutting them off from each other.

“Grenade!” Van yelled.

O’Neil saw it flying too late, the explosive soaring over a concrete barrier, right toward the sedan he was hiding behind. He dove to the ground, scrambling away on his knees and elbows, desperate to reach the cover of a delivery van.

The blast tore through the air before he reached it. Bits of hot metal and rock, kicked up from the explosion, peppered his back with a wave of heat that scorched over his skin. An intense ringing ripped through his eardrums, the sounds of battle fading.

He looked around, trying to reorient himself, struggling against the pain throbbing through his head and back. He could still move his legs and fingers.

“Tate!” he yelled. Thought he did at least.

He couldn’t hear his own voice as he looked between the tentacles of smoke and dust, blinking to refocus his vision. Tracer fire poured overheard. Rounds sparked against the carcasses of destroyed vehicles and pinged against the walls of the apartment building just beyond.

“Tate!”

Then he saw movement, crawling forward over broken glass and stone. Tate was covered in dust but pushed himself up to his knees. Gave O’Neil a thumbs up, shouting something.

O’Neil couldn’t hear him. Just that ringing. He pointed to his ear, then shook his head.

With a signal, he got Tate to follow him to a new position, past the smoking car. They dropped to their knees again, firing back at the enemy. But with those concrete barriers in the way and being forced back from the grenade, they didn’t have clear firing lanes.

One of the Russians had set up a machine gun near one of the transport trucks, too. Rounds tore through the air, relentlessly pounding every position O’Neil tried to take.

He could see other rounds tearing into the spots where Van and Loeb had set up, too. He tried to call over the comms to Delta and Charlie, telling them they needed support now.

But with his impaired hearing, he couldn’t tell if they’d even heard him or were even in a position to help.

All he could do was fire and pray, while occasionally glancing back, looking for the pair of claws and set of teeth that would tear into his team from behind. Wondering when the Skulls would respond to the unyielding din of the intensifying battle.

They needed to end this fight. Soon. Before the Skulls did.

But O’Neil could hardly move from his position without attracting the ire of the machine gunner. He ducked low again, peering through his reflex sight, trying to find where the gunner was without getting his head torn off by gunfire. Rounds punched through the metal of a truck nearby and blasted into the concrete barrier, sending more concrete chips and dust into the air.

Then, finally, he spotted the gunner. The guy appeared to be lying prone just in front of one of the trucks, most of his body shielded by the vehicles’ huge tires.

Getting a shot on the guy would be next to impossible with the other soldiers watching for O’Neil and his team, waiting for them to pop up so they could turn the SEALs into a pulpy mess.

O’Neil’s hearing started to return. The ringing gave way to the throaty bark of the machine gun. He crawled on his belly as fragments of the concrete barriers pounded over his body, tracer fire screaming past.

Then he reached toward his tac vest. Took a grenade from it and pulled the arming ring, keeping his body low to the ground. He stole a glance though the crack between two concrete barriers, making sure his aim was right, then lobbed the grenade over toward the machine gunner.

A second later a blast rang out. Shrapnel flew and rang against the vehicles. A scream of agony wailed out from where the machine gunner had been. O’Neil pushed up from his position and immediately sighted up the writhing machine gunner. Three shots hammered into the guys’ side, and he fell completely still.

Almost as soon as he did, return fire tore into O’Neil’s position. He threw himself low again, finding a new position as Tate covered him.

The machine gunner was dead, but that left a handful of riflemen firmly rooted behind other concrete barriers and vehicles. The smell of death and the acrid odor of burning plastic and fuel stung O’Neil’s nostrils, his eyes watering all the more. He patted his chest, taking account of the three magazines he had left.

They hadn’t planned to be engaged in such a drawn-out gun battle, but the Russians’ early departure and the choking fog had schemed against them.

“Delta, Charlie, where are you?” O’Neil called over his comms again, trying them once more.

“Taking overwatch,” one of the operators called. “Now.”

O’Neil couldn’t see where they were in the apartments above. His sight lines to the auto shop were completely blocked by the smoke billowing off the Typhoons.

But then he heard the familiar whoomph of suppressed rifles, and the crack of snipers taking measured shots. Rounds slammed into the Russians’ positions from above. The enemy troops began yelling at each other. O’Neil saw a pair stand and start running toward one of the trucks. He and Tate tore into the two soldiers, sending them both sprawling forward, their weapons clattering across the ground.

A torrent of supporting fire from the other fireteams broke into the ranks of the remaining hostiles until finally, one of them began yelling, screaming in what sounded like English.

“Hold your fire!” Reynolds called over the channel.

O’Neil didn’t stand yet, cautious that this might be a trap. He kept his finger by the trigger guard, rifle shouldered, aiming at where two Russians had their hands up.

“We surrender!” one said in accented English. “We surrender!”

The two started to emerge, hands held high, close to where Loeb and Van were sheltering behind a small SUV.

“Start walking toward us!” O’Neil called to them. “Hands where we can see them.”

The two Russians did as they were commanded, squeezing between the concrete barriers. Soon as they were past, O’Neil signaled to Loeb and Van. The two SEALs let their weapons fall on their slings and pounced on the Russians, yanking the soldiers’ arms behind their backs and securing them with flexicuffs, then shoving them to the ground, drawing their weapons up again.

They’d succeeded in securing the Russians faster than a Skull could tear the stomach out of its prey.

O’Neil slowly stood with Tate at his back. They crept forward toward the concrete barriers, sweeping them with their rifle barrels to make sure no Russians were still hiding behind them, waiting to strike.

“Barriers on the southside clear!” O’Neil said.

“Barriers on the northside clear!” Reynolds called back. “Three hostiles secure.”

“Two secure here.”

“Casper, ready for exfil at primary extract,” Reynolds called to the choppers waiting on standby. “Charlie, Delta, remain on overwatch. Watch for movers. Bravo, help us clear the trucks.”

O’Neil signaled for Loeb and Van to cover him and Tate while they approached the first truck in the convoy. He and Tate moved through the smoke rolling off the burned-out Typhoon. The smoke stung O’Neil’s eyes, and he blinked to clear them, keeping his stock pressed tightly against his rifle.

No one in the cab of that truck could have survived the assault, but there was a remote possibility someone had survived in the rear, ready to tear them apart just when they thought they’d won.

Tate wrapped his fingers around the doorhandle.

O’Neil stared down his sights. He gave a slight nod.

Tate tore open the door, and O’Neil roved his rifle barrel over the inside of the vehicle’s troop hold. He saw a couple of soldiers’ whose uniforms were charred, their fingers curled and twisted, their flesh burned to a crisp.

“Lead Typhoon, clear,” O’Neil reported over the channel.

He and Tate prowled to the next truck. Checked the cab. The driver’s side door was half open, and the Russian that had been driving the vehicle had taken a handful of bullets to his side and chest. His body was still in his seat, but hanging halfway off, leaning against the partially open door.

They made their way to the rear of the truck. Their boots crunched through the gravel and broken glass. Tate started to peel back the canvas sheet over the rear of the truck’s cargo area.

O’Neil suddenly felt a chill in the air. He realized that between the odor of smoke and burning plastic, the smell of death had grown stronger. Like the air had shifted, carrying with it the scent of a hundred nearby Skulls.

But there had been no change in the wind.

He shivered, wondering if it was just his imagination or the result of that blast that had knocked him on his ass. Or was there something on the back of this truck? Something dangerous that had set off every instinct for self-preservation bubbling beneath his conscious?

Tate peeled back the canvas, revealing a sight that sent ice through O’Neil’s veins.

“Ho-ly shit,” Tate muttered.

They had found the cause of the smell.

-11-

The first objects O’Neil saw in the back of the truck were what appeared to be six oil drums. There was no marking on them, not even Russian, to tell them what might be inside. But he had a feeling it wasn’t oil or fuel or anything else so innocuous.

This might have been a shipment of the Oni Agent itself, transported, ready for deployment. But those six oil drums weren’t the cause of the rank odor or O’Neil and Tate’s shock. It was the three beasts behind the drums that had made them pause.

Three monsters who looked to be in various stages of transformation, their body riddled in bony plates and spikes jutting from nearly translucent skin, vessels and muscles bulging. Two of them snarled as soon as they saw O’Neil and Tate, their ragged noses wrinkling. But their mouths were locked together by steel muzzles. The third beast simply stared at them, hardly reacting at all.

O’Neil had never seen a Skull act so calmly around a live human, but this one looked at him with an expression that seemed to reveal an almost human intelligence. Like it was sad, pitiful. That disconcerted O’Neil more than the huffs of the other two as they lashed out against their restraints, yelling in eerily human voices, the chains pulling on the bolts securing them to the inside of the truck.

One of those chains started to give as the monster pulled on it, the bolt groaning as it began to loosen from its hold on the floor of the cargo area. O’Neil fired at the monster. Rounds broke through the bony plates over its chest, then another punched into its face, its head whipping back.

The monster fell to the floor, blood spreading around it. Another three shots ended the second Skull fighting against its chains.

But the third made no move. O’Neil thought he could see its mouth moving against the muzzle. Maybe it was trying to chew its way out or growling. He couldn’t quite tell, but it almost sounded as if the thing was speaking.

He figured his hearing was definitely screwed up still.

He raised his sights right over the center mass of the creature. Instead of bucking against its chains, the monster seemed to shrink back and shake its head, yelling out not in anger, but fear.

O’Neil fired.

Bullets lanced through the beast. Blood splattered from the exit wounds and painted the interior of the truck. The monster collapsed to the floor with a violent clang. But it wasn’t dead yet. It reached a claw out toward O’Neil, its eyes seeming to stare straight through the tubes of his NVGs. Like it thought he could somehow help it, turn it back into the human it had once been.

The human it could never be again.

He aimed straight at its bony forehead, between the rounded spikes jutting out from its temples. The monster’s eyes almost looked watery, blood trickling out from between its muzzled mouth and the slits that had once been its nose.

“O’Neil?” Tate asked. “You good, man?”

O’Neil fired. Two shots erased the creature’s forehead, and its hand fell to the floor of the cargo hold with a thump.

“Truck clear,” O’Neil said, moving to the next vehicle. “Ruskies seem to have been moving Skulls with their cargo. Be cautious.”

“Copy that,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds and McLean approached the rear of the last truck in line. The two Alpha operators disappeared behind the vehicle as O’Neil and Tate worked their way to the middle truck. O’Neil peered into the cabin. Bullet holes riddled the fractured windshield and the wheel wells. The tires had both been punctured, deflated, and steam rose from the hood where O’Neil assumed they had hit the radiator.

Inside the cabin, he saw no bodies, no soldiers.

He signaled for Tate to move toward the back of the truck. But before they made it a step, gunfire exploded from Reynold and McLean’s position.

At first, O’Neil figured they had spotted hostile Skulls chained inside like he had.

“Eagle down!” Reynolds yelled. “Eagle down!”

Those words struck a knife straight through O’Neil’s heart.

More gunfire burst from Alpha’s position, bullets ringing out against the truck.

Eagle down meant a SEAL had been hit.

McLean.

O’Neil and Tate dropped to a knee, watching for a soldier to come racing out of the truck. Alpha had all the sight lines on the rear of the vehicle, and gunfire continued to burst from their positions in flashes of muzzle fire that struck out into the darkness.

Reynolds appeared again, holding his rifle against his shoulder with one hand, dragging the downed operator from the rear of the truck by the guy’s collar.

“Anyone got eyes?” Stuart called over the comms.

“He just… I don’t know where he went,” Reynolds said. “We got two squirters. They… They’re just…”

Squirters was operator-talk for shooters. But O’Neil didn’t understand why two shooters got the guy’s tongue so tied, even if they had the jump on Reynolds and McLean.

Then the canvas top of the truck tore open. Two dark shapes emerged from the truck, heads brimming with bony horns, claws arcing from their fingertips. O’Neil swung his rifle up toward them.

But they carried their own weapons. Rifles.

Nothing about that made sense to O’Neil.

The two apparent Skulls began firing right at O’Neil and Tate, forcing them to press against the side of the vehicle. Bullets sparked against the truck’s metal frame. From inside it, the voices of other beasts roared against their muzzles, their calls muffled but no less ferocious.

“Two squirters on top of the third truck,” Loeb said.

Gunfire burst from his and Van’s position by the Russian prisoners. Almost instantaneously, bullets lanced back at them, tracer fire cutting through the dark, forcing them behind the nearest concrete barrier.

The two Russian prisoners next to Loeb and Van surged upward. One ran his shoulder hard into Van’s chest. Van slammed the stock of his rifle against the man’s face, snapping cartilage and breaking flesh. The other man pushed past him, starting to run, hands still tied behind his back.

Loeb fired at the guy before he could escape. The second, wounded prisoner, ran toward the monsters with the guns. He seemed to be yelling at them. Loeb swiveled and fired at the man, sending him somersaulting into the asphalt, dead.

The monsters on top of the truck howled in anger and sent a wave of gunfire back at Loeb and Van, forcing them backward.

O’Neil had to stop these bastards before they tore up both Alpha and Bravo. He saw Reynolds still dragging McLean to safety at the other end of the convoy, smoke and fog swirling around him.

“Charlie, Delta, take out those squirters,” O’Neil said.

“Fog and smoke are getting too dense again,” one of the operators called back. “Can’t see clearly enough to take a shot. We’re moving to find better positions.”

Reynolds would be a sitting duck if those two squirters turned their attention on him.

“Tate, cover me,” O’Neil said.

Tate provided suppressing fire, shooting up at the beasts on top of the truck. O’Neil raced around the middle truck where he and Tate had been hiding. Made it to the other side of the vehicle, then adjusted his aim toward the top of the third truck where those hostiles had been.

One of them was silhouetted against the fog, gun pressed against his shoulders. The spikes along his back stuck up, unmistakably those of a Skull. His limbs were lean, bulwarked by plates of bony armor, and his face looked as decayed and monstrous as any beast O’Neil had ever seen.

But the monster had an AK pressed against its shoulder as if it were a well-trained soldier, no different than the Russians.

A beast that could operate a weapon. A beast that had been hiding in the back of the Russian’s truck, waiting for this moment. Operating intelligently, as if it had a plan.

Skulls were no better than a fictional zombie, mindless beasts that operated only with a simple set of instincts: kill and devour.

This thing was working like a soldier, acting like it could think ahead. Like it wanted more than just fresh protein to fill its belly. It wanted to survive. To defend itself and the convoy.

No, no, no.

O’Neil was going nuts. This had to be an illusion. There had to be an explanation.

He squeezed the trigger.

Rounds tore out from his rifle, hitting the beast, chipping away at its shoulder armor and the spikes along its back. The monster went down, and O’Neil turned his attention on the second beast. That monster spun toward O’Neil, firing as it did, forcing O’Neil back to the shelter of a concrete barrier along the side of the road.

The firing from on top of the truck suddenly stopped.

Had he hit both beasts?

He thought he’d just gotten the one, but neither were standing now. Maybe they were both just pressed flat against the top of the truck.

Then suddenly he saw a shape hurtling from the third truck where the beasts had been to the middle truck in the convoy. The monster tore into the canvas top covering the cargo bed, disappearing inside.

“Squirter in the second truck,” O’Neil said. “One still on the third.”

His aim twitched from one truck to the next, waiting to see which one a new threat would emerge from first.

In the distance, he heard the thump of the approaching helicopters. The birds would be here soon, but the area wasn’t clear yet.

“Casper, this might be a hot extract,” O’Neil said.

“We were supposed to do this clean,” the pilot called back. “We need a sample from that shipment.”

“Plans changed,” Reynolds called. “We need an immediate medevac.”

Suddenly a loud rip sounded in the fabric top of the second truck. Four shapes exploded out, all carrying rifles, their bodies covered in plates and spikes and horns just like the first one O’Neil had seen.

None of it made any sense.

All he could do was aim and fire. These creatures had the strength and speed of normal Skulls though. They tore off across the truck, firing at O’Neil and the rest of Bravo and Alpha.

He thought he hit another of the beasts. Saw the blood and bone fleck off in a spray that made the beast tumble. But it recovered just as quickly. All four beasts sprinted away, disappearing into the fog and smoke, winding between the destroyed vehicles at the front of the convoy.

“What the fuck was that?” Tate called.

“Delta, Charlie, four squirters headed your way,” O’Neil said over the channel. “Loeb, Van, cover Tate and me. Tate, rear of the middle truck. Now.”

Gunfire burst out around Delta and Charlie’s positions. They called out potential movers, but they sounded uncertain.

Not good.

O’Neil met Tate at the rear of the truck. He couldn’t help Delta or Charlie until he was sure the trucks were actually clear. That nothing else would be jumping out at them from the vehicles. Soon as Tate ripped open the rear canvas flap into the cargo hold, O’Neil surveyed the interior. He saw another couple of oil drums without labels or markings.

Then he saw the shackles and metal chains along the truck floor. Three empty sets.

That explained where the three new movers had come from.

“Middle truck, clear,” O’Neil called.

He and Tate sprinted for the cabin of the last one. Saw nothing inside. Moved to the rear, where Reynolds had been with McLean.

“I shot one above this truck,” O’Neil whispered. “Might still be inside.”

Tate nodded. “Let’s take that mother fucker down, man.”

As soon as the rear flap came free, O’Neil’s aim centered on a beast sprawled out on the floor of the truck bed. There was a pool of blood stretching from the monster, a rifle lying next to its body. But O’Neil took no chances. Not after what he had just seen. He planted three rounds into the monster, bullets punching into its head.

The beast jerked slightly with the shots, but it made no move to attack him or O’Neil.

“Convoy is clear,” O’Neil said over the channel.

He heard more gunshots from the rear of the convoy where Alpha was. He and Tate rushed around the truck, pressed close against its side, rifles ready to assist Alpha.

“Prisoners tried to fight back,” Stuart said, sounding breathless. “They’re all KIA now.”

“Anyone got eyes on more hostiles?” Reynolds asked.

“Negative,” came the calls from Bravo and Alpha.

“Negative,” a Delta operator said over the line.

The fog seemed to be growing heavier. O’Neil couldn’t even see the front of the convoy anymore. Delta and Charlie’s overwatch positions weren’t going to do much good now.

The roar of the helicopter’s engines was growing louder, though O’Neil still couldn’t see them. He was just thankful that they were on their way. Whatever the hell they had just seen, whatever they had just fought, something was very, very wrong.

Their intel analysts must have missed an important piece of data. Because unless he was going crazy, he had seen Skulls actually using weapons.

Beyond the thrum of the helicopters, O’Neil thought he heard another noise.

Howls. Shrieks.

He looked at Tate. “Is that just me?”

Tate shook his head. “No, man. That’s not just you.”

They were kneeling now at the rear of the third truck. Not far from where Reynolds was trying to cover the downed SEAL with his two other operators.

Reynolds turned toward O’Neil. “I don’t know what the hell just happened but blow the trucks. Blow them all to hell.”

O’Neil instructed his men to start placing the charges they were originally going to use to stop the convoy beneath the trucks. They gathered up all the weapons they found on the Russian soldiers, grenades, magazines, rifles, and tossed them next to the trucks as well.

Back in the Middle East and Afghanistan, they always destroyed the weapon caches of fighters after they had killed them. They left nothing behind that other fighters could pick up and use against them later.

O’Neil wondered if that was what Reynolds was thinking. That maybe the Skulls in Lithuania were somehow smarter, or the Russians controlled them, or some other equally insane shit and these weapons would fall back into enemy hands.

He still wasn’t sure what to believe about the Skulls. But he did believe that destroying these weapons was the right call.

While he set a remote detonator, the helicopters’ engines grew loud enough it sounded as if the birds might finally be above them. They would be taking it extremely slow with the crappy visibility of course, but O’Neil was relieved to finally know they were almost out of Klaipėda. Almost out of this terrible mess.

Because McLean needed help—and O’Neil didn’t want anyone else transported out by medevac tonight.

So when Delta and Charlie came back over the comms, he could not help but feel another cold rush of adrenaline and the painful bite of fear strike through his gut.

“Alpha, Bravo,” one of the Delta operators called. “We got movers. Tons of movers.”

The gunfire came a second later, flashes of light bursting in the fog. Each blast seemed to illuminate a different silhouetted beast. These didn’t carry rifles or other guns. All they had were claws and teeth.

But as O’Neil saw more and more of them slicing through the fog, he knew they were no less deadly.

-12-

“Loeb, Van, fall back!” O’Neil yelled.

As the two backpedaled toward him, they fired at the monsters pushing out of the fog. Beasts crumpled under the onslaught of cover fire.

Reynolds sent Stuart and Henderson to roll one of the oil drums off the back of a truck.

O’Neil kept shooting at the beasts as they appeared. Wisps of fog swirled around their horns and spikes, trailing from the flat fins and barbs poking out of their malformed bodies. Their screams and shrieks cut through the haze, and they barreled toward the sounds of gunfire.

Their demonic voices pierced the low, rhythmic thump of the chopper blades.

“Alpha, Bravo, Casper One, on your position,” the first Black Hawk pilot said.

The rotor wash pushed back some of the fog, clearing the urban landscape around the birds, revealing more of the Skulls tearing toward their position.

“Drop cargo nets!” Reynolds said.

A net fell from the side of the chopper as Reynolds directed Stuart and Henderson to load the oil drum, securing their cargo.

From the front of the convoy, the sounds of battle raged. But O’Neil could make out the shape of the second chopper, moving in to collect Delta and Charlie. He continued to fire at the Skulls, taking measured shots, watching their bodies tumble across the asphalt or collapse onto the vehicles they climbed over.

Shot after shot, he worked through the beasts, side-by-side with Tate. Loeb and Van had moved into a second position, helping to provide cover as Reynolds’s team loaded up the oil drum.

“Changing!” O’Neil shouted, ejecting a spent magazine, then grabbing a second.

They just needed to buy a few more seconds. Then they would have that oil drum secure, and they could load up, get the hell out of here. But that oil drum might not have all the answers. They had another lingering mystery to solve. One that made every bone in his body ache with morbid curiosity. “Reynolds, we need to load the body of that beast in the truck, too.”

“Will do!” Reynolds called back over the line.

O’Neil jammed his fresh magazine home, pulling back on the charging handle, and began firing again. The beasts were making it closer and closer.

One threw itself over a car. It was dressed in a shredded military uniform, its mouth torn open in a vicious snarl as it let out a blood-curdling cry.

For a second, O’Neil expected the beast to drag out a rifle and begin firing at them. Instead, it dropped to all fours and galloped straight at him. He planted several rounds into its body, each hitting with a resounding clunk, breaking through its bony armor. The monster tumbled headfirst into the ground, then flipped over one of its dead comrades.

Despite the sheer number of monsters rushing out from the haze toward them, O’Neil didn’t see any of the beasts trying to pick up a weapon and fire at them. They all just lunged suicidally toward the SEALs, making no effort to conceal themselves from the rain of fire.

“Loaded!” Reynolds said. “Bravo, let’s go!”

“Loeb, Van, now!” O’Neil said.

The two rushed toward the chopper. It hovered dangerously low above the last truck in the convoy. There was far too much wreckage around the convoy for the bird to land. The crew chief and medic aboard the bird leaned out the open side door, hoisting McLean into the bird as Reynolds and another operator supported him from below.

Just as they dragged the SEAL into the bird, a Skull climbed atop one of the trucks and started to sprint straight at the bird.

“Casper, look out!” O’Neil said.

He started to fire at the Skull. The beast pounced, lunging, claws outstretched as it soared at the bird.

The helicopter banked hard away, and the medic, crew chief, and McLean tumbled inside on the deck. The bird dragged the cargo net with the oil drum and the corpse over the asphalt. Reynolds fell back onto the ground, losing his balance.

O’Neil kept firing, his rounds cutting into the beast. It was dead before it hit the asphalt.

But it had been too close. The chopper couldn’t easily maintain a hover this close to the ground with Skulls approaching from every side.

Instead, the chopper moved up toward where O’Neil was. The crew chief let down two rope ladders, one on either side. Reynolds signaled for his men to climb on. O’Neil sent Loeb and Van up the other.

More and more of the beasts shot out from the haze. Some appeared to be in the early stages of transformation, their bones just starting to press against their flesh, their clothes dirty but intact. Others seemed to have been Skulls since the beginning of the outbreak, long spikes and fins blooming from every part of their body.

All barreled toward the Black Hawk in a terrifying rage.

“O’Neil, get on,” Reynolds called over the line.

O’Neil glanced back. Saw Reynolds was on his way up the ladder. Loeb and Van were loaded. It was just him and Tate on the ground now.

“Go,” O’Neil said to Tate. The man began climbing up the ladder as the rest of the team provided covering fire from the bird.

O’Neil started up next, letting his rifle fall on its sling. The ladder swayed under his weight as he took each rung, hoisting himself up.

The chatter of gunfire never ceased as the crew chief helped Tate aboard, then started to reach toward O’Neil. Suddenly he felt the ladder jerk and looked down.

One of the beasts had made it to the ladder. It started climbing up after him, maw opened in a screech, teeth glimmering in saliva. It lunged up each rung nearly twice as fast as O’Neil. Tate turned toward the beast from the open side door and fired. Rounds seared through the air past O’Neil, hammering the monster. But even as it fell, others bounded past it, reaching for the rope ladder.

“Fly!” O’Neil said. “Get out of here!”

The bird started to lift off, the rope holding onto the cargo net growing taut. The rotor wash threatened to pry O’Neil loose from the ladder rung, but he held on tightly, dragging himself up as more beasts grabbed at the cargo net and scrambled up the swinging ladders.

O’Neil finally reached the chopper, the wind and rotor wash beating at his body. Van and Loeb helped pull him into the bird, as Tate shouldered his rifle and tore into a pair of Skulls clinging to the ladder below.

Soon as O’Neil was aboard, he turned back toward the beasts clinging to the net and ladders. Started firing at them, watching them fall away with the rush of bullets ripping into their plates. They hit the ground, splattering as their bony armor burst open.

“Clear!” O’Neil said, chest heaving.

The bird climbed up through the low-lying fog. Beasts still threw themselves at the chopper and its cargo, even as they flew out of reach.

For a moment, O’Neil thought they had escaped the beasts. Then he saw the spark of gunfire near the convoy. It wasn’t Delta or Charlie.

It was those Skulls he had seen before. The ones that had escaped them, now firing up at them. Bullets slammed against the hull of the chopper.

“Squirters, on the convoy,” O’Neil said.

Normal Skulls rushed around the squirters, paying them no heed as the beasts churned toward the escaping chopper. O’Neil wasn’t sure why those beasts with the guns had returned. Maybe to secure their ruined convoy—or maybe to launch a counterattack on the SEALs.

Whatever the case, they had returned more than with just the weapons in their hands. They had returned with the horde of Skulls, almost as if they had commanded this macabre army to attack.

O’Neil let his rifle fall on its sling again and fingered the detonator in his pocket.

“Fire in the hole,” he said.

He squeezed the detonator and pressed the trigger button.

Flames erupted from under each of the trucks, followed by a roaring blast that turned each of them into a ball of raging fire and smoke. That expanding inferno swallowed the vehicles, and O’Neil watched Skull bodies torn apart, blackened in an instant within the spreading flames as shrapnel from the broken vehicles and weapons burst from the explosions. The pressure wave from the powerful explosions pushed back the fog, revealing a landscape filled with monstrous corpses and fiery wreckage.

Those Skulls with the weapons had disappeared somewhere within the blasts.

Dead.

Finally.

He fell back inside the chopper as it banked away, letting the fog swallow Klaipėda again.

The crew chief pulled back the ladders into the chopper as they flew, then closed the side doors.

“Delta, Charlie, you clear?” Reynolds called over the channel.

“We’re clear. All accounted for and flying out with Casper Two.”

“Copy,” Reynolds said.

The medic was still bent over McLean. The operator hadn’t moved at all since they had gotten him onto the chopper.

“How is he?” O’Neil asked, flipping up his NVGs.

Reynolds shook his head, making a fist and slamming it against the bulkhead. “They got him. Those things… they got him.”

“Shit,” Tate said.

“That Skull had a gun,” Stuart said, wiping at his face with the back of his gloved hands. “That thing killed McLean.”

Henderson spat on the floor. “Sons of bitches.”

“McLean didn’t deserve this,” O’Neil said.

Anger swirled through him, followed by a tide of nausea. This wasn’t the first man he had seen killed in action, but it felt no less awful. He wanted to go back down to Lithuanian soil and tear those Skulls apart with his hands.

The Russians had played them. Used those Skulls wielding weapons.

O’Neil prided himself on expecting the unexpected… but he never could’ve predicted a Skull with enough brains to handle a weapon let alone kill a SEAL.

For a few minutes, the team stared at McLean or out of the window. Van’s mouth moved in a quiet prayer. Loeb just kept shaking his head, and Tate couldn’t seem to take his eyes off McLean, a look of pity etched across his features.

Reynolds knelt next to McLean’s body, his hand on the dead operator’s shoulder. Stuart pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes closed, and Henderson had his helmet off, combing his hand through his sweat-soaked hair.

“How did they learn how to do that?” Stuart said, finally breaking the silence. Guy looked like he was in trance, eyes glued to a point only he could see. “It makes no sense.”

“I don’t know,” Van said. “Maybe the Russians fixed their brains. Maybe they figured out how to turn them to act like men again.”

“No fucking way,” Loeb said. “Those couldn’t have been Skulls. I heard there have been other people who used the Skull’s armor like their own. They carved the plates from the Skull’s body and put it over their own. Maybe one of those assholes did this.”

“That’s not what I saw, man,” Tate said.

O’Neil tried to replay the scenes in his mind, tried to convince himself that maybe he was just seeing something. That Loeb was right. They were just humans that had butchered Skulls and used the armor for their own.

But that didn’t explain why the Russians had them chained up in the back.

At least they had the body of one of the beasts. One that O’Neil was certain had been holding a rifle. Maybe the scientists could figure out if what they had seen in Klaipėda made sense.

He wished they had managed to keep one of those Russians alive. He was sure they would’ve had better answers. The mission was still a success from the objectives they’d originally been given.

They had stopped the convoy. They had taken a sample of one of the shipments—and they even had a body of one of the unexplained monsters with them.

No one was shooting the shit this time, though. No one cracked jokes.

Not with one of their own dead.

O’Neil wasn’t even sure that the sacrifice had been worth it now. Their mission to find answers had seemingly ended only in more questions.

“All those Skulls seemed to hit at once, right, man?” Tate asked.

O’Neil nodded. “Right when those squirters ran.”

“That’s the most confusing part of all,” Van said, fingers curling into fists. “It’s like the Skulls were sleeping until after we attacked the Russians. Then they all came out at once.”

“All in one big horde,” Tate said.

“What are y’all trying to say?” Loeb had his helmet in his lap. He wiped the sweat beading on his forehead with the back of his hand. “You think the Russians timed this somehow?”

“No,” O’Neil said. “I know it sounds crazy. But I think the Russians were holding the Skulls back until we killed them all.” O’Neil paused, letting those words sink into his team’s heads. “Then it was like we’d broken the dam. In fact, looking at what we just saw, I think they didn’t just hold the Skulls back. When they knew everything was lost, those beasts with the guns came back leading that army of Skulls. They didn’t want us to escape. They didn’t want us to take the shit we did take.”

“Now I know you’re talking crazy,” Loeb said. “Maybe those beasts were trained to use guns, but commanding other Skulls like the beasts are on their team?” Loeb shook his head. “No fucking way. Impossible.”

“Impossible because you can’t believe it,” Van said, “or impossible because you don’t want to believe it?”

Loeb just continued to shake his head, massaging his temple. “No fucking way. No fucking way.”

O’Neil let out a long breath, listening to the steady thump of the blades for a moment. “If what we saw is any indication of what the Russians are up to, there’s no question they’re behind all of this. And worse, if they can somehow control the Skulls’ behavior, then there’s no stopping what they can do.”

“Every place that’s swarmed with the Skulls might as well already be occupied by Russia—or whoever these people are,” Van said.

Tate spoke in a soft voice like he’d just been told he had a week left to live. “That means all the United States, man, is…”

He let his words trail off.

Loeb straightened. “My wife. My girls.”

“Everybody’s at risk,” O’Neil said. He looked at the medics still clustered around McLean. Felt the pain in his gut from seeing the downed operator. “The world is at an imbalance right now. All we can do is keep fighting. We will make this right. We will stop whatever is going on.”

O’Neil wanted to believe that he was right. That they could make a difference. But if what he had just witnessed was a sign of what was to come in this war, then he feared what would happen to the world if he was wrong.

-13-

McLean’s death hung over the troop. They had flown over European cities and towns left in rubble, where any chance of finding human life was bleak.

The Black Hawks were beginning their final approach to the United Kingdom. Dark skies covered their approach, dumping gouts of rain. A fitting welcome after a tragic mission.

An oppressive silence blanketed the SEALs, and O’Neil could not erase the images of those Skulls he had seen with weapons.

But even so, the trek back to their temporary overseas base gave O’Neil the slightest promise of hope.

They had made a refueling stop on the Spanish navy’s Galicia, a massive landing platform dock ship. For the first time, O’Neil saw with his own eyes that the United States was not in this war alone. The SEALs had been greeted not only by Spanish sailors and citizens that had been pressed into service, but also by Germans, Danes, Italians, and a host of other men and women who had managed to find their way to this ship for refuge.

He didn’t have long to talk to any of them—and he couldn’t freely share details about his mission—but he gleaned just enough from the crew of the Galicia to know other countries were racing to reclaim their nations from the Oni Agent and the monstrous beasts that had sent them fleeing. None of the people O’Neil saw had given up, even when their homes and livelihoods and even their families had been taken.

“It’s good to know we aren’t alone in this fight,” O’Neil said.

Tate bobbed his head. “Kind of makes me think there’s a light on the other side, man.”

“I’m not sure we saw the same thing,” Van said.

“How’d you miss seeing the Galicia?” Tate asked. “That ship is huge.”

Van ignored the half-humored joke. “All those people are on that ship because they don’t have a home. Everything they are fighting for is already gone.”

“They’re fighting for the same things we are,” Loeb said. “To take back their countries. To stop the Skulls. To protect their families.”

“Exactly what I’m saying,” O’Neil said. “I remember those first days, when the world didn’t know what was happening and, one-by-one, every line of communication went dark. We lost track of what was going on outside our homes and cities. Even if those people’s countries are as good as dead, they aren’t. And so long as they’re living and fighting to survive, we will be too.”

“Yeah, man,” Tate said. “It’s always good to know there’s someone else out there to watch your back.”

“I don’t know if any of this is going to be enough,” Van said, thumbing his cross necklace. “Only people I trust are those in this bird and our Father in Heaven.” He leaned forward, eyes narrowed. “And we just lost one of our own. I guess I’m just not in a hopeful type of mood.”

“Christ, bro, you—” Loeb started before Van cut him off.

“Seriously, Loeb?” Van tightened his grip on the small silver cross.

“All right, sorry. Damn, brother. Things are dark, but we will turn them around. You have to be optimistic, or else why keep living?”

Van leaned back in his seat.

The first evidence that night was finally losing its grasp on the world became apparent with the lightening gray clouds.

“Back when I lived in Houston, I met this former LT from the Air Force,” Van said. “Vietnam era. I was a kid, working at my parents’ restaurant, and he walks in with one of those black hats that say, ‘Vietnam Veteran.’”

“I know what you’re talking about,” Tate said.

“I was a dumb kid. So I was worried this guy was coming in thinking he might be some racist with a chip on his shoulder because of what he saw in Vietnam, right? I got all scared, but it turned out he just wanted some pho. I came around when he was about done with his pho, and all he had were kind words for the noodles and broth.”

The chopper started to descend from the rain clouds, heading toward a patchwork landscape of green and brown fields lined with trees.

“He told me he used to eat food like that when he was in Saigon all the time. He missed it, and coming to places like ours gave him a little taste of those memories.”

“What’s all this got to do with optimism?” Loeb asked.

“Because after that, I got to talking to this man. He told me he’d been a pilot and got shot down. He was taken to the Hanoi Hilton. He was in there for nearly five years.”

“No shit,” Tate said, face drawing up in disgust.

“Like a dumb kid, I asked him how he survived that prison. As if he might want to relive those memories. He asked me to guess. I told him he was probably surviving on hope and he must be a special type of optimist to go through that kind of darkness and come out the other side intact.”

“Sounds about right,” Tate said.

Van tucked his necklace back under his shirt. “He told me I was wrong. You know what he said?”

“Tell us, bro,” Loeb said.

“He said it was because he was a pessimist.”

“How’s that work?” O’Neil asked.

“Five minutes, and we’re on the ground,” the pilot called back to the SEALs.

Van continued. “He told me the optimists in the group would keep saying, ‘We’re getting out by Christmas. I can feel it. I heard a rumor. They’ll make a deal.’ Then Christmas would come, and they’d all be there. The next time, it was Easter. Easter was the date they’d all be released. Easter would pass. And it would go back to Christmas. But this guy, this pilot, he figured they’d never get out. He was prepared to spend the rest of his life half-starved, beaten, and stuck in those rotten cells. All the other people would get their hopes up and shattered repeatedly, struggling with massive bouts of depression.”

“I don’t blame them in the slightest,” Loeb said. “But this LT you were talking to… he was, what, content with being a prisoner?”

“He obviously wasn’t happy about it, but he made his peace.”

“So let me guess,” Tate said, “because he expected the worst, when he did get released, he was all the happier for it.”

“I don’t know if I’d say happy,” Van said. “The way he described it to me was that he was just able to live. You know, prepare for the worst, expect the worst, and don’t even bother about hoping for the best.”

“Bleak, bro,” Loeb said.

“Realistic,” Van said. “So I’m not going to get my hopes up just because we saw an international group of refugees working on a ship.”

The rain continued to hammer the chopper as they lowered toward an airfield.

“Van, I’m not going to tell you how you should feel,” O’Neil said. “But that guy, pessimist or not, never gave up on his life. Even in the worst of circumstances, he kept persevering. I don’t care whether any of you all decided to hope for a future where we can watch football and drink a cold beer again or you think the world has already ended. But so long as the four of us are in this fight, our future is not set in stone. The Skulls haven’t won yet, and I don’t intend to let them, got it?”

Tate nodded enthusiastically. “Damn right.”

“Of course, O’Neil,” Loeb said.

Van stared at O’Neil for a few seconds, saying nothing. Finally, he gave a slight twitch of his head that O’Neil took as a sign he understood.

No matter how many other terrifying surprises they ran into on their missions, no matter how many Skulls they faced that had somehow become aware enough to use a damn rifle, he would do everything in his power to see to it that his swim buddies made it to the end of this war.

And that in fact there would be an end. An end where the United States and all its allies achieved victory.

* * *

When the crew chief opened the side door to the chopper, rain was pounding muddy puddles across what looked to be a ramshackle airfield. There were at least a dozen other helicopters and smaller planes—even some civilian ones—lying in rows near a single hangar.

Men and women ran between the aircraft, and O’Neil noticed another pair of choppers already preparing to take flight. Two squads of what appeared to be UK Special Forces were loading onto the birds.

As the Black Hawk’s blades slowed, four jeeps and a pickup truck parked nearby.

A pair of medics ran from the pickup truck with a stretcher and loaded up McLean first. The guy was already pale, looking like he would be cool to the touch. Reynolds, Stuart, and Henderson went with them.

O’Neil couldn’t help but watch them as they were whisked away. Couldn’t imagine what those guys were going through now—and how Reynolds must feel about watching one of his own taken from the Earth.

Another jeep idled in the mud, the driver gesturing for O’Neil and his team.

“O’Neil, you good?” Tate asked. “Ride’s ready.”

O’Neil dipped his helmet. “Let’s go settle in.”

They ducked under the blades of the chopper. Water sprayed over them from the rotors and rain, soaking them in the short jog from the chopper to the seats inside the jeep.

“Welcome to RAF Little Rissington,” the driver said with a Welsh accent. He was a young man, not more than twenty, with bright red hair. “I’m Private Flynn Doyle. Do you all need a spot of food or anything before I take you to your cottage?”

“Cottage?” Tate asked.

“I’m afraid we’re fresh out of luxury hotels,” Doyle said, hitting the gas. No one laughed except for the kid. “Sorry, I, uh, may be a bit too cheeky.” He looked up into the rearview mirror and O’Neil saw the guy’s smile vanish. “Things have been utter shite around here, and, I have to admit, I was feeling a bit more optimistic when I heard the Americans were coming.”

“Optimism will kill you,” Van said.

Loeb shot him a look but said nothing.

The two birds with the UKSF operators were beginning to take off.

“Where are they headed?” O’Neil asked.

“London,” Doyle said. “Whole city is mad with those creatures, but they’ve been carting out scientists and dignitaries and anyone else who the brass thinks might help us put up a fight.”

The windshield wipers continued their steady rhythm as they left the airfield and started into what appeared to be an adjacent small town. The road was lined with red-bricked cottages with yards full of lush green bushes and sprays of colorful flowers, all drooping slightly in the heavy rain.

Mud-soaked men and women in uniform slogged between the idyllic houses. Most looked beaten down, exhausted.

“How much of the UK is still secure?” O’Neil asked.

Doyle looked back over his shoulder. “Not much, I’m afraid. London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow… they’ve all been licked clean of course. There are pockets around a few of the military bases and airfields, like here, hanging on. It’s been a struggle just to protect what we’ve got. Around here in the Cotswolds, we’ve bunkered down and set up defensive perimeters around each small town, but if you get too close to Birmingham, it’s another story entirely.”

He turned down a street paved with bricks. Each house was separated by low-lying stone walls. The razor wire atop them, O’Neil guessed, wasn’t part of the original construction.

Doyle seemed to catch O’Neil staring at the walls and wire. “We’ve got walls up all around Upper Rissington and the airfield. But we quickly learned that you can’t have just one set of walls around a base. Every house here is fortified so if you have to, you can fall back to any one of them and defend yourself from a rampaging horde.”

“Very good,” O’Neil said.

“We’ve been employing the same techniques all throughout the other airfields in the Cotswolds,” Doyle went on. “Many of the airfields were used in World War II by the RAF, then eventually let go. Turns out that we needed them now, so we took them back, one-by-one, out here where the Skulls aren’t so densely packed as they are in the cities.”

He pulled up to a large house at the end of the lane.

“I thought you said cottage,” Tate said.

“I may have undersold the property,” he said. “But this is where you all will be sleeping for the time being. You’ll find your troop commander there.” He pointed to a neighboring house. “That right there is where your operations center is. Any more questions?”

O’Neil shook his head. “Thanks for the ride, Doyle.”

“Any time, mate,” he said with that jovial smile of his. It faded just as quickly. “I’m really sorry about your team’s loss.” He looked away slightly. It seemed as if a dark cloud had passed over his face. “I know what it’s like.” He sucked in a breath. “And I know we all keep getting told to chin up and keep moving, but… well, I’m really sorry.”

Just as quickly as that darkness had passed over him, he regained his composure. The rain continued to patter on the jeep’s roof. The guy’s face scrunched up like he wanted to say something else but wasn’t sure if he should.

“Something else, Doyle?” O’Neil asked.

“Last thing I’m supposed to tell you is that you all are going to be staying here for the long haul. So get comfortable, and if you need anything, give me a ring. I heard we’ve got more of you Yanks showing up in a matter of hours, and you’re supposed to be ready to meet with them soon as they arrive. I heard you might be moving out later today, in fact. I’m not sure I should be saying anything because I’m not supposed to know all these things. But you know, rumors and thin walls and all that. I’m just telling you because you all look as if you need to snag a few winks and I’m afraid you might not have the time if you don’t do it now. Right now, the world needs chaps like you more than we’ve ever needed you before.”

-14-

The interior of the house looked like it had come straight out of some British period piece television show. Just inside a hall lined with an exposed brick wall and wood beams on the ceiling, the bags they’d prepared back in Maryland were waiting near a pot-bellied stove. They picked up their packs and made their way through the house. Tall bookcases adorned a reading room filled with plush leather seats and surrounded by walls stained by tobacco smoke. The kitchen was fully stocked with dishware and a tea kettle on the stove. Flowery wallpaper completing the dated appearance.

All throughout the house, O’Neil saw signs of what life had been like before the war, from periodicals dated just before the collapse to clothes in a laundry hamper that he presumed hadn’t yet been washed. There was a bedroom filled with dolls and frilly dresses; another chockful of posters celebrating Manchester United and others depicting video game characters O’Neil just vaguely recognized.

Cots and sleeping bags had been placed throughout the bedrooms.

“Guess we’re sleeping on the floor,” Loeb said.

“That a problem for you?” Van asked.

“Not at all,” Loeb said. “I’ve dealt with worse. You can give me a concrete bed if I can shut my eyes without being eaten by a Skull.”

“You can say that again,” Tate said, dropping his pack near a pile of blankets in one corner of the room. He shook his head.

Loeb dropped his pack near a cot. “Anyone see a sat phone around here I can use? I’d like to talk to Sofie and the girls, just to let them know I’m okay.”

“I’m going to go see the commander anyway,” O’Neil said. “I’ll check with him.”

As he walked down the hall, he tried not to think about what had happened to the family that had left all this behind. Because in the master bedroom, the one where several desks had been pushed together and a few American Naval officers were conferring over maps and charts of the area, he saw claw marks in the walls and along the doorframe, splintered wood that could only have come from one source.

“LT,” O’Neil said, entering the room.

Smith was one of the officers hunched over a desk. He looked up. “O’Neil,” he said, leaving the desk. “I didn’t realize you already made it inside.”

“Just got in a minute ago.”

Smith let out a long breath, closing his eyes for a second. “I already heard what happened to McLean.”

“Damn shame.” O’Neil paused, suppressing the emotion boiling in his gut that he was too damn tired to deal with now. “We saw stuff that, frankly, I never thought I’d see with the Skulls.”

“I’m planning to debrief here in two hours.”

“You have time now, sir? I don’t want to wait until then.”

Smith looked back at the desks where the other officers were. “I can make time, of course.”

O’Neil told him everything. From the way the Skulls had seemed to leave the area alone when they had made infil to the beasts that had acted like humans after the ambush to the way the Skulls had hit their positions with a vengeance, in a seemingly concerted effort.

Smith nodded along until O’Neil finished. “You know I don’t ever want to doubt what you tell me you see in the field. I believe you believe what you saw, but I want to make absolutely certain before I run up the ladder with this: you really, truly saw Skulls using weapons?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And these weren’t just some people pretending to be Skulls?”

“No, sir. These were beasts using weapons.”

“It just doesn’t fit with anything the scientists have told us,” Smith said. “You’ve heard it yourself. Those Skulls’ brains look like cottage cheese. They aren’t intelligent beings.”

“I understand the skepticism, but I saw what I saw. Everyone in Alpha saw it, too.”

“Delta? Charlie?”

O’Neil shook his head. “Too much fog when they were moving into overwatch. I don’t know if they ever got a look at the monsters we faced.”

“I see.” Smith scratched at his chin.

“I’m telling you, sir. I’m not making things up.”

“First thing that’s going to happen when I tell this story is someone behind a desk tells me you all are traumatized because of McLean.”

O’Neil knew Smith wasn’t trying to antagonize him, but he couldn’t help the heat rushing to his cheeks. “You know that damn well isn’t true. I’ve been through the shit more times than I can count. I can handle myself. My team can handle themselves. This isn’t some group hallucination.”

“I appreciate that,” Smith said. “Like I said, I’ll run this up the chain. This is a first for us. I have to say, I just don’t want to believe it. It could literally change everything we know about the Skulls. Any idea why these monsters were different than all the ones we’ve been fighting back at home?”

O’Neil shook his head. “We brought back one of the beasts I’m talking about with a drum of whatever the Russians loaded up in that convoy. The eggheads can pick that shit apart all they want. Maybe they’ll find out what makes those things tick.”

“Understood,” Smith said. “Good thinking bringing one back. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

O’Neil certainly hoped so. He trusted Smith. But he just didn’t know what would happen to all this information once it left Smith’s hands. The guy was an advocate for them, but even he couldn’t keep all the wheels of the military bureaucracy moving in the right direction by himself. The worst thing that could happen was that this might be forgotten or written off when it reached the intel analysts. That they would dismiss it like Smith had warned as a one-time event and later, these armed Skulls, would come to bite them all in the ass.

“Anything else you need from me?” Smith asked.

“Loeb was asking about a sat phone to call the ladies back home.”

Smith glanced back at the desk again. “I’m afraid I don’t have everything we need to set up shop here yet. We’ve only got the one right now, and I can’t be having guys making personal calls on it. I have to keep it open.”

“I understand, sir,” O’Neil said.

“Maybe after we debrief with the others, the rest of our gear will arrive. For now, rest up. You’re going to need it.”

* * *

O’Neil tucked into a sleeping bag in the bedroom he was sharing with the rest of his team. Rain continued to tap against the window and roof in a soft rhythm. The almost peaceful ambience it imbued belied the horrors beyond the fortified walls of this hamlet in the English countryside.

Already Tate’s snores carried through the room. Van tossed around in his cot. Loeb was quiet, but O’Neil figured the guy probably hadn’t passed out yet. While Loeb hadn’t made too much of a fuss, O’Neil could tell he’d been disappointed by the inability to reach his wife and girls.

Somehow, he was the one person on the teams O’Neil knew who could make a family work. Most of the guys he served with had been through their litany of pissed-off girlfriends and divorces, lost friendships and strained connections with siblings.

Truth was, they had all joined the SEALs because they had felt a higher purpose. A call to duty that most back home had never answered so strongly, no matter how patriotic they claimed to be.

Often, they were given a choice between their careers in the SEALs and their families back at home. They could never say no to the SEALs, to the mission, but they could say no to their families. Missed birthdays, skipped Christmases, and a thousand other moments that could not be replaced all got pushed to the back of the SEALs’ minds when the good old US of A came calling.

Every time they donned the uniform and took a bird straight into the shit, the families were reminded they always came second. Yet somehow Loeb avoided becoming another statistic, another broken family because of the sacrifices he made every day for his country.

When Loeb planted his feet on the floor and got up, walking toward the bedroom door, O’Neil joined him.

“Not much for sleep,” O’Neil said as they descended the stairs to the living room.

“Jetlag,” Loeb said.

O’Neil knew he was lying. They had flown back and forth between the States, Europe, Middle East, and Central Asia so many times, O’Neil had grown accustomed to having a sleep schedule that was about as well-structured as a barn constructed in the middle of the night by a group of drunks who had never touched a hammer before.

But he didn’t bother telling Loeb.

“I’m sure the girls are doing well,” O’Neil said.

“Oh, I know they are,” Loeb said, grabbing a pair of mugs.

Since most of the town relied on generator power, they didn’t have the luxury of making a fresh batch of coffee, so they relegated themselves to instant coffee swirled into room temperature water. Loeb gave one of the mugs to O’Neil.

O’Neil sipped. The stuff was bitter and clumpy. But caffeine and coffee, no matter how stale or unpleasant to the tongue, were still luxuries he knew not to take for granted, especially when on deployment.

“I want to know your secret,” O’Neil said to Loeb.

“For what?”

“For hanging onto your wife and girls,” he said. “Every woman I’ve ever tried to have a relationship with had the same complaint. ‘You’re always gone.’”

Loeb sat at the kitchen table, the chair creaking when he did. “I don’t have a secret.”

O’Neil joined him at the table. “Give it up.”

“Okay, fine,” Loeb said. “My secret. Well, unlike you, brother, I don’t look like a donkey’s bleached asshole.”

O’Neil couldn’t quite muster a laugh, as much as he wanted to, but he grinned. “Screw you, Loeb.”

Loeb looked down at his mug. Used his finger to swirl a few of the stubborn clumps into the coffee. “You want the truth?”

He looked up at O’Neil. The expression on his face made it seem like he had been punched in the gut. O’Neil wasn’t used to seeing one of his brothers in a moment of weakness. He realized he didn’t know how the hell to respond, so he just sat there, quiet.

“Sofie was ready to leave,” he said. “She had divorce papers all written up and served me as soon as I got back from our last real spin before the outbreak. She wanted to take the girls and get the hell out of Virginia. Her parents had even helped pick out a spot for her to rent near them in Spokane.”

Loeb brushed a hand through his messy hair.

“Her flight was scheduled for Spokane from Dulles just three days after they started cancelling all commercial flights,” he continued. “She’s not sticking around with me because she wants to. She’s sticking around because she has to.”

“Damn. Man. I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything, brother,” Loeb said. “Shit just is the way it is, and we deal with it. At least, I get to see my girls. If they had made it out… if they had flown to Spokane…”

“Yeah…” O’Neil said. He knew the story.

Loeb had singlehandedly held off a pack of four Skulls that had tried to rip into his house when his family was still hunkered down inside it. If it weren’t for him, none of them would be alive right now.

O’Neil had little doubt what their fate would have been if they had made the move to Spokane and had only Sofie’s retired parents to try and protect them.

“They’re lucky to have you as a father,” O’Neil said. “You’re a good man, Loeb.”

“Thanks, bro.”

They wiled away the time, talking and drinking their instant coffee until the rain finally settled, leaving the gray sky with a few beams of sunlight poking through. The rest of the operators staying in the house started to filter down, catching up with O’Neil and Loeb.

Once all the SEALs had gathered in the kitchen, Reynolds made himself an instant coffee with the others and held his mug up, drawing the others into silence. “Before we start talking about where we’re going next, I want to talk about who we’re leaving behind.”

The chief looked around the room.

“McLean was a surly bastard, and I can’t remember one time we went to a bar when he didn’t piss someone off,” Reynolds said, starting off the toast.

That got a few laughs.

“But he was our bastard,” Stuart said.

Reynolds nodded. “We all signed up knowing that one day our number might be called, and that’s it for us. That doesn’t make it any easier when we lose a brother, and all we can do is carry on. Carry on for McLean. Carry on because if we don’t make it back, if we don’t wipe all those Skulls from this Earth, then who the hell is going to tell stories about that time McLean cleared a house full of fighters by himself or about the guy who closed out that cowboy bar in Richmond, holding the record for time spent on a mechanical bull, all after he’d already drank damn near a fifth of Fireball on his own?”

“Nasty drink,” Henderson added.

“Only fitting that it was McLean’s favorite,” Reynolds said. “So here’s to our brother and here’s to the Russians and the Skulls we’re going to face. Because God knows, they’re going to need all the help they can get when we come knocking at their door, telling them each exactly what McLean thinks of them.”

“Here, here!”

“To McLean!”

O’Neil joined in the toast as the operators clinked their mugs on the table or counter before they drank.

“When we get back from wherever the brass is sending us next,” Reynolds said, “we’ll make sure the commander sets up a proper service for McLean. I expect every one of you to be there, so don’t for a second think it’s your turn to eat a bullet on this next op, got it?”

Reynolds led the troop outside and to the two-car detached garage that had been set up as an impromptu briefing room. Lawn chairs, metal folding chairs, and even a couple of recliners had been lined up in the garage in front of a generator-powered projector and screen.

Smith was already standing at the front of the space.

“All right, boys,” Smith said. “First off, you did a good thing pulling off that mission in Lithuania, despite those Skulls. If that teaches us anything, it’s that we need to remain flexible and adaptive. I know of no human beings more adaptable and flexible than my teams on DEVGRU.”

He clicked on the computer, and a map of the Strait of Gibraltar appeared, showing the northern coast of Morocco and the southern tip of Spain.

“The situation regarding that shipment you intercepted has evolved. Analysts pinpointed where they think it came from before Kaliningrad and Lithuania. In just a couple hours, you all are headed to Tangier to ensure that no shipments will ever come from that city again.”

-15-

O’Neil felt the familiar electricity of a pre-mission briefing. He tried to memorize every detail of every image Smith showed, along with every word Smith uttered.

In the field, he never knew when seemingly innocuous information turned out to be useful. Like the knowledge of a drainage ditch position might be useful when he needed to move and find somewhere with cover from incoming fire. Or the windows of a building half a block away from the compound they were infiltrating might be the perfect vantage point for a sniper watching the front door.

Complete situational awareness was the key to dominating the battlefield. And if they were going to face both Russians and Skulls and God only knew what else, he needed to know everything he could about the landscape they’d be dropped into.

“Your first objective is Villa Josephine,” Smith said.

Images of a luxurious white villa appeared on the screen with a Mediterranean-style tiled roof and grand red-stone staircases between towering palm trees appeared on the screen. The villa overlooked a pool with crystal-clear blue water. Schematics of the villa’s layout showed a patio and expansive guest rooms with balconies, a smoking room, reading room, and all the other amenities one could reasonably expect at a luxe boutique hotel overlooking the Strait of Gibraltar.

“Of course, things are going to look a little different when you arrive,” Smith said. “We heard reports that the Royal Moroccan Armed Forces tried to use hotels in an adjacent space as staging areas during the outbreak. Unfortunately, we lost contact with our friends in the RMAF a few weeks ago—and that’s the same story we got from our allies in Spain.”

“You believe they’re wiped out, sir?” Henderson asked.

“We’re not sure,” Smith said. “We’ve tried to use what satellite imagery we have available to track if there are any active elements of resistance in the area. Resources are extraordinarily limited, but we believe we did identify armed individuals within the city’s limits.”

Loeb spoke up this time. “Sir, are y’all sure they aren’t Skulls with guns?”

“We didn’t consider the possibility previously,” Smith said. “But after what you all saw in Lithuania, I want you to be prepared for all possibilities. If they are RAMF, attempt to make contact. If they are Russians, we take them down and take them in if we can. If they’re Skulls, then send them back to Hell. Whatever the case, we want to retake Villa Josephine. This will be your staging area and our first step toward securing northern Morocco.”

He flipped to an overhead view of the compound, showing the local neighborhood with its scattered ritzy houses and manicured parks, all situated on the sloping coastline.

“As soon as you secure this area, we’re sending in a platoon from the 75th. The Rangers will help set up a foothold, maintaining security and giving you all backup should you need it, along with a clean extraction. This will also give us a landing pad for any POWs you recover, samples we can ship back to the scientists, and other intel we can pass on without having to rely on the success of a hot extract every time you find something worth sending home. It’ll prevent us from making constant runs back and forth between the UK and Tangier or on one of the Spanish Galicia-class LPDs.”

O’Neil understood the value of having a staging site like that in Morocco. The underlying message was clear, too. They were going to be operating out of Morocco for a while and they were looking for ways to save resources. He wasn’t privy to everything going on in conversations between the brass, but he had to think they were looking for ways to save ammunition and fuel. Because when the US military was in high gear, they tore through those quicker than Loeb through a plate of good ol’ Texas brisket.

Smith continued. “I know you’re probably asking why the hell do we care about Morocco. The reality of the situation is we’ve come across intel that we just cannot ignore. We believe the shipment you intercepted originated from Tangier. It’ll be a few days before we get a full biochemical workup on what was in those drums, but our analysts are increasingly certain the Russians are mostly responsible for the Oni Agent and might be continuing its development in Tangier.”

“Sir, where did we get this intel?” Henderson asked.

“Straight from the analysts back home,” Smith said. “They’ve been working with our allies to piece together the story.”

“So just to clarify, we’re not talking about that merc group again?” Stuart asked.

Smith hesitated. “The Hunters… Yes, some of the operating intel that enabled this mission may have come from them.”

“You sure this makes sense, sir?” Van asked. “Because I heard those guys have treasonous intel experts on board that ship of theirs. The same ship that they stole out from under US military protection.”

The room devolved into murmurs and curses between the SEALs. No one wanted to execute a mission that was based on rumors, much less shaky intel that might’ve been fed by an untrustworthy group. And as many stories as O’Neil heard about these so-called Hunters, he’d never met them to ask what the hell their intentions really were.

Smith held up a hand. “Look, I get it. You all have heard the stories. Our analysts are still working through what happened between the Hunters and our people. But I want to set the record straight here, because when you go to Tangier, I want the only thing you boys are thinking about to be the mission.”

Smith summarized how the Hunters had a long working history with the United States government. He said they had been operating out of a Visby-class corvette, a high-tech stealth ship. Before the Oni Agent outbreak, they had executed ops related to biological and chemical weapons that the US government didn’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole, primarily for political reasons. The group consisted of retired personnel from all branches of the military and a handful of people with experience in the CIA. Their ship had even been outfitted with an onboard lab where a small team of researchers worked.

Operating as independent contractors, they provided the government with plausible deniability. Should the Hunters ever be caught, they would have been completely disowned by the United States. Supposedly all the men and women in the Hunters knew that risk. O’Neil couldn’t be sure whether they were the ultimate patriots or just a group of disgruntled service men and women who thought they could make a quick buck.

Whatever their motives, they had indeed been the first group to provide a technical analysis of the Oni Agent and even develop a stopgap measure to prevent the nanobacteria from spreading if an infection was caught very early on. Still, neither they nor anyone at Frederick had an actual cure or vaccine.

At best, the treatment they had developed worked like the rabies vaccine. Early on, you could stop the disease. With the rabies vaccines, once a patient showed the first symptom, it was already too late.

From what O’Neil understood, that was how the Hunters’ attempted remedy worked, too. Either way, he knew he didn’t like relying on a treatment regimen designed by some mercs that may or may not really work.

After the Hunters handed off this information at Frederick, they were sent on a mission by JSOC. Turned out that people at JSOC still weren’t certain about the Hunters’ loyalty and had taken control of their ship while the Hunters were off carrying out their assignment. Of course, the Hunters got pissed and pulled off a heist, stealing the ship back through a complicated underwater infil. O’Neil hated to admit that he was impressed by their tactics.

Apparently, the intel that JSOC had obtained making them suspect the Hunters turned out to have Russian origins.

“And that’s where our story ends,” Smith said. “The Hunters are out there again with their ship, supposedly procuring intel for the US.”

“Sir, I heard reports they had at least a couple SEALs in their ranks,” Loeb said. “Is that right?”

“I can confirm that there are retired operators from the teams working with the Hunters.”

Loeb held out his hands, addressing the other SEALs. “Who in here joined the SEALs because you wanted to serve your country?”

All hands went up.

“Who in here joined because you knew it was the hardest damn thing you were going to do in your life?”

Again, all the SEALs’ hands went up.

“Who in God’s good grace got the bright idea they were going to join because they wanted to make a quick buck?”

That got a few chuckles, but not a single hand went up.

“Y’all do the math,” Loeb said, sitting back down.

Van leaned forward and clapped Loeb on the shoulder. “Nice idea, but people can change, you know?”

“Sometimes being a pessimist isn’t the right choice,” Loeb replied.

Tate looked between the two as if he was still trying to decide who he should believe.

“I don’t know who’s side the Hunters are really on,” O’Neil said, interjecting before they could carry on their argument. “I do know the Russians aren’t on our side and neither are the Skulls. That tells me exactly where I should be pointing my rifle.”

Smith brought the group together again.

“Regardless of your beliefs about the Hunters, they are not the ones carrying out this mission,” Smith said. “We’re relying on all of you. Once Villa Josephine is secure, you will patrol into the medina of Tangier. We’ll be pulling a special recon mission, figuring out exactly what the Russians have going on at the port. We’re not just going in with recon loadouts, though.”

He switched to an image of the Tangier port on the screen. O’Neil surveyed the rows of warehouses and the freighters full of shipping containers docked at the pier. The whole port facility seemed to be blocked off by a massive wall.

“Our best guess is that these buildings”—he pointed at two square structures on the opposite side of the port from the warehouses—“are where they might be manufacturing the Oni Agent. Reports indicate that these facilities used to house a small pharmaceutical company prior to the outbreak, which seems a likely place to continue the Russians’ bioweapon development and manufacturing. If we confirm our suspicions, your job will be to complete an intel grab, then blow everything you can. We want to know everything that’s going on there—and if it’s indeed nefarious, if this isn’t actually some place where they’re secretly manufacturing a cure for their people and not sharing it—then we want it gone.”

Then he folded his hands together, stepping away from the screen.

“This isn’t just about stopping an Oni Agent distribution or manufacturing facility. According to historical satellite imagery, those ships you see in the harbor were not there before the outbreak. We suspect the Russians have moved them there in preparation for some kind of mass shipment or attack. Your success here just might prevent an unexpected and deadly blitzkrieg from the Russians. Any more questions?”

One-by-one, Smith went through each of the operators’ concerns until everyone was satisfied.

As soon as they were dismissed, they were instructed to make immediate preparations to depart. The group dispersed, buzzing with chatter and discussing their loadouts.

O’Neil started prepping his kit in the bedroom with the rest of his team. “Turns out Doyle was right, wasn’t he?”

“Glad I grabbed that shuteye while I could, man,” Tate said.

“Loeb, you get a chance to call your girls?” O’Neil asked.

Loeb shook his head. “Sat phone was in use again.”

“When we’re back then,” O’Neil said.

“When we’re back.”

-16-

By the time the Black Hawks were soaring over the northern coast of Morocco, the sun had dipped below the inky ocean waters. O’Neil and Bravo were once again on a chopper with Alpha. Reynolds, Henderson, and Stuart sat across from them, but the hold felt noticeably empty with McLean’s absence. It might have just been one operator, but it was still a harsh reminder of what they had lost on the last mission. That this mission would not be any easier.

The only easy day was yesterday, O’Neil thought to himself.

Never seemed more fitting.

“One minute,” the Black Hawk pilot called.

O’Neil motioned to the rest of his team to engage their NVGs. He pulled his own down with a click. The world came alive in a screen of white and green and black. Through the window in the side door, he could see the second Black Hawk with Delta and Charlie racing in parallel with them.

The crew chief opened the side door. Warm Mediterranean air whipped into the troop hold. As the bird slowed, just east from their objective, the other Black Hawk raced southward, banking to drop Delta and Charlie just beyond the villa.

Their goal was to approach the compound in an L-shape, with Alpha and Bravo making up their vertical segment of the L. It was a common maneuver they used when clearing compounds and neighborhoods of fighters prior to the outbreak. O’Neil hoped it would go as smoothly as it usually did then, when all the fireteams were operating in perfect rhythm.

But he had long since learned that no good plan withstood confrontation with the enemy. Especially not with an enemy as wild and nightmarish as the Skulls.

The Black Hawk came to a hover, its rotor wash shaking the nearby trees, sending leaves swirling in the air.

“Go, go, go!” Reynolds called, sending Stuart and Henderson down the fast-ropes first.

They formed a perimeter under the hovering chopper as O’Neil led his men down. As soon as his boots hit the tall grass and wet earth, he shouldered his rifle, scoping out the darkness beyond.

The Black Hawk tore back away into the night. O’Neil heard the thrum of the second bird, then watched it race overhead.

They were alone again, on foreign soil, surrounded by enemies.

“Anyone got eyes?” Reynolds asked.

All the replies came back negative.

Reynolds signaled for O’Neil to take his men through a dense wall of trees and bushes. Alpha covered them, staying just slightly north of their position, moving through overgrown and neglected gardens surrounding the compound.

O’Neil stepped over damp grass and through prickly bushes until they made their way to the pool area. Four plastic chairs were in the pool, floating, covered in algae. The water appeared murky, filled with plant matter and other oozing growths. Planters had fallen across the patio surrounding the pool, wilted plants fluttering, half-buried in the spilled soil.

There was what appeared to be a bar near the pool. But as O’Neil crept closer, he could see the bottles lining the back of the bar—at least the bottles that weren’t broken and lying on the patio in sparkling piles of shards—were not alcohol, but different soft drinks and juices. Those that were juices were now filled with mold and other chunks of disgusting goo.

O’Neil cleared the back of the bar with Tate, then signaled for Van and Loeb to move ahead, checking the wild bushes around the patio for Skulls that might ambush them.

Usually, the creatures didn’t lie in wait, biding their time in silence. They preferred to simply run at their prey, shrieking and howling. But after Lithuania, O’Neil would leave nothing to chance and would never again try to predict Skull behavior.

Just twenty yards to their north, Reynolds was working through the rest of the gardens and toward what appeared to be the pool house and bathrooms.

O’Neil started toward a long drive. A pair of black sedan town cars were parked at the end of the drive before a sweeping staircase that led to the entrance of the villa. The front door of the sedan was open a crack. He thought he could see a shape just barely poking out above the driver’s side window.

He signaled for Loeb and Van to cover him as he made his approach with Tate. They crept toward the sedan. The closer they got, the more O’Neil was certain there was someone in that vehicle watching them. Just peeking over the door.

He had his sights lined up, ready to turn the door into metal shrapnel as soon as this person or beast or whatever it was showed any sign of aggression.

With a gesture, he sent Tate toward the rear of the car. The operator kept his rifle trained on the driver’s side of the vehicle.

Come on, O’Neil thought. What are you doing?

Then he smelled it. The unmistakable odor of carrion left to rot in the sun for weeks. The scent of the Skulls.

He could see the silhouette of the horns brimming around the beast’s head.

Was this thing in fact waiting to ambush them?

He held up his fist. Tate came to a halt.

Slowly, he centered his aim on the beast’s forehead. Maybe the thing was dead. Maybe it was—

Suppressed gunshots burst from the pool house. The muffled gunfire was loud enough to ricochet off the front of the villa. A handful of birds took flight from one of the palm trees, squawking, their wings beating at the air.

“Skulls in the pool house,” Reynolds reported. “Two. Advanced stages of infection. Both dead.”

O’Neil waited a second more, hoping that he wouldn’t hear those words again.

Eagle down. Eagle down.

He prayed that even if those Skulls had surprised Reynolds, the operators had avoided so much as a scratch from the beasts.

“Pool house clear,” Reynolds said. “Headed toward the villa now.”

“Copy,” a Delta operator said. “Southern approach clear. Ready to clear the villa on your mark.”

O’Neil let out a breath of relief and pushed forward toward the sedan again. The Skull inside hadn’t made a single move, despite the gunfire.

In all likelihood, it was dead.

“Possible contact,” he said. “Investigating.”

But O’Neil wasn’t taking any chances. He was close to the door, but there was no way he would just open the vehicle and risk that thing lunging out.

He aimed at where its head should be and fired. The driver’s side window fell away in a rain of glass pebbles. He heard the punch of a bullet tearing through bone and meat, that sickening wet sound he had heard so many times.

Then he pulled open the door.

The beast toppled out over the pavement, bone plates cracking against the drive. Flies burst from the monster’s body in a buzzing cloud. The smell hit O’Neil stronger than before, making his eyes water. Black fluid leaked from the hole in its forehead where O’Neil had hit it.

But the monster didn’t so much as twitch. He kicked the beast in the chest, turning it over.

A haggard hotel concierge’s uniform clung to its body, the cloth soiled and tattered. Long claws curved out of its fingers, and its cheekbones jutted out of its gaunt face. Its eyes had long-since been devoured by some creature or perhaps the maggots squirming over its body.

“Chief,” O’Neil called over the radio. “I got a dead one.”

“You killed it, or it was already dead?”

“Already dead.” The beast’s grotesque body was being slowly devoured by all manners of slimy, squirming insects. There were five bullet holes in its chest and abdomen, where what was left of the flesh was slightly puckered, sticking up through the tears in its clothes. “Someone killed this monster. With a gun.”

“Recently?”

“This thing has been dead for at least a few days. Maybe weeks. Not really sure.”

“This might mean we’ve still got RAMF activity in the area,” Reynolds said. “Or Russians cleaning house. Look out for potential squirters.”

Reynolds’s team joined O’Neil’s at the front of the villa. Their goal was to clear the second floor while Delta and Charlie cleared the first. They would regroup to retake the basement level before calling the all clear.

O’Neil and his team stacked up at the entrance to the villa, Alpha stacking behind them. The front door to the villa was already open a few inches, and O’Neil could smell the odor of mildew and mold. Just from his vantage, he could see the front desk. Blood splatters stained the wall behind it.

“All teams, move,” Reynolds said.

O’Neil led his team through the lobby. In one corner, lay scattered, cracked bones. Bloodstains darkened the ornate geometric patterns of the Moroccan rugs covering the floor. Across the walls, between paintings and photographs in shattered or tilted frames, bullet holes punctured the wood paneling. The glimmer of moonlight through the grimy, dusty windows fell on bullet casings spread over the floor.

Delta and Charlie teams filtered in through the door opposite O’Neil. He gestured for Tate to take point as they moved toward the curved staircase to their left. Their boots smacked against the sodden rug, each step squeezing out water.

At the top of the stairs, they found more bullet casings. O’Neil scoped the walls down the corridor. Between the numbered doors, he saw more bullet holes and casings across the floor. Puddles of dark water spread between those rooms.

O’Neil treaded carefully down the hall with Tate, doing their best not to splash too much through all the water. The teams split up, working in two-man groups to clear each of the hotel rooms. Tate and O’Neil stacked up by their first door.

Pausing a second, O’Neil sniffed the air. The odor of the mildew and mold was ferocious, overwhelming. He thought he could also detect the smell of rotting meat, but wasn’t sure.

Only one good way to see if there was a Skull behind that door.

He signaled for Tate to push it open.

O’Neil swept his rifle across the room, taking in the disheveled bed with its crumpled blankets. Dark stains covered the wrinkled fitted sheet that had been pulled back to a mattress that looked just as soiled.

The door to the balcony was wide open, letting in a cool breeze. Maybe that was the cause of the flooded upper floor.

He and Tate cleared the rest of the room, checking the closet for any lingering creatures. Then they moved into the bathroom.

“Shit,” O’Neil said.

While the porcelain sink was still there, cracked and tilted sideways, there was no shower or bathtub where he presumed there should be. Instead, broken pipes stuck out of the blackened walls like torn blood vessels. There was a hole cut into the ceiling of the bathroom where O’Neil could see the stars. He took a step forward. The floor creaked and snapped as if threatening to break.

There was another hole in the floor, and the mangled remains of the bathtub had fallen into the reading room on the first floor directly beneath this one. While he looked around the bathroom, he saw fragments of bone and fanglike teeth in the corners.

“Whoever was killing Skulls in this place packed more than guns,” O’Neil said. “We’re looking at a grenade blast or some other explosives.”

He heard footsteps below on the first floor. An IR laser cut through the darkness. A Charlie operator looked up at him through his NVGs and gave a brief wave.

O’Neil and Tate retreated to the hall. Entered the next bedroom where they found a similar scene of destruction. What once had been an opulent room for luxury travelers was covered in bullet casings and blood.

He noticed a boot sticking out from behind the bed, then signaled to Tate. They rounded the bed.

There was no body.

Only a single leg ending in shredded, leathery tissue, surrounded by a dark stain in the rug beneath it.

The boot appeared to be military issue. Like something he would expect on an RAMF soldier. What remained of the pants looked like pieces of a blotchy camouflage uniform.

He and Tate crept to the bathroom door. Claw marks scarred the wooden doorframe and wall. Half the door seemed to have been chewed through.

That smell of death only grew stronger the closer O’Neil got to the door. He couldn’t hear anything beyond the creaking of the villa and the persistent dripping of water, but he was almost certain that something was beyond that door.

The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. His body tensed, as if ready for a fight. Those instincts buried in him from years of training and experience in the field seemed to know what to do even before his mind did.

So when Tate opened the door, he was ready for a Skull to come out swinging and biting.

What he didn’t expect was the monster he saw.

It reached up at him from the floor, raking at the air with its scythe-like claws. One of the monster’s eyes was gone, half its face a charred mess. The bottom half of its jaw was completely missing. Bloody saliva dripped from what few teeth it had left. It dragged itself across the tiled floor but couldn’t stand.

It was missing a leg.

The monster’s single eye focused on O’Neil. It took another poorly aimed swipe at him. A long breath rattled out of the remnants of its ruined mouth. O’Neil aimed straight at the Skull’s head and squeezed the trigger.

A round speared straight through the monster’s forehead, flicking its head back, and it slumped to the floor.

“Another dead,” O’Neil reported over the radio.

He and Tate moved back to the hall. A few more sporadic gunshots echoed through the villa. O’Neil paused, listening between each report over the radio of another Skull down.

When the villa was silent again, Tate paused and asked, “Hear that?”

O’Neil froze. “All I hear is the dripping water and gunshots.”

“I swear I heard growling.”

“I don’t hear anything,” O’Neil said.

“Maybe it’s in the basement level.”

“Maybe,” O’Neil said.

They finished clearing the room and headed back to the hall where the rest of Alpha and Bravo were.

“We’ll clean up the bodies later,” Reynolds said. “Let’s go finish downstairs.”

They trailed Reynolds down the stairs into the lobby. Charlie and Delta were waiting around the front desk.

“Basement is split up into two parts,” Reynolds said. “There’s the kitchen and storage, then the dining room. Delta, Charlie, you take the dining area. We’ll take the rest.”

He sent Delta and Charlie on their way toward a staircase on the east wing.

O’Neil and Tate took point down another set of stairs at the west end. Each step creaked. He could hear the quiet scratch, scratch, scratch like nails against concrete. Then he heard a soft groaning.

Tate looked at him and he nodded back.

Yeah, the guy had been right. There was something else in this place with them. Judging by the sounds of it, lots of somethings.

He gulped hard as they came to the door that would take them straight into the storage room behind the kitchens. The scraping and scratching grew louder. The groans drifting from beneath the closer door were accompanied by the unmistakable stench of death.

The rest of the SEALs lined up on the stairs behind him.

A voice at the back of his head screamed that whatever was in that space beyond needed to stay in that room. That opening that door was a bad idea.

But the last thing he would do was back down from the beasts.

Gritting his teeth, O’Neil gave the signal.

-17-

When Tate opened the door, the wave of carrion stink hit O’Neil like an avalanche of corpses. He had thought the odor up in that guestroom was bad, but this was far worse.

The room was maybe thirty by thirty feet, with shelves of cardboard boxes and crates filled with rotting food. Juice from the decaying food dripped onto the concrete floor. A few shelves had fallen at the other end of the room. They were covered in ash. Charred planks from crates were piled next to those shelves.

Part of the wall seemed to have crumbled into the storage space, leaving behind a crater with gravel strewn across the floor from what appeared to be a blast.

And between all that destruction were the twisted bodies of maybe a dozen Skulls. Most were charred, missing appendages like the beast they had found upstairs. They pulled themselves across the concrete with their damaged claws or pushed themselves toward the SEALs with their twisted legs. Their faces were mangled messes of bone and bloody flesh. O’Neil saw a couple whose guts had been torn open, their insides dragging across the floor in a wet pile.

“Oh, fuck,” Tate said.

“Jesus,” Loeb said.

One of the beasts pulled itself upright, letting out a long hiss, its tongue scraping between the teeth left on its upper jaw. The lower jaw was hanging by a stretching sinew.

“Take them down,” Reynolds said. “All of them.”

Gunfire exploded from the SEALs’ gun barrels, striking out in the dark, each blast tearing straight through the half-dead Skulls. Gore splattered from the bullet wounds, painting the walls. In a matter of seconds, they finished the massacre that someone else had started.

The smell of death and cordite and blood hung in the air. They pushed through the wreckage of the devastated monsters. One reached up toward O’Neil, its nostrils flaring. He planted a boot hard into its forehead, grinding it into the floor. The bone cracked and gave way, and the beast’s claws twitched before finally growing still.

O’Neil advanced past the carnage.

He focused on their next goal. The kitchens.

But before he and Tate could prepare themselves near the next door, something slammed into it. The doorframe shook. Dust fell from the ceiling tiles in columns. Roar after roar blasted through the door as it tremored with each heavy bang.

“Stand back,” O’Neil said.

“Alpha, Bravo, Charlie Actual,” an operator called over the radio. “We’re hearing Skulls in the kitchens.”

“Copy,” Reynolds called back. “We hear them!”

The metal door shook again. But this time, when the beast hit, dents pushed through the door toward the SEALs. A crack snapped from the wall around the doorframe.

Then in a billow of dust, the doorframe gave way. The door slammed flat against the floor, smashing one of the blackened corpses. A plume of rotten tissue and bone fragments sprayed from the impact.

The beast that emerged through that dust cloud had massive, tusked fangs curving from its jaw. Its shoulders were covered in thick bone plates that made it look like a linebacker, and its vessels bulged between the plates and massive muscles. The monster let out another deafening bellow before stomping toward O’Neil and Tate.

It hadn’t come alone.

Four more thinner Skulls rushed around it, racing toward the operators.

O’Neil squeezed the trigger, backpedaling, trying to put as much distance as he could between himself and the looming monster. The beast shrieked at them, spittle flying from between its tusklike fangs.

Rounds lanced through the monster’s bone chest plates. Each connecting round sent a shower of bony shards. Diseased flesh burst from the wounds. And still the enormous monster charged, closing the distance in just a few bounds as O’Neil emptied round after round into it.

He traced his aim up the creature’s body. Each shot broke into the beast’s organic armor. But whether the monster was carried by sheer predatorial hunger or momentum, he could do nothing but jump out of the way as the rest of the SEALs fired, each shot flaring in the dark room, the sound of gunfire echoing against the walls.

O’Neil landed hard on the floor, crashing down in the middle of a dead Skull, its body breaking around him, oozing flesh sticking to his uniform. Pain rocked up his elbow where it hit the concrete, and he pushed himself backward, using his feet, roving his aim back toward the monstrous Skull.

The beast crashed into Van, pressing him against the wall. it reared back with one of its claws, ready to strike down at the man.

O’Neil sighted up the monster’s head. Fired off a quick burst that drilled into the side of its head.

The monster’s claw dropped, and Van shoved it backward. It crashed into another Skull, crushing the beast as they collapsed to the ground.

While two of the other smaller Skulls had been eliminated with gunfire, the last one had reached Loeb’s position. It bit at him, snapping at his face, teeth coming inches from tearing a chunk from his cheek. He pushed it back with his rifle. The creature snapped its teeth down around the gun.

Van had already twisted to help. His rifle fell on its sling, and he pulled out his HK45C. He aimed the pistol into the side of the Skull’s head and pulled the trigger until the beast dropped.

Alpha was still positioned on the stairs, aiming at the doorway to the kitchen. O’Neil thought for a moment that they had killed the last beast hiding in the kitchen. That though they had been damn close to losing control of the situation, they had pulled through.

A violent shriek proved him wrong.

Another Skull came rushing through the broken doorway, hands outstretched behind it, claws ready to slice through the first person it met. The beast ran straight toward the stairs where Alpha was opening fire. More beasts poured through the doorway, dressed in the remnants of cooks’ uniforms or name badges and tattered suits; others were nearly naked, wearing nothing but their gray flesh and bony growths.

Each pushed against the hailstorm of lead. Their screams rivaled the din of the responding gunfire. O’Neil did his best to sight the creatures up and fire in the enclosed, crowded environment. Tried not to slip again on the basement floor. But the concrete was growing slick with the sloshing blood and bodily fluids spilling from the slaughter.

The beasts fell over each other, crumpling and shrieking, their howls pounding against O’Neil’s ears. It took every ounce of self-control to maintain his cool, taking the beasts out before they reached him or his team.

Time seemed to slow with each successive shot and charging Skull. The monsters came at them in a relentless wave, threatening to wash them all away.

It might have only been a few seconds, but to O’Neil, it seemed to stretch to an eternity. He had never seen so many Skulls packed in such a tight space.

He lost count as the creatures streamed through. Nothing he had trained for prepared him for this. His heart slammed against his ribcage with a violent fury, his vision tunneled down to his sights.

He ignored all the primal instincts in the back of his mind screaming that he was going to die. That his whole team was going to die.

Panicking wouldn’t save them now.

They just had to survive one second. Then the next.

His bolt locked back, his rifle clicking. He didn’t have time to change his magazine. Just let the rifle drop on its sling and pulled out his sidearm. He kept squeezing the trigger, the pistol bucking in his hand.

When the slide locked back, a Skull pounced on him, its teeth gnashing, claws raking for his face. He fell back against the wall, pressing one hand up against the monster’s chin, holding its face back.

Every time the monster slashed at him, he squirmed and dodged. The claws hit the concrete wall, breaking with each impact.

O’Neil struggled to keep the monster from tearing into him. All he could think about was the fact that it would just take one strike, one scrape, and he would be infected, too. He would slowly turn into one of these abominations.

And if his team came away from this alive, if they managed to escape with their lives intact, then he would be a ticking time-bomb. A monster himself. He could not bear the thought that he might inadvertently be responsible for their deaths because the disease took hold of him, preventing him from helping them.

Or worse, as a Skull, he might kill them himself.

He reached toward the sheath on his thigh. His fingers hit the handle of the KA-BAR. Managed to pull it out, then stab upward at the beast. His first strike slipped. The blade glanced off the overgrown bone buttressing the beast’s jaw.

The monster snapped at him again, and he jerked his head away. The beast’s teeth closed around his collar, pulling at it. The fabric tore as the monster pulled O’Neil closer to him. When the beast reared back, bits of fabric caught between its teeth, O’Neil jammed his knife straight into the monster’s open mouth. The blade punched through the back of the creature’s throat, blood gurgling out, splashing over O’Neil’s chest.

He kept pushing as the monster bit down on the knife, then used all the strength he had in his legs to drive the creature backward, pushing it, using the knife to guide the monster until he slammed it into one of the shelves. Rotting food tumbled over the creature. He twisted the knife inside the beast’s mouth until he felt the snap and pull of breaking tissue. Kicking the creature hard in the abdomen, he pulled the knife out.

The beast collapsed against the shelf, making it teeter more wildly this time. Crates and boxes crashed over the Skull. Decaying food and piles of canned goods spilled over the monster’s body.

O’Neil turned. Bits of Skull and blood and food-matter dripped off his uniform. He ran at the first Skull he saw, a beast attacking Tate. He slammed his knife home right into the side of the monster’s head. His blade punched through the cavity where its ear had once been. As blood streamed from the devasting wound, he shoved the creature to the ground.

Tate gave him a nod, and together they moved onto the next creatures.

With the combat quickly turning to a hand-to-claw struggle, O’Neil left his rifle on its sling and his dropped pistol somewhere in the mess of Skull parts. They simply couldn’t risk firing in the enclosed space. Couldn’t risk hitting one of their comrades. He and Tate worked to help Van and Loeb, cutting into the Skulls. Then they pulled off a monster pinning down Reynolds. They caught the beasts attacking Stuart and Henderson from behind, tearing into them with blades.

Until finally, they had cleared the room of monsters.

O’Neil’s chest heaved as he looked around the room, blade at the ready, waiting to see if any of the creatures on the floor dared push themselves back up to fight.

But the only thing moving was the blood trickling between their boots and streaming between the broken bodies of the dead creatures.

“Anyone hurt?” O’Neil asked.

The SEALs checked themselves over, taking a moment to ensure the adrenaline hadn’t numbed them from any lacerations that would spell their mad descent into becoming one of the beasts.

“All good,” Tate said.

“Same,” Van said.

Loeb rolled down a bloody sleeve, then let out a long sigh. “I’m all good, bro.”

Reynolds patted himself down. “All that blood is from the beasts.”

Henderson and Stuart were clean, too.

O’Neil finally slid a new magazine into his rifle, keeping it aimed at the kitchen door. “Cover it.”

Loeb, Van, and Tate positioned themselves in front of the broken-down door. Stuart and Henderson moved into the storage room behind them as O’Neil recovered his pistol.

“Alpha, Bravo, you good?” A Delta operator said.

“We’re good,” Reynolds said.

“That was a firestorm.”

“No fucking shit.”

“Dining room is clear,” the Delta operator said.

“Copy that,” Reynolds said. “Securing the kitchen.”

Reynolds signaled for the team to move into the kitchen. When they spread out among the stainless-steel appliances, they were met with the intense odor of rot strong enough O’Neil’s eyes began to water again. He fought the urge to retch. But no Skulls. Seemed like they had successfully gotten every beast stuck in that kitchen to come charging at them.

O’Neil spotted marred human bones scattered around the kitchen floor.

“What’s this?” Tate asked, nodded at an old, busted AM/FM radio in the center of the room. It had claw and teeth marks gouged into the plastic.

“Maybe that’s how someone got all these beasts down here,” O’Neil said.

“Smart,” Van said. “Lock them all down here.”

“They could’ve been nice and burned the whole place down though,” Stuart said.

“Much prefer that instead of forcing us to act like fucking zombie exterminators,” Henderson added.

“We’ll let them know when we see them.” Reynolds nodded toward a stainless-steel door at the back of the room. “Hold up on that. O’Neil, Tate, take that walk-in.”

O’Neil positioned himself outside the walk-in cooler with Tate.

“If we got one more surprise in this place…” O’Neil started, letting the words trail off.

He nodded at Tate. The door opened.

Moldy meat covered a stainless-steel table and the shelves at the rear of the room. In one corner, he saw a pile of blankets. A person huddled beneath them.

But the person didn’t so much as look up at them. Didn’t move at all. Maggots crawled over their flesh, squirming from their eye sockets and nostrils, their flesh dark black.

“Shit,” Tate said. “Walk-in clear. One dead. Probably for a good month or more.”

O’Neil lowered his rifle, and the team made their way out of the kitchen into the dining room where Delta and Charlie were. There were a handful of dead Skull bodies in the corner. Freshly dead, judging by the blood leaking from their chest wounds.

But nothing compared to the horde Alpha and Bravo had faced in the storage room.

“All clear,” Reynolds said. “I’d say we can start cleaning some of this mess up for the Rangers, but I think we’ve done the hard work. Got to leave something for them when they get here.”

“Amen to that,” Van said.

“Command, Alpha Actual,” Reynolds called over the radio. “Target Victor Juliette is secure. I repeat, Victor Juliette is secure.”

“Copy that,” a comm officer’s voice replied. “Flight en route with the Romeos.”

“Let’s get topside and keep the place clear,” Reynolds said. “I don’t want any—”

The floorboards above them creaked. Sounded as if someone was taking slow, deliberate steps in the hotel lobby.

“Son of a bitch,” Tate whispered. “They just never stop.”

-18-

O’Neil volunteered to take Bravo up to investigate via the main stairs leading to the villa’s lobby. Reynolds took Henderson and Stuart toward the stairs they had taken to the storage room. Delta and Charlie split up to provide support for the two teams.

Soon as O’Neil made it up, he aimed his rifle through the darkness toward where they had heard the footsteps. He could see a shape moving in the dark down the corridor, headed straight toward Alpha’s position.

O’Neil stepped out as quietly as he could, doing his best to control his breathing. The person or Skull or whatever he saw moving toward the other stairway appeared to be trying to be just as discreet. That told him he was at least not facing one of the normal Skulls—not a rabid aggressive monster like they had just faced.

His target paused against the wall, and now that he was close enough to see clearly down the hall, he could make out the AK-47 that the person carried. He saw no signs this person was infected either. They wore what appeared to be hiking pants and a jacket. Looked to be a man with a long beard. O’Neil thought he could even hear the man breathing heavily. Like he was nervous. Scared.

Was this an RAMF soldier on his own? A scout maybe?

Might even be a Russian recon soldier.

He wasn’t sure, but he did know he had a lot of questions. And this guy, who had conveniently showed up, might have answers.

It couldn’t be a coincidence that the guy just rolled into the villa after they’d torn through a pack of wild Skulls.

Hell, maybe this was a trap. Maybe this guy had set them up.

He strode toward the man, rifle aimed at the guy’s chest.

“Put your weapon down,” he said.

The man jumped, then froze, turning toward O’Neil, the rifle still in his hand.

O’Neil’s finger shot toward his trigger. “Put your weapon down!”

The man backed up against the wall, mouth moving, but saying nothing.

O’Neil started to squeeze the trigger. But just before he was about to fire, the guy dropped his rifle, raising his hands high.

“Tate, Loeb, Van, secure him! Now!”

O’Neil never moved, keeping his rifle trained on the guy. Daring him to make a move.

“Am… Am… Am…” the guy mumbled as the SEALs swarmed him, pushing him to the ground, kicking his rifle toward O’Neil, and securing the guy’s wrists behind his back with flexicuffs.

Van patted him down, removing a pair of magazines and pistol that had been stowed in the guy’s waistband. Without his weapons, he looked like nothing but a lost beggar.

“Found a mover,” O’Neil called over the comms. “Target is secure.”

“Copy that,” Reynolds said. “We’re going to make another sweep.”

Van and Loeb pressed the guy against the wall, keeping him in a seated position.

“You come alone?” O’Neil asked.

“Am… Am…. Americans,” the man finally said as if his brain had come unlocked. “Americans. I did not think you would be here.”

His English came out with a thick Moroccan accent, but it was clear enough for O’Neil to understand.

“Yeah, we’re here,” O’Neil said. “And you understand the words coming out of my mouth, right?”

The man nodded enthusiastically. “I can understand very well. Yes, I can understand. Please, my friend, I did not come to hurt you.”

“What’s your name?” O’Neil demanded.

“Khalid. Please, I am a friend. I promise.”

“You came in with weapons. Not very friendly.”

Khalid’s eyes went wide, brows arched. “You have faced the djinn. How would I go anywhere without weapons?”

“Djinn?” Tate asked.

“The demon creatures.”

“News for you,” Van said, “they’re not demons. They’re completely Earthborn.”

“I know this,” Khalid said. “We call them djinn. What else would you call them?”

“Skulls,” O’Neil said. “I’m interested in hearing what the Russians say.”

“The Russians?”

“Come on. Don’t play dumb.”

“Look, I know where the Russians are. We have seen them. But we don’t talk to them.”

“Why?” O’Neil asked.

Before Khalid could answer, footsteps sounded behind them. O’Neil turned to see Reynolds striding his way. “Stuart and Henderson are posted up. No more movers lurking around here. Seems like he did in fact come alone.” He paused in front of Khalid, looking down at the bearded man. “What are we going to do with you?”

Khalid’s bottom lip trembled. “Are you taking me prisoner?”

“Should we?” Reynolds asked.

“I am not… I was telling this man I am your friend. We all are.”

“‘We’?” O’Neil asked. “Who’s ‘we’?”

“I will tell you everything, my friends,” Khalid said. “I will be honest. I swear by Allah, I will tell you everything I know.”

“You believe this guy?” Reynolds asked O’Neil.

Khalid watched them intently, eyes darting between O’Neil and Reynolds.

O’Neil shrugged. “Let’s hear what he has to say.”

Khalid shifted, leaning forward. Van and Loeb aimed their rifles at him. “Thank you, my friend. That is all I ask.”

“Go on then,” Reynolds said, looking at his watch. “We’ll have visitors very soon that will be more than happy to take care of you if we don’t like your story.”

“Yes, yes, where do I begin? With the outbreak? With the fall of Tangier? With—”

“Tell us why you’re here first,” O’Neil said.

Khalid seemed to calm down. He spoke more slowly now that he seemed to understand they weren’t simply going to put a bullet through him and throw him back outside. “There is a small group that I belong to.”

“Military?” Reynolds asked.

“Some of us,” Khalid said. “Many of us are just survivors. We have defended a few, how do you say, bases? Strongholds?”

“Sure,” O’Neil said.

“We have established these places of safety throughout the city. We have learned to move quietly and quickly through what is left of Tangier to find food and supplies.”

“How many of you are there?” O’Neil asked.

“In our group, maybe… I am not so sure anymore. We lost contact with one stronghold on the eastern part of the city. We were, at one time, numbering in the hundreds.” His eyes traced the floor. “That is not true anymore. What is true, I swear it, is that I was patrolling this area in search of survivors and supplies. I heard your helicopters, then followed them. I saw they did not look like the Russians.”

“Well, that’s accurate,” Reynolds said.

“Yes, yes, very different than the Russians. My brother, he was a soldier. He trained with Americans. He told me all about them, and I knew what your helicopters looked like. I thought maybe America had come to save us. Maybe your military would be here to push back the djinn.”

Reynolds let out a huff. “I wish I could tell you that was the case, but what’s happening to Morocco isn’t unique. It’s just as bad around the globe.”

“That is what I feared.” Khalid closed his eyes for a moment. “I have prayed for peace every day since the first djinn appeared in Tangier, and my prayers have continued to go unanswered.”

“I know the feeling,” Van said.

“So you saw our birds and then decided to investigate,” O’Neil said, trying to get the man back on track.

“Yes, that is true. I hoped to open communications with your people. I wanted to offer any aid that my people could give to take back our city.”

“I see.” Reynolds paced behind O’Neil. “And how many people of yours are armed?”

Khalid furrowed his brow. “All of us.”

“You said not all of your group was military.”

“That is true. You must understand, we have been recovering supplies and weapons left behind when our military was overwhelmed by the djinn. I regret to say we have more weapons than people now.”

“You mentioned you saw the Russians in Tangier,” O’Neil said. “Do you know what they’re doing here?”

Khalid shook his head. “We once sent a group of three people to contact them. They never returned. We tried again. This time I went to provide support from a distance. The Russians welcomed our people into the port as I watched.”

“They didn’t know you were there?” Reynolds asked.

“No, my role was only to ensure they made contact safely and to understand what the Russians might be trying to do. I waited two days, alone, in a riad with a view of the port. But I never saw our people that went in with the Russians again.”

“Did they kill them?” O’Neil asked. “Take them prisoner?”

“I cannot tell you of their fate. I was forced to leave when more djinn moved into the area. I feared I would not survive for much longer if I stayed.” His eyes seemed to glaze over. “But I can tell you I heard screams from the Russian base. Screams that did not sound human.”

O’Neil looked back at Reynolds. “What do you think? This guy telling the truth?”

“I am,” Khalid said. “I swear.”

“I say let him keep talking,” Reynolds said. “I want to know about this Russian base. You’re talking about the port.”

“Yes, the port. The Russians took control of the port. They moved big boats into place, and they fortified walls all around it. They have also set up weapons along those walls.” Khalid paused. “It is very strange though.”

“What?” O’Neil asked.

“They have weapons around their base, but even though I saw many djinn in the streets, I never saw any djinn try to enter the Russian base.”

“They gave up trying to climb those walls you’re talking about,” Reynolds offered.

“No, no, no, my friend. The djinn never give up. There is no wall that can stop them. Only death stops them.”

“And no one you know has been inside the port and come back,” O’Neil said.

“No, not while the Russians have been there.”

“And how do you know they’re Russians if no one has been inside and returned?”

“We have heard their voices when we first approached the port, before we tried to make contact. We saw their weapons and the helicopters they used. Those in my group with military experience told us they are definitely Russian.”

“You swear?” O’Neil asked.

“I… I suppose I cannot be sure personally, but I have no reason to believe my brothers are lying to us.”

Reynolds motioned O’Neil to step away from Khalid. They left him under Tate, Van, and Loeb’s watch in the hall as they moved to the lobby.

“Do you buy his story, Chief?” O’Neil asked Reynolds.

“Frankly, I’m not sure what to believe anymore. Everything he said at least sounds plausible. It jives with our intel, too.”

“I agree. But it’s awfully convenient he just shows up here after we do. And he offers up information on the Russians, certain they’re Russians, but how would he really know?”

“What are you saying?”

“What if he’s a plant? What if he and his people—hell, maybe his people don’t even exist—are working with the Russians. They might have made contact like he said, and maybe they’re just stooges for the bad guys.”

Reynolds scratched at his chin. “Khalid’s got a strong accent. I assume it’s Moroccan, but we did hear rumors Iran might have been involved with Russia. If that’s true… maybe this guy isn’t Moroccan. Maybe he’s working for Tehran.”

“Maybe. There are too many unknowns here. I want to believe the guy. I want to think maybe we have friends in Tangier.”

“It’s beyond us to make that judgment call,” Reynolds said. “When the Rangers arrive, we’ll let them take Khalid into custody. We’ll try to get all the intel we can out of him, but there is one thing I do know now—we are not letting him back out into Tangier. We do not need the Russians or his group or whoever else is out there knowing we’re here.”

“You think he already warned his people?” O’Neil asked. “We didn’t find a radio or anything on him. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t discard one somewhere.”

“Good question,” Reynolds said. “Regardless of whether he sent a warning or not, we’ve got to move forward quickly. The only thing worse than the Russians coming out to look for us is them getting away. Whatever it takes, we are not letting that happen.”

-19-

The platoons of Rangers arrived only a couple hours after O’Neil and the SEALs cleared Villa Josephine. As the soldiers cleaned up the mess of Skull corpses and set up defensive positions around the compound, O’Neil went over the mission plan with his team.

Khalid had provided some information on what kind of defenses they might expect at the port. Based on what the guy said, trying to get past the walls filled with machine gun nests would be extraordinarily difficult.

Instead, they would be doing what they did best. Approaching by water.

O’Neil and the others tried to get as much sleep as they could with the Rangers on guard duty. By the time night fell again, Reynolds had gathered the SEALs near the front drive of the villa. Stars studded the night sky. The moon was nearly non-existent, leaving their surroundings bathed in almost absolute darkness.

While that would reduce the effectiveness of their NVGs slightly, that lack of illumination boded well for the SEALs’ mission. O’Neil always preferred operating under the cover of a moonless night, when their enemies, Skulls or otherwise, hampered by the choking darkness.

Tonight would be no exception.

O’Neil carried a rebreather mask and tank along with NVGs, his suppressed rifle, a waterproof camera for intel gathering, and his share of explosive charges. Van had the team’s sledgehammer, and Loeb carried their bolt cutters. As was tradition, the newest guy, Tate, had their collapsible telescoping tactical ladder, the most cumbersome gear. An operator on fireteam Delta had the group’s handheld surveillance drone packed in a dry bag.

O’Neil never knew if they would need all those tools when they went on a special recon or direct action mission, but he always knew that if they didn’t have one when they needed it, they sure as hell would regret it.

“All right, boys,” Reynolds said, addressing the troop. “You all know the mission. From what we learned from our Moroccan guest, nothing is dramatically different from what we expected, with one caveat. There may be prisoners within the facility.”

To O’Neil, that was a huge fricking caveat. It meant that they couldn’t just blow the whole base to atoms and throw their explosive charges everywhere they damn well pleased. Sure, the rules of engagement had been altered when they had been fighting mostly Skulls instead of people, but now, with real human enemy combatants back in the game and the potential for innocents to be caught in the crossfire, the situation had changed.

Reynolds didn’t have clear answers from the brass on how they should treat the Russians they found in the facility nor what they should do to prevent needless civilian deaths, but he had told the SEALs that they would operate how they always had—with professionalism, no different than when they had been in Afghanistan.

With two squads of Rangers covering them, they patrolled north through the ruined neighborhood. They passed other luxury villas and boutique hotels. The walls separating the properties were often pocked with bullet holes. Spent bullet casings covered the streets and filled the gutters, where chewed-up bones stuck out of the grimy muck. Distant howls from hunting beasts drifted over the otherwise quiet city, only accompanied by the occasional tug of the breeze through the palm fronds.

They saw plenty of cars that had been abandoned. Some with corpses still inside them; others with broken windows and scratch marks peeling at the vehicles, the passengers and drivers’ bodies nowhere to be seen.

Every time they heard a snap or crunch, they paused, waiting to ensure no Skulls prowled across their path. At one point, O’Neil thought he even spotted a stray cat. It disappeared almost as soon as he set his NVGs on the animal.

It was a wonder the thing had survived so long when every Skull he had ever come across was far from picky when it came to its choice of a protein-based meal.

They made it to the main road, the Route de la Plage Merkala, without incident. As they drew closer to the medina and the Tangier port, the road became even more clogged with vehicles. Many were blackened or covered in bullet holes.

Water lapped against the coast. The rhythmic growl of it breaking against the rocky shores provided ample cover as they crunched over gravel and broken glass. Reynolds held up a fist, drawing the SEALs and the Rangers to a halt.

O’Neil looked ahead to see what had caught the chief’s attention. There appeared to be two large military trucks that had been parked perpendicularly to the street to block the flow of traffic. On both sides of them were light armored vehicles—Panhard AMLs. O’Neil recognized the French armored cars. They were cheap, relatively efficient, and maneuverable. But neither of the cars, with their long 90 mm cannons, appeared to have done much good against the Skulls.

As they slowly approached the barricade, O’Neil counted the skeletons of at least thirty soldiers who had been torn to pieces by the Skulls. Their bones were covered in teeth marks. Many were broken, their marrow sucked dry. Weapons lay next to several of the ruined skeletons, and tattered bits of camouflage uniforms fluttered with the salty breeze coursing in from the Strait.

Beyond the failed military barricade, O’Neil saw the curve of the first jetty. The manmade strip of large stones and concrete tetrapods protected docks filled with smaller vessels. He could just make out the silhouette of yachts and tugboats. Beyond those docks, the rest of the port was shielded by large concrete and metal-paneled walls that appeared to be topped with razor wire.

“That’s our cue,” Reynolds said. “Mask up, fins on.”

As the SEALs donned their SCUBA equipment, the Rangers spread out to establish a defensive perimeter. The howls of monsters hunting within the city carried over the buildings and streets. It sounded as if more and more voices were joining the calls every minute.

O’Neil wondered if the monsters had found one of Khalid’s friends.

They navigated over the rocks to the water. Each frothy wave slapped them with a dose of biting cold. As he stepped deeper, he started breathing through his mask and rebreather, then let himself drop into the dark waters. He slipped on his fins, propelling himself further from the shore and bobbed next to the rest of the team.

Reynolds waved at the Rangers, and the soldiers began their trek back toward the villa.

O’Neil uncoiled a line that he had been carrying, letting each of the SEALs on his and Delta’s teams grab hold. Reynolds took a second line to lead Alpha and Charlie.

Then at Reynolds’s signal, they dove. Without the benefit of moonlight to pierce the black waters, they could hardly see each other much less the depths below.

O’Neil kicked, feeling the tug of the other divers behind him on the line. This was the best way for them to stick close together. Otherwise they were liable to lose each other blindly kicking through the waves.

They also didn’t want to risk swimming at the surface where an observant guard might spot them—or worse, a hungry Skull. So instead of navigating with sight, O’Neil had to rely almost entirely on a combination of his diving gauge to measure how deep they were and his ruggedized GPS to ensure they were roughly on course to entering the port.

Besides looking at his gauges, he might as well have been swimming blind.

The journey reminded him of a particular training exercise in Washington. One where he and his team had been assigned to plant mock explosives on a ship in the middle of Skagit Bay, north of Seattle. A mixture of navy sailors and army grunts were supposed to be on the lookout for them, equipped with spotlights and acoustic sensors to detect their approach.

O’Neil hadn’t been afraid of his fellow service members. He had been confident in his team’s abilities to evade them. But as they dove through the darkness, blindly hanging onto a line just like now, his mind kept returning to what a fellow SEAL had told him earlier that day. There had been reports of orca activity in the same area.

Logically, he knew there were no records of a killer whale attacking a human in the wild. But he couldn’t help thinking that the SEALs looked like, well, seals. That he probably seemed like a slow, wounded version of one of the orcas’ favorite snacks.

He would never hear or see one of the creatures coming, propelling itself out of the black, its huge, curved teeth snapping through his body in an instant. Then that would be it for his career on the teams.

Every time he had heard clicking or bubbles in the dark waters, he worried that was a sign of an orca coming straight for him and his team.

In the end, they had completed the mission with no interference from any predatorial wildlife.

O’Neil had never admitted those fears to anyone.

He thought he would have sounded ridiculous.

But now, slowly advancing through the frigid waters of the Strait, he wondered how unfounded those fears were.

Every time he heard a noise or splash, he couldn’t help imagining what might be responsible. He didn’t think Skulls could swim, but after Lithuania, he knew to expect anything. That included aquatic Skulls who might be after them now. Paddling through the water with claws that would tear through their air lines and wetsuits. The beasts would turn the water red with their blood, dragging their bodies into the depths or perhaps back toward the shore where they would pick the SEALs’ bones clean.

Every pop, every aquatic sound might have been a beast chasing after them.

O’Neil had been diving a hundred times. In his head, he knew all these sounds were normal. That the sea was constantly alive with creatures small and large, carrying on their lives in a constant chorus of noise.

Did the Oni Agent affect any of these denizens of the deep? What would a shark do if it was exposed to the Agent? Those killer whales he had feared north of Seattle—could they be affected?

After all, prion diseases could jump between species.

Why not the Oni Agent?

He tried to push those thoughts away, trying not to startle himself when the line went tighter than usual or he heard an inexplicable noise.

He turned his mask toward his GPS again.

They were almost there. Almost to the port.

He could hear the clinks of chains against metal and the growl of engines and motors reverberating through the water.

Instead of focusing on the possibility of creatures rising from the black, he turned his attention toward the sounds of people and machines. At least those were noises he could explain.

A dark silhouette loomed before him. A massive shape.

He could just barely recognize the stern of a shipping vessel with its two massive props and a rudder that would dwarf a Black Hawk. Above, O’Neil thought he could make out the dim red glow of lights.

No spotlights speared through the dark. No yellow or white lights. Just those red ones.

Perhaps that’s how the Russians had avoided detection for so long. Red lights like those were commonly used on ships and aircraft on missions where stealth was key.

The human eye was far less sensitive to red lights, but they provided enough ambient illumination he could make out the edges of the pier and the shadows of his teammates swimming behind him, still clinging to the line.

They swam toward the piers, and O’Neil thought he could hear the call of human voices. Their words were too garbled for him to tell if they were Russian, but they confirmed that there were indeed people at this port.

As he approached the pier where they would make their insertion, the seafloor tilted up steeply from the inky depths. Trash was strewn between the rocks and silt.

And between the garbage, the white gleam of bones showed, partially buried.

Dozens of bones.

He kicked closer toward the pier, passing over broken skulls and ribcages and long bones. Most of those skeletons were chewed up and torn apart, likely victims of the monsters, but he saw other sights far more frightening. Corpses that appeared to be Skulls were drifting in the gentle current, their ankles chained down to concrete anchors. Crabs and starfish and other underwater scavengers crawled over them. They picked at the bits of flesh between the bone plates covering the dead monsters.

They were nearly to the pier. Just enough red light glowed down into the water, O’Neil could count almost forty of those anchored beasts. While some appeared to be normal Skulls, others had skeletal growths that seemed to have developed in strange patterns, spikes poking out of their eye sockets or spines jutting from their open mouths, bulbous bony growths bulging from random points along their chest and limbs.

For a moment, he thought he was looking at a graveyard of experiments, some that had resulted in Skulls as he was used to seeing them; other specimens looking like failures, like the bony growths had been the death of those creatures instead of a bullet or a blade.

Just as the team gathered between these sunken monstrosities, moving toward the lip of the pier, O’Neil felt the vibrations of someone walking on the pier toward them. Those footsteps were followed by voices and a long, scraping sound.

From what he could tell, it seemed like two people were headed in their direction, and they were dragging something behind them.

For a second, they went silent. O’Neil waited, listening, looking up at the pier, just able to see what he thought were the shapes of the men standing right above them.

Had these people seen the other SEALs?

He started to calculate his next move, how to dispatch these guys quickly. How to stop them before they warned the others on their base. Before he could do anything, something exploded into the water in front of him.

A Skull.

Bubbles burst around him. He saw the silhouette of knifelike claws and the ridges around the beast’s head. His worst fear had materialized. A predator diving into the water to attack.

All he could do was kick away, reaching for his knife, hoping he could stop the Skull before it stopped them.

-20-

O’Neil slipped the knife from his sheath, ready to tear into the beast before it attacked.

Bubbles streamed from its nostrils. But the beast didn’t move. It stared vacantly ahead.

O’Neil willed his panicked heart to settle, realizing what he had just witnessed. The water around the monster began to turn cloudy. Blood dispersed from what appeared to be bullet holes in its forehead and its side. Just like the other beasts in this underwater graveyard of horrors, its ankles were chained to concrete anchors.

He pulled himself through the water, close against the pier, listening for the retreating footsteps of the men who had dropped this beast into the water.

But he didn’t hear any footsteps.

He heard only the click of crabs climbing up toward a fresh meal and saw the silver flash of fish darting in to take bites of the infected monster.

Once those men left, the SEALs could pull themselves up onto the pier and make their way to the main facility.

The men just weren’t leaving.

Instead, a beam of light speared through the water, illuminating all the motes of matter floating in the dirty water, reflecting off the fish and the dead creatures.

Another beam of light soon followed, lancing into the dark. One caught part of Loeb’s wetsuit and his fins. Then he heard the grumble of voices.

The way their lights swished back and forth now, he feared they might have seen Loeb.

He couldn’t wait any longer to be certain. He signaled to Tate. The SEAL made an ‘okay’ signal back with his hand, and O’Neil counted down on his fingers.

Three.

He sucked in a deep breath.

Two.

He coiled his muscles, his knife in his hand. The flashlight beams continued to rake through the murk, quicker now, the SEALs swimming and pressing themselves against the pier as best they could to avoid being spotted.

One.

O’Neil surged out of the water, aiming at the first man he saw. Tate exploded from the water next to him. The two men with the flashlights dropped them, reaching instead for the rifles slung over their shoulders. O’Neil grabbed the ankles of the first man, yanking hard so he lost his balance. The man fell on his spine, his skull thudding against the concrete of the pier, his body going rigid.

As O’Neil pulled the man toward the water, Tate tried the same maneuver. But the other man started to yell, “Pomogi mne!” before Tate reached him.

O’Neil didn’t know Russian, but it was clear the man was either yelling for help or warning his comrades. Tate wrapped his fingers around the guy’s ankles and pulled him down.

The Russian fell on his ass, preventing himself from succumbing to the fate of his friend. He scrambled for purchase, his nails scraping across the concrete as Tate pulled him toward the water. One of his feet broke free from Tate’s grip and kicked him hard in the side of the face.

Two more shapes burst up from the water. Loeb and Van.

Loeb snagged the guy’s kicking foot, and together, he and Tate pulled him toward the water. Van held out his hands, catching the man and putting his hand over his mouth both to quiet his yells and keep him from splashing too loudly into the water. Loeb and Tate dragged the guy underwater as Van kicked over to O’Neil.

Together, they dragged the other man beneath the surface, slipping him under as quietly as they could.

O’Neil slit the guy’s throat, then snagged the guy’s boot into the concrete anchor holding a dead Skull on the seafloor. Tate and Loeb held the second Russian as he flailed, bubbles pouring from his open mouth.

Finally, he succumbed to unconsciousness, his arms floating, eyes staring vacantly through the dark. Loeb used flexicuffs to secure the man’s ankles to the concrete anchors of another Skull whose flesh had long-since been devoured by the crabs and fish.

The rest of the SEALs pushed out of the water, and as soon as O’Neil was certain the two Russians wouldn’t be found floating face-down in the middle of the pier in a few minutes, he led Bravo back up onto the pier.

Already, the other three teams had removed their fins, spread in combat intervals, watching down the length of the pier. Crates and shipping containers had been left in rows next to the massive ships. Tall cranes loomed overhead.

All down the pier, red lights glowed from the lamps instead of the brackish yellow that O’Neil normally would have expected at a facility like this. He saw the glow of those same red lights from inside a warehouse about three-hundred yards from their position. The other warehouses appeared to be closed. O’Neil scanned the rest of the port, studying the office buildings at the center. One had a large antenna on top that appeared to be only half-finished. There were a couple of machine gun nests situated on the catwalk around that building.

Past the offices, the fortified walls of the port base blocked the view of most of the city. All he could see of Tangier were the dark silhouettes of minarets and a few towering apartment buildings. The rest of the base was masked by shadows where those dim red lights didn’t touch.

The Russians definitely wanted to keep this place hidden. Which made it all the more imperative that they acted quickly tonight.

“Eventually they’re going to come looking for those guys,” Reynolds said. “Delta, Charlie, you take the piers. Alpha, Bravo, we’re moving.”

O’Neil motioned to his team to put down their NVGs. His clicked into place, and the world bloomed in a vivid wash of greens and whites.

They prowled down the pier, sticking close to the shipping containers and crates. The smell of fish and oil hung thick in the air, mixing with the overwhelming odor of death.

When they heard approaching footsteps, O’Neil signaled for his men to press themselves low behind a shipping container.

“Two movers, headed down the pier,” he whispered over the comms.

Their boots thumped over the wet concrete, their voices carrying on at a normal volume. O’Neil didn’t understand a lick of Russian, but the sporadic laughs told him this was hopefully just a casual conversation.

As they passed down the center of the pier, he leaned out slightly from the container.

“Do not engage,” Reynolds said.

O’Neil could see his IR tag on his NVGs. The chief was positioned behind another shipping container nearby on the opposite side of the pier.

The two Russians continued down the pier, rifles slung over their back. They wore dark fatigues that clung to their muscular frames. Judging by their confident gait and the gear strapped to their uniforms, these weren’t just some run-of-the-mill goons that had established a Mad Max-style militia.

Soon as they were clear, O’Neil motioned for his team to advance. They made it past the end of the pier, where they posted up around another yard filled with shipping containers. O’Neil climbed up the side of one to get a better view of what lay beyond the shipping yard. He crawled on his belly, drawing his rifle up and looking through the magnified optics.

Three two-man patrols walked the walls beyond the warehouses. Another set of five contacts marched around or stood between the warehouses. That was all he could see from his position—he worried there were far more beyond his vantage.

The warehouses were Bravo’s first objective. The teams had identified them as A-One, A-Two, and A-Three. As they infiltrated them to find any available intel, Alpha would start at the other end of the docks near what appeared to be the command building, B-One, and the two office buildings, C-One and C-Two. He thought he could hear scratching and scraping, the occasional groan and guttural howl. The slightly muffled sounds seemed to be coming from either somewhere inside the base or just beyond the walls.

None of the Russians seemed bothered by the sounds, which only piqued his curiosity. How could they be so nonchalant about what sounded like dozens of beasts nearby? An ongoing clamor like that would set off every alarm at Fort Detrick, calling every capable man and woman to the walls to defend against an impending attack.

His mind flashed back to Lithuania, how that Russian convoy had driven straight through Klaipėda.

There had been no Skulls until after the SEALs had virtually destroyed the convoy. The Russians must have developed some kind of technology to control the beasts. That was the only explanation that made sense.

Whatever the Russians had, O’Neil hoped he could figure it out and bring it back to their people.

But that also begged the question, if they could control the beasts—or maybe just keep them away somehow—did they really need all these defenses?

A chill shuddered through his spine at the obvious answer. The defenses weren’t for the monsters. They were to keep people out. People like the group Khalid claimed to belong to.

People like his SEALs.

That only made him more certain the Russians were hiding something here that needed to be destroyed. Their special recon mission was going to turn to direct action very quickly.

Before the outbreak, back in Afghanistan and Iraq, the analysts back in DC would want to take their time with a target like this. They would want to pore over the data the SEAL team brought back from tonight before deciding how they would deal with the situation, but as the world was increasingly pushed to the edge of oblivion by the Skulls, those careful analyses were a luxury they simply couldn’t afford.

The SEALs would have to make their own decisions tonight—and fast.

“Drone out,” an operator on Delta called.

O’Neil slipped back down to the ground, landing next to the rest of his team. They all crouched in the shadows. A blinking IR light showed where the hand-held drone was, flying high above them.

“Positive confirmation of ten contacts on the walls,” the SEAL commanding the drone said. “Another eight moving between the warehouse, running patrol. Two at each warehouse entrance. By the offices, ten contacts. Parking lot filled with four Typhoons, three Uniform Alpha Zulus.”

The presence of Typhoons and the off-road UAZs all but confirmed this was indeed Russian military or at least a highly capable military-like faction of Russians with deep resources.

“I’m seeing action,” the drone operator said.

“All units, hold,” Reynolds said.

O’Neil pressed himself tightly against the shipping container, his rifle at the ready.

He heard voices screaming across the port, echoing between the containers. Sounded like women shouting in Arabic and stilted English. Between their shouts, he heard Russians yelling back at them in what sounded to be a mixture of Russian and broken English.

He could just make a few of the words from the Russians. “Stop. Stop. Stop. You listen.”

“Three Whiskeys and four Kilos,” the drone operator reported.

Three women, four kids.

He heard them drawing closer to the pier. If he twisted out right now, he could see them. They sounded as if they were no more than ten yards away.

“Contacts are… Contacts are pulling guns on the Whiskeys and Kilos.”

O’Neil’s heart started climbing up to his throat, his pulse pounding in his ears. He wanted more than anything to swing around that container and tear into those Russians. He didn’t need to know Arabic to hear the desperation and fear in those women’s voices or the children wailing and screaming.

Then a heavy thwack, followed by the thud of a head against pavement.

Tate started to stand, swiveling toward the edge of the container.

The drone operator came back over the line. “One of the Whiskeys is down. They’re dragging the Kilos and Whiskeys toward the water.”

O’Neil could already picture what the Russians were about to do.

“How many hostiles?” Reynolds asked.

“Eight in the immediate vicinity.”

They could take eight soldiers. They could save these women and children.

“But all eyes from the warehouses and walls are pointed this way,” the operator continued.

The words that were unsaid were the loudest. Far too many Russians were positioned on the walls or between the warehouses, all with defensible positions.

Maybe they could kill the eight hostiles. Maybe they could even take out a few of the guards around the base.

But they would be overwhelmed just as quickly. Their lives, the mission, and even the people they had tried to save would be lost.

“All teams, hold,” Reynolds said. “I repeat, hold your fire. Do not shoot.”

O’Neil tried to ignore the screams. The cries.

Tate looked to be one more shriek away from bursting out from behind the shipping container. Van placed a hand on the guy’s shoulder and shook his head. Tate’s mouth pursed like he wanted to curse and spit.

The Russian voices suddenly quieted. The women and kids’ protests grew louder, rising into a crescendo.

The drone operator came over the channel again. “There’s a Skull contact headed straight for the group. Hostiles don’t seem to notice.”

A Skull?

“How many Skulls?” Reynolds asked.

“Only one.”

That made even less sense to O’Neil. All those soldiers around the base, and they were just letting a single Skull waltz right up to those eight Russians with the women and children.

Nothing made sense.

The cries of the women and children grew louder. O’Neil hoped that Skull would tear the throats straight out of the Russians.

He could already hear the claws of the beast tapping on the concrete. If he could hear it, so could the Russians. Why weren’t they yelling? Why weren’t they calling out?

“The Skull is approaching a Whiskey. Its—”

A loud scream exploded from a woman, followed by the sound of ripping flesh, and the splash of blood over the ground. Then came the gunfire.

-21-

The gunshots rang loud against the shipping containers and over the water. All the screaming stopped. O’Neil fought back the adrenaline dumping through his body, telling him to react, to do something.

Anything.

But he knew the brutal calculus Reynolds had considered before making his call. Had they intervened, they might have prolonged those women’s and kids’ lives for a few more seconds.

The Russians almost certainly would have cut them down after they had killed the eight soldiers nearest them. Then the SEALs’ mission would be irreparably compromised. If there was already a ticking clock on them after they’d made those two guards disappear, it would certainly run out as soon as the first SEAL fired a shot.

The lives of the few did not outweigh the lives of the many in his brutal, logical calculations. Their mission had the potential to help so many more people, saving countless lives by striking a major blow into the Russians’ operations.

But when O’Neil saw the bodies drifting past in the oily waters, those thoughts did nothing to quell the rising heat in his chest and the burning desire to rip apart every damn Russian he saw.

“Whiskeys and Kilos are down,” the drone operator said. He remained calm, but O’Neil could hear his words catch slightly. “The Skull tore into one, then the hostile contacts killed the rest.”

“Status on the Skull?” Reynolds whispered over the comms.

“Skull is… Skull is… Skull appears to be listening to the Russians. They’re… They’re laughing and talking. Now the Skull is heading toward one of the office buildings with the eight hostiles,” the operator said. “Other hostiles around base are back to business as usual.”

These people had just massacred women and children with the help of a Skull, and that was it? Back to their duties?

O’Neil had long-since practiced the art of compartmentalization on his missions. He recalled seeing a stray, skinny dog licking up the blood of a dead fighter one time, before chewing on the guy’s arm. He had been in a Black Hawk crash. Remembered the grinding of the metal against the ground. The way the bird had turned sideways, smashing the legs of two other operators that had been in the cabin with him. Heard their screams and saw the bloody trail left behind.

He had seen a woman blow herself up in the middle of a café filed with families. He had seen the faces charcoaled from the blast, bodies shredded by the metal BBs and nails that had filled the suicide vest.

He had watched in horror as a fighter used his own family as a shield, firing from behind them at another SEAL. Even striking one of his own kids with a poorly aimed shot.

No matter how he tried to quell the roiling emotion from those scenes, they always came back. When he was trying to sleep. When he was reading a book. When he was just trying to eat.

There was a voice in the back of his head that told him this scene would haunt him, too. That this gruesome tableau would be burned into his memory, emerging when he closed his eyes, when he was back at home thinking that maybe he could get some shuteye.

But for now, he pushed those images to the back of his mind, to the dark spot where he hid all those memories. Because ruminating on them now would do nothing to stop the Russians and whatever other horrors they might be hiding here.

He did let one passing thought simmer in his mind. Any concerns that the Russians might be acting in good faith or might have been improperly fingered as the enemy were now completely and utterly obliterated.

These people, responsible for the original release of the Oni Agent or not, were evil.

This world, teetering on the brink of destruction, had no room for people like this.

So he pushed aside all the horrific images floating through his mind. All the anger and emotion percolating his thoughts.

For now, there was only one thing on his mind: reaching their objective.

“Skull and hostiles are back in one of the office buildings,” the drone operator said.

“Roger that,” Reynolds said. “Bravo, move to objective A-One. Alpha is moving to C-One.”

“If you meet resistance or your position risks being compromised, do not hesitate to eliminate hostile contacts,” Reynolds added.

By the way Tate’s jaw tensed and Van nodded, O’Neil could tell his operators would have no problem doing exactly that.

“Charlie and Delta advancing into primary overwatch positions,” another operator called.

While Alpha and Bravo cleaned out the objectives, Charlie and Delta would be watching the enemy from the shipping containers and cranes near the water. They would maintain a clean exfil route back to the water.

O’Neil sent Tate on point, and they skirted around the edge of the shipping yard. Dark blood pooled over the concrete next to the water where those people had been slaughtered. They navigated between forklifts and crates. Empty plastic bags blew around them, and a few paper cups rolled along the ground, pushed by the salty breeze. Crumpled papers and sodden cardboard spilled out of trashcans that had toppled.

Between the trash, bullet casings gleamed from the red lights hanging over the shipyard. O’Neil was careful not to crunch over the gravel too loudly or smash any of that garbage.

They started toward the warehouse furthest south that had skylights on its slanted roof. Thought about using Tate’s ladder to climb up there, but they would be far too exposed to the soldiers on the wall.

O’Neil patted a pocket on his chest. The waterproof camera was still there. He wanted to make sure he captured every image he could to ensure the people back home knew exactly what they discovered.

The warehouse doors were both slid back. A Renault semitruck was parked in between those doors. Its empty flatbed trailer lay inside the warehouse. Two soldiers stood at one side of the entrance cradling rifles. But they seemed to be more interested in their conversation than watching the open doors.

These people really had gotten arrogant. Dangerously so.

With Tate still on point, O’Neil directed his team to use the cover of another shipping container and a parked SUV to make it to the side of the warehouse. O’Neil looked back up at the walls around the base. All the guards had their backs turned, facing out into the city.

One-by-one, O’Neil and his team filtered from the side of the warehouse toward the truck. They used the truck to get them inside the warehouse without the guards noticing.

Soon as they entered, O’Neil came face-to-face with stacks of crates and pallets full of goods wrapped in plastic. They advanced between the rows of waiting cargo. They found stacks of bags that were labeled ‘RICE’ and ‘WHEAT’. There were a few pieces of shrink-wrapped machinery and equipment that O’Neil didn’t recognize. But as they cleared all the way to the rear of the warehouse, they found no other soldiers or workers. Just the crates and pallets and bags and equipment.

O’Neil had expected to see weapons or drums of biological agents like they had intercepted in Lithuania. He paused near one of the pallets with sacks of rice.

“All this to feed the people on base?” Tate whispered to O’Neil.

“Could be,” O’Neil said, then looked at the empty truck. He thought back to all the empty shipping containers they had passed to get into the warehouse. “Or maybe this is just the stuff they found in those shipping containers. Needed somewhere to empty them.”

“Then the question is, what are they filling the containers with?” Loeb asked.

“I don’t think we’ll find that answer in here.” O’Neil chinned his radio. “Warehouse A-One clear. Moving to A-Two. Eyes on contacts?”

“Four at the walls just south of Two,” the drone operator said. “None on the ground.”

“Front entrance?”

“Four men with weapons. Warehouse doors appear to be closed.”

“Then we’re going in though the back,” O’Neil said to his team. “Come on.”

They headed toward a door at the rear of the warehouse, far from the eyes of the guards at the front. As the team stacked up at the door, Tate wrapped his hands around the handle, testing it. It twisted easily.

O’Neil shouldered his rifle, then squeezed Tate’s shoulder. The SEAL pulled the door open, and O’Neil moved out, followed by Van and Loeb. They spread out along the warehouse wall.

As soon as Tate came out, he gently closed the door. O’Neil looked up at the wall where he saw the backs of two soldiers. One stood beside a mounted machine gun. The other had binoculars pointed out toward the city.

The growls and snaps of Skulls drifted over the walls. Their odor was stronger than any time since O’Neil had broken the surface of the water at the port. He could almost picture the beasts shuffling and sniffing outside the walls, seeking out their prey.

And yet, they didn’t seem to be slamming against the walls with wild abandon like he would have expected.

He gestured for his team to take the next warehouse. They stacked up again outside a single rear door, then rushed inside.

Before O’Neil even realized what they had stepped into, the odor of a thousand corpses crashed over him. Nausea squeezed at his gut. He felt the acidic bite of bile threatening to crawl up his throat. He choked back the urge to vomit.

Most of his view of the warehouse was blocked by a shipping container. But this time, he didn’t need to open the container to know what was inside. The smell leaked out of every miniscule crack. He could hear the scratch of bone against metal, and the mindless groans of beasts whose bodies had been ravaged by the Oni Agent. Sounded like an entire horde of creatures had been pressed inside the container.

What the hell is going on?

He didn’t dare utter the question aloud lest the creatures hear his voice. With a series of quick hand signals, he sent Loeb and Van down one end of the container. He followed Tate to the other. Peeking past the container, he got a better view of the rest of the warehouse, bathed in darkness.

The front doors to the place were closed. Shipping containers seemed to fill most of the warehouse. All sounding like they were packed with Skulls.

O’Neil saw no soldiers lingering around inside the facility. He pulled out his camera and took a few quick shots. But those images certainly wouldn’t capture the intense odor filling the warehouse nor would they depict the voices of the monsters imprisoned in here, resonating through the facility.

He slowly edged around the shipping container, Tate covering him. As he curled around the container, he saw the center of the warehouse. His stomach flipped, and he froze.

“Everybody hold,” he whispered as quietly as he could.

There were cages in the middle of the room with thick steel bars. Cages that looked to him like something used to transport a tiger. Or maybe, a hundred of the beasts.

He counted a good twelve cages in that room.

All of them completely full of Skulls.

The beasts were in various stages of infection, pressed against each other so tightly they could barely move. Their arms raked lazily at the air outside the cage, their claws cutting at unseen prey.

Some were dressed in jeans and t-shirts. Jackets stuck to the spikes pushing out of their shoulders and spines. Others wore the remnants of military and police uniforms. Those that had entered the most advanced stages of infection were almost entirely naked, their bodies covered in bony plates and spikes and horns, appearing like demons that had wormed their way up from Hell to harvest unwary souls.

He could hardly believe the Russians would bring this many beasts behind their walls and then leave them here in this warehouse. Even if this was part of an experiment, this many Skulls would never be taken into a safehold like Fort Detrick back in the States.

There were enough beasts packed into the cages that the Russians could just let them loose in a city untouched by the Oni Agent at midnight, and they would probably turn the place into another apocalyptic wasteland by morning.

He tried to slow his breathing, careful not to make any sound that would attract those beasts’ attentions. While those cages might keep the beasts from tearing out his organs, it wouldn’t hold in their screams and howls when they caught a glimpse of prey.

As slowly as he could, he lowered his rifle and took out the camera again. Took dozens of pictures.

With another hand signal, he directed his team back out the door as quietly as they had come in.

They spread out along the outer wall of the warehouse.

“Report on hostiles at warehouses?” O’Neil whispered over the channel.

“All holding position,” the drone operator came back. “Clear around the back.”

“Copy. Heading to A-Three.”

O’Neil took his team to the next warehouse, wondering what nightmarish horrors they would discover next.

After stacking up outside the door, the team pushed through again, rifles shouldered. They were met with another warehouse with only a handful of dim lights glowing from the ceiling.

They immediately ducked behind the cover of a line of crates near their position.

Along one wall, O’Neil saw oil drums just like those in Lithuania.

And in the center of the room, a group of frightened men kneeled. All four had tangled beards covering gaunt faces. Their clothes were dirty and torn, and the expressions painted across their faces radiated unadulterated terror. Each had one ankle wrapped with a metal cuff attached to meter-long chains bolted to the floor. Two Russian soldiers stood at the far end of the warehouse in front of the wide garage doors. Another four stood in the shadows at the back end of the warehouse.

All were watching the Moroccans, sadistic smiles emblazoned over their faces, made even more malicious by the dim overhead lights.

The only thing more diabolical than their expressions was the monstrous shape that emerged from the shadows.

A Skull.

The beast was taller and wider than most Skulls O’Neil had seen, as if it had been a bodybuilder prior to its transformation. Each finger ended in a long, hooked claw. Spikes pushed out from along its back, each corresponding to an overgrown vertebral disc. Its chest was bulwarked by massive ribs that had expanded its gray flesh. The creature wore black pants like the soldiers.

But instead of jumping at these men, it merely prowled in front of them, nose wrinkled in a snarl. It wore a utility belt like the Russian soldiers, complete with a holstered pistol.

It walked up to the first of the men chained to the middle of the warehouse floor. The man cowered, straining against the chain. Sweat beaded down his head. He was muttering what sounded to O’Neil like a prayer.

The Skull knelt in front of the man, pushing its maw inches from the man’s. The man tried to look away, but the Skull grabbed the prisoner’s chin between two claws, forcing him to face him.

Then it opened its mouth, baring its fanged teeth.

O’Neil prepared for the beast to rip into the man’s face and devour the poor guy.

He wasn’t prepared for when it spoke instead.

-22-

“Why are you here?” the beast spoke, its voice raspy and grating. The words came out in English with a thick Russian accent.

This was a man. Not a monster. Or rather, something between the two, a hybrid between man and beast.

The Moroccan tried to look away, but the beast wrapped its claws around his beard, yanking the man’s face toward his again.

“Why?” the beast tried again.

The man whimpered, mumbling in Arabic, tears rolling out of his eyes. He brought his hands up in a universal pleading gesture.

“You do not understand English,” the monster said.

The man kept mumbling, his words coming out faster, more panicked.

Looking at the others, the beast spoke again. “I know none of you understand Russian. So tell me, which of you can speak to me in English.”

O’Neil noticed one of the men looked down at his hands as he knelt on the floor. He did all he could to avert the beast’s gaze. But his attempt at avoiding attention was exactly what drew the creature’s interest.

The other two just kept staring at the talking monster, clearly not understanding his request.

With a grunt, the beast heaved the first man to the side. The guy slammed into the concrete floor, letting out a pained yelp, then cowered into a ball.

“I can tell you understand me.” The monster stepped in front of the man who had been averting his eyes. “I promise you, this will be much, much worse if you do not talk.”

“I… we… we ran from the djinn,” the man said. “My name is Hassan. I am just a man who wants to help his family. We need safety.”

“You were carrying weapons,” the Russian Skull said.

“We must protect our family. Please, you must understand, my brother. We mean no harm to you.”

The Skull laughed, shaking his head. “You could not harm me or my brothers if you wanted to.” He leaned in close, peering straight into the man’s eyes, his tongue tracing his jagged teeth. “I am not afraid of you or who you think you are. What I want to know is who told you to come here.”

“We see your walls and the helicopters. You are here to help, no?”

“You do not get to ask questions. Only me. Tell me, who sent you?”

Hassan quivered in the Skull’s grasp, his teeth chattering together. “No one tells us anything, I swear upon Allah.”

“I do not believe you.”

“I am not lying.” Hassan looked up at him, bottom lip shaking. “Please. Tell me, when can I see my wife again? Where are my children? We want only to escape the djinn.”

The Skull’s cracked lips twitched as though he were holding back a laugh. “When you tell me the truth.”

“I tell the truth. I do not come to hurt your people. I come for help. Please, please, please, help us. We do not want to be hurt by the djinn.”

The Skull released the man, letting him flop to the ground sobbing. He strode back toward the first man he’d questioned who didn’t understand English. The guy was still mumbling, his head bowed.

He crouched in front of the praying man. “I want to show you what happens to liars.”

He picked up the praying man by his neck. The man reached for the Skull’s hands, trying desperately to pry the Skull’s fingers free. Those claws only tightened as the man kicked. Blood trickled from where the claws pierced the man’s flesh.

O’Neil wanted to shoot this man-Skull monstrosity. He and his team could save these men. But he knew why Reynolds had refrained before. Why he couldn’t simply shoot their way out of this mess.

Because as he watched that hybrid soldier toying with these men, he realized it could just as easily be him and his men or anyone else in the troop with an ankle chained to the floor of this warehouse.

He tried to remind himself that they were making a deliberate choice to dig up intel on this operation and stop whatever was going on here. Trying to save a handful of people and getting killed while doing so would help no one.

The Skull-soldier squeezed his victim’s neck tighter. More blood dribbled away from his grip. The man kicked harder, his feet connecting with the Skull-soldier. But the beast ignored the man’s desperate struggles as the Moroccan’s face went white, the vessels in his forehead and neck bulging.

“Please, I promise I will tell you everything I know,” Hassan said.

“Yes, tell me.” The Skull-soldier continued to hold the praying man up, staring at the Moroccan as he slapped uselessly at the Skull-soldier’s hands.

“No one tells us to come. No one tells us. Please, we saw the walls. We saw the soldiers. We saw the ships. We want safety.”

The other two men were on their knees, reaching out toward the Skull-soldier, their voices rising, their words spilling out urgently.

“You are not lying?” the Skull-soldier asked again.

“I swear it. I swear to Allah.”

The Skull-soldier dropped the praying man to the floor. The man pushed himself up on his hands and knees, gasping for breath, saliva drooling out of his mouth as his chest heaved.

“Thank you, my brother,” Hassan said. “Thank you. Please, please, may we see our families?”

O’Neil felt a pang of regret. That poor man would never see his family again.

The Skull-soldier shrugged his massive frame, the bony plates ringing against each other. “You will see your families soon enough.” He looked at the two soldiers at the warehouse doors and said something in Russian.

“Da,” they said nearly in unison.

They began walking toward the prisoners. Before they even made it more than a couple of steps, the Skull-soldier looked back down at the man on his hands and knees, still struggling to recover his breath.

“You are very weak,” he said. “I do not think you will be good enough to be one of us. But you will help feed the hungry horde.”

“What are you saying? Tell me, what are you saying?” Hassan asked.

Instead of answering, the Skull-soldier picked the other man off the floor. The man began to kick again, but this time, the Skull-soldier didn’t choke him. Instead, he struck out with a claw that tore right into the man’s gut, peeling the claw up until the man’s innards fell out and pooled over the floor.

He dropped the man back to the warehouse floor, and O’Neil watched in abject horror as the man tried to gather up what he’d lost and stuff it all back into his body, mumbling the whole time, blood dripping from his lips.

O’Neil fought to prevent himself from unloading his entire magazine into the side of that Skull-soldier.

The other three men yelled, thrashing against their chains. They pulled on their ankle restraints as if to free themselves. With a click of the Skull-soldier’s fingers, four more guards emerged from the back of the room. They undid the chains holding the prisoners to the floor and escorted them toward the front of the warehouse. The soldiers yanked on the chains hard, making the prisoners stumble and trip until they were half-dragged out of the warehouse door, back outside.

“We’ve got eyes on four hostiles dragging what look to be three Mikes in front of A-Three,” the drone operator said. “They’re taking them to building C-One.”

That was the building that Reynolds’ group was investigating. The office structure where the small pharmaceutical company had been. O’Neil thought the men would be hauled to the ocean and dumped like the women and children had been. But apparently the Russians had other purposes for them.

A shiver crept down his spine, wondering what those purposes might be.

As the Skull-soldier followed them out the front door, the drone operator announced his presence too.

That left the team alone in the warehouse with just two soldiers.

“Bravo, be advised, you’ve got activity outside warehouse A-Three. Four hostiles patrolling at the north end.”

That was right outside the door where O’Neil and his team were. The two soldiers remaining in the warehouse marched over to the dying man. They lugged him up by his shoulders. His face was growing pale. His lips still moved, though no words came out. Blood matted down most of his beard.

The soldiers unlocked the man’s ankle restraint and started pulling the man straight toward O’Neil’s position.

O’Neil whispered as quietly as he could into his comms. “Delta, is route behind A-Three clear?”

“Hard negative,” the drone operator called back. “Four hostiles near the door. Two more standing out front.”

There was no clear escape, and nowhere else to hide in the warehouse besides the crates. O’Neil couldn’t see a good way to sneak behind the enemies heading toward them, either.

The Moroccan man’s head finally went limp on his shoulders. His tongue hung out as the two soldiers approached. In seconds, those soldiers would round the crates and see Bravo.

Instead, O’Neil motioned to Tate, Van, and Loeb, then signaled toward the two Russian soldiers. He counted down on his fingers, listening to the taps of their feet on the concrete floor.

Three. Two.

When O’Neil hit one, he tore out from behind the crate. Tate erupted beside him, rifle shouldered. Van and Loeb burst up from the crates they were sheltering behind.

All four fired at once.

Their suppressed shots lanced through the chests of the soldiers and ripped out from the soldier’s backs, blood splattering behind them. An expression of surprise crossed the face of one of the soldiers as he dropped the dead prisoner and reached for his chest. Then he looked down at his hands as they came away wet with blood.

O’Neil raised his aim, firing once more into the man’s head. The soldier tumbled forward, next to his crumpled comrade.

“Two hostiles down,” O’Neil said. “Need a clear exit.”

“You’re not getting one,” the drone operator said. “Four soldiers headed in the rear door now. If you can make it out the front, we can provide direct cover fire.”

“Alpha, are we free to engage?” O’Neil asked.

A couple seconds later, Reynolds’ voice came in softly. “Free to engage if you have no other option.”

“How long do we have?” O’Neil asked, directing his team to find new shooting positions for when the four soldiers came through that rear door.

“Looks like they’re thirty seconds from the door,” the operator said, “assuming they do in fact enter.”

“Roger,” O’Neil said.

He hoped the other operator was wrong. That maybe those soldiers weren’t coming into the warehouse.

In all likelihood, they had heard the gunfire. But given the way the Skull-soldier had treated their prisoners, maybe they were expecting gunshots.

Reynold’s voice came back over the comms. “Alpha has completed sweep of C-One. We identified a laboratory and a prison. The prison is filled with at least twenty humans and… Skulls. Skulls that are acting like people.”

Skulls acting like people? Jesus, what the hell was going on?

“Good God,” Tate said in a whisper.

“We’re going to try to blow the lab,” Reynolds said. “But we’ve got to get these people out first.”

O’Neil had no idea how the chief planned to do that. They certainly couldn’t just free all those prisoners and expect them to swim for it with the SEALs.

What the hell was Reynolds thinking?

Whatever he had seen in that lab must have been even more horrifying than what O’Neil had witnessed so far. It was the only reason Reynolds would want to act so suddenly and fiercely, instead of trying to regroup and organize a better rescue effort.

Those were all questions that would have to be answered later though.

Right now, he had four more soldiers about to enter the warehouse.

Reynolds came back over the line. Sounded almost angry, like he was biting back a mouthful of curses. “Bravo, Alpha actual. Meet us at C-Two as planned. We need you here for what may be a hot exfil. Eliminate all hostiles in your way with extreme prejudice.”

O’Neil took a deep breath. The door to the warehouse opened. Figured he didn’t have much of a choice.

The first two Russians wandered in. As they turned toward the middle of the warehouse, their eyes grazed right over the bloody bodies lying on the concrete.

“Take them out,” O’Neil said.

He squeezed the trigger, catching the first of the Russians in the neck and face. The man fell before he could so much as think about lifting his rifle. The second man’s face was erased by a blast from Van, his chest hammered by rounds from Loeb.

The third and fourth soldiers had enough time to swing up their rifles, dropping to kneeling positions as rounds hammered into the wall behind them. They started spraying wild gunfire back. Shots punched through the crates, sending showers of splinters over O’Neil’s shoulder. He ducked to avoid bullets tearing through the crates and crawled toward a new position.

“Cover me,” he said to Tate.

The other SEAL twisted out from around one of the crates. He fired toward the two Russians who were sheltering behind crates of their own.

O’Neil sprinted toward a new position, past the crates, getting as close to the wall as he could. He had a perfect view of the soldiers’ flanks. His sights fell right over the side of the first one. A squeeze of the trigger, and a round punched right into the guy’s side. The Russian slumped against the crate. Another shot hammered his body, and the man fell sideways, his grip going slack and his rifle clattering to the concrete floor.

The second soldier turned and fired a wild, desperate spray of rounds.

O’Neil gritted his jaw and fired.

He sent three rounds spearing through the man’s chest and shoulder. The soldier sprawled backward. His weapon clattered to the floor. When he hit the ground, he started to crawl back toward his weapon, reaching for it.

Loeb pushed up from behind a crate and sent a round through the man’s forehead, ending his struggle.

“Bravo, you have more attention on your position,” the drone operator said. “We can’t cover on the southside of the warehouses, but if you come out the north side, we’ll provide overwatch.”

“Copy that,” O’Neil said, gesturing for his team to make it to the front of the warehouse. They passed by the bodies of the dead Moroccan prisoner and the first two soldiers they had killed.

“Bravo, hostile outside the north entrance,” the drone operator said. “We’ll secure your route. Stand clear of the door and wait for our signal.”

O’Neil gestured for his people to stand far from the door. He waited, pulse racing, listening to the sounds of footsteps clattering just outside the warehouse, sifting in under the door. The Russians had definitely heard those suppressed shots. It wouldn’t be long before every soldier in this base was hunting for the SEALs.

“Make ready, Bravo,” the drone operator said. “Charlie’s providing cover now.”

O’Neil heard a thump as if a body had fallen into the door of the warehouse. Then another.

“Four more hostiles mobilizing near the warehouse,” the drone operator said.

Four more wet thumps.

“Clear.”

-23-

O’Neil and his men rushed back into the salty air of the port. The echoes of footsteps and urgent voices sounded between the persistent groans and clicks and snaps of the Skulls imprisoned in the nearby warehouse.

Toward the left, eastward, were the office buildings and the tower—B-One—with the half-built radio antenna. Just beyond the tower next to the parking lot was where the drone operator had identified the Russian military vehicles.

A quick glance toward the south, O’Neil could see the wall coming alive with soldiers, sweeping their rifles back down toward the warehouse.

“More hostiles headed to A-Three,” the drone operator said. “I’m seeing activity from C-One and C-Two. At least eight hostiles coming to investigate. Bravo, better get moving.”

O’Neil started between the rows of shipping containers that would take him toward Alpha. His team walked at a hunch, staying low, their rifles shouldered.

Two soldiers suddenly ran between the shipping containers, turning toward O’Neil. But before either could get a shot off, the first soldier’s head whipped back. The second fell to his knees. He dropped his rifle and pressed his hands over his chest as if trying to pull out an invisible arrow that had punctured his lung. Another muffled crack of gunfire echoed between the shipping containers as his head flicked back and he collapsed.

More suppressed shots rang out over the shipping yard. Charlie and Delta were providing cover fire as promised, like angels of death hovering where the shipping yard met the pier.

The handheld drone operator continued to call out enemy positions, guiding O’Neil’s team through the yard toward Alpha’s position. As the snipers took down more of the approaching soldiers, spotlights raked the port, coursing from the walls and the tower with the half-built antenna.

Gunfire rattled into the night, echoing over the shipyard. The shots from Charlie and Delta grew to a steady staccato. Malicious flashes of red lights erupted from the buildings between the spotlights. The thrum of low alarms spread over the base. Those alarms weren’t quite like the shriek of a blaring klaxon, likely adapted so they didn’t evoke the aggression of every Skull in the city.

But they were more than enough to call the base’s defensive forces to action.

O’Neil heard the clamor of footsteps headed their way from another row of shipping containers. He held a fist up. His team dropped into shooting positions just as a group of Russian soldiers rushed past.

“Take them down,” he said.

Bravo opened fire, cutting a swathe through the men.

Those that survived the first salvo turned toward O’Neil and his men. They managed a few shots before Delta and Charlie’s covering fire cut into their ranks, the last of them collapsing in heaps.

“Bravo, more headed your way,” the drone operator said.

“Go, go, go,” O’Neil said.

He hurtled past the fallen soldiers. One reached out toward him, his fingers covered in blood from his sucking chest wound. O’Neil considered shooting the guy to put him out of his misery. But after what he had witnessed so far in this den of nightmares, he didn’t think a soul in this place deserved a mote of mercy and he wasn’t about to waste any precious bullets on these bastards just to ease their pain.

They made it to the end of the shipping yard. O’Neil had a clear view of the building where Alpha was. Only a couple of lights glowed from inside.

From the sounds of gunfire and the voices, the Russians were mostly concentrated around the warehouses. The spotlights only occasionally traced over the area in front of building C-Two.

If Alpha had proceeded as planned, they would have entered the southern entrance to the building, slipping in through one of the windows near the fortified walls. Wouldn’t have been a problem before the alarms went off.

But now, with every eye on the wall turned toward the inside of the base, O’Neil’s team would have to somehow avoid the aim of at least six or so soldiers.

The next best entry point was the front of the building. They would face four guards and would still have the benefit of Charlie and Delta’s cover fire.

“Going into main entrance of C-Two,” O’Neil said.

“Copy that,” an operator on Charlie called back.

Four more sniper shots cut into the night. Three of the guards in front of the building fell into a jumble of tangled limbs and dropped weapons. The fourth dropped his weapon, but was holding his shoulder, looking around confused.

O’Neil took the shot that ended the man, then rushed toward the door with his team. They lined up outside. Tate tested the door handle. Locked.

“I’ll breach,” Tate said, reaching into his vest for a breaching charge.

Suddenly gunfire exploded from inside, hammering through the door and the window just above them. Glass shards sprayed across them. Tate fell back, dropping the breaching charge.

O’Neil and the team had long since learned to stay low when trying to breach an entrance like this. Fighters back in Afghanistan usually fired wild shots at where they judged the center mass of a person would be, aiming at about chest level.

So while the shots screamed overhead, O’Neil reached for Tate, holding him down.

“You hit?” he yelled over the gunfire.

Tate shook his head, but O’Neil felt his fingers growing wet with blood. Something had hit Tate’s shoulder. Just enough to cut through his uniform and tear his flesh. Maybe a bullet fragment from the rounds that had burst overhead. It didn’t look like a direct hit, but O’Neil didn’t have the time or cover to check for sure.

“I’m good, man,” Tate said, scrambling to recover the breaching charge. He placed it on the locked door handle. “Fire in the hole.”

The team all turned, ducking their chins into their necks, leaning away from the blast. The charge exploded with a flash of light and puff of gray smoke. The twisted handle clanged to the ground and the door swung inward.

O’Neil plucked a flashbang and tossed it through the door. A pop and flash of light burst from inside the building. Tate kicked the door the rest of the way open. The team flooded into a dark lobby with a receptionist desk, a few scattered tables and chairs. At first, O’Neil couldn’t see where the guards were, even with his NVGs.

But then he saw movement behind the reception desk. He and Tate moved to the left of the desk as Loeb and Van covered them. The two Russian guards behind the desk were still clenching their hands over their ears and blinking, trying to recover from the effects of the flashbang.

A few well-aimed shots ended both of their futile efforts. The team pushed down a corridor, kicking open doors to other offices. Almost all were filled with nothing but scattered papers and computers and bookshelves.

No contacts, though.

The hall hooked to the left at the end.

“Alpha, we’re close to your position,” O’Neil whispered into the comms. “Took out two hostiles.”

“Copy,” Reynolds called back. “There were four men in the offices to the front of the labs.”

That meant two more men were left. After hearing that commotion, they would likely be waiting just down the hall to the left. Sending his team rushing down that hall would be suicide.

They might be cut down as soon as they peered around the corner.

Gunfire continued to ring through the port outside, followed by shouts under the low bark of the alarms. The howls of a few Skulls tore into the night, rising above the rest of the din.

The SEALs were running out of time if they wanted to level this facility and escape, with or without the prisoners Reynolds wanted to take.

“Alpha, Bravo, you’ve got eight, maybe ten more hostiles spreading out around the north face of C-Two,” the drone operator called. “We’re picking them off, but they’re getting smarter. Our positions may be compromised soon.”

O’Neil didn’t know a good way to get past these guys without opening himself or his people up to fire. “Alpha, we’re held up in the hall. If we’ve got two more contacts with a bead on us, we’re going to be pinned down.”

“Copy that,” Reynolds said. “Hold tight.”

The rattle of gunfire roared outside in a sustained burst. The wails of the Skulls were growing louder as if they were agitated by the assault on the Russians’ base. Then came the blast of gunfire from down the hall, followed by the smack of two bodies hitting the floor.

“Bravo, your path is clear,” Reynolds called.

“Roger. Hold your fire.” O’Neil twisted around the corner. He saw the bodies of two Russian soldiers sprawled on the floor. Each appeared to be sticking just halfway out of office doorways.

Just as he’d expected, they were perfectly situated to stop Bravo.

But not Alpha.

Beyond them, Reynolds, Stuart, and Henderson were standing at an open doorway, holding two steel doors open. O’Neil rushed to join him with the rest of their team. Once they cleared the doors, Reynolds shut and locked them.

“This is their lab facility,” Reynolds said. “I already took pictures, and we packed up every hard-drive and notebook we could find.”

On one side of the space, lab benches lined the wall. Microscopes, monitors, and a dozen other pieces of equipment O’Neil didn’t recognize filled those lab benches.

“We took some of the samples in the freezer, too,” Reynolds continued. “I have no idea what they are or how useful they’ll be, but I’m hoping the scientists will know when we get them back to Frederick.”

As Reynolds led them past the laboratory section, O’Neil saw two more Russians—one a soldier, another in a white lab coat—lying dead in another room. This room was separated by clear hanging plastic sheets smeared with dried blood. Underneath a bank of lights was an operating table. Trays full of surgical tools were placed on a cart near the operating table, and a sink dripped on the other side of the OR.

“What’s this for?” Tate asked.

“For them,” Reynolds said, pushing open another door. “Khalid was right about the prisoners.”

The odor of human excrement and rotting meat poured out of the room. O’Neil took his first few steps in and stopped, drawing his rifle up immediately.

On the edges of the room, biosafety cabinets and chemical fume hoods contained all manner of glass apparatuses. There were Bunsen burners heating glass flasks and liquid trickling down condenser tubes into beakers. Everything he saw looked straight out of a pharmaceutical laboratory developing experimental drugs.

Except for the four cages with steel bars separating the other half of the room into what looked almost like a dog kennel on steroids. But instead of canines, about fifteen people looked to be crammed into two of the cages.

“Help us…” one of the men said.

“Please. Please.”

“They… they…”

O’Neil counted a good ten people inside the first cell. Their clothes were soiled and in tatters, their faces gaunt and glazed over as if they had given up on life.

Reynolds pointed to three looking out at O’Neil. “Those ones were taken in here while we were scouting the place out.”

“They’re the three prisoners that survived that Skull-soldier we saw in the warehouse,” Loeb said.

“Oh, shit, what about those ones?” Tate asked, raising his rifle.

Another group of nine prisoners reached out from a different cell.

At first, O’Neil thought it was filled with Skulls. But they weren’t all growling and snapping like he would have expected of the Skulls. Most of the prisoners were covered in bony plates, and long claws sliced out of their fingers. Their teeth protruded from their mouth into a mess of fangs. Some had longer spikes poking out of their spine; others had flatter plates covering their bodies.

One of those Skulls reached out toward O’Neil. “Please… it hurts… just…”

A few of the others spoke in Arabic or French. O’Neil didn’t understand the exact words they were using but the pleading couldn’t be more clear. They were in pain.

All of them.

They reached toward him, their faces drawn up in grimaces. But unlike all the monstrous Skulls plaguing the States, there was no hate or hunger in their eyes. Only agony.

“The ones that can speak English told me the Russians are developing an agent here that turns people into these,” Reynolds said.

More gunfire popped outside, followed by the rattle of a machine gun.

“What exactly are they?” Van asked.

“The guys in here don’t speak great English,” Reynolds said, “but from what I can tell, the Russians are making Skulls that can still think like humans.”

“What the actual fuck, man?” Tate asked.

“So the Skull-soldiers we saw in the port… maybe the ones in Lithuania… they’re all the next generation of weapons for the Russians,” O’Neil said.

“Exactly,” Reynolds said. “Which is why we have to blow this place now. We cannot let this weapon get out.”

“It might already be out,” Henderson added. “Those barrels in Lithuania could’ve been filled with this stuff.”

“Even more reason to stop any more of this weapon or agent or whatever it is from being shipped abroad.” Reynolds jerked his chin toward the prisoners. “But I don’t want to kill all those people either.”

“The mission though…” O’Neil said, thinking of the choices they had made before. Choices that left innocents to die so they could complete what they had to do.

“Look, I thought about that,” Reynolds said. “First, as much as I hate to say it, these people, if we get them back to the States, could help our scientists. Second, we’re going to rig this whole lab to blow. But we’ve got too much equipment, too much cargo from the labs to swim away with anyway. So we’re going to drive out of here.”

“Drive?” Loeb said. “You saw those walls, right?”

“We’ve already scouted the gates,” Stuart said. “We’re going to take the vehicles parked outside, then drive straight through them.”

“I’ve already told the Rangers to expect us coming in hot,” Reynolds said. “The Russians might pursue us, but with the numbers they have here, they would have to abandon this outpost completely if they want to take us down. We have plenty of guys waiting back at the villa to help hold off any attack, and they’re already setting up ambushes for the Russians. All we got to do is put a little distance between ourselves and the port.”

O’Neil wasn’t sure he liked the idea of trying to break out of this base driving through an infested city. But they had already watched too many people die at the hands of the Russians tonight, and he could only imagine what terrifying things were done on that operating table.

Reynolds was right.

They could escape, they could get the intel back to the Rangers, and bring these people back home, both saving them and, as mortifying as it sounded, hand them off to the science team who definitely needed to know what the hell was going on in these labs.

“Okay,” O’Neil said. “Let’s do this. We got keys for the locks on these cages?”

“Negative,” Henderson said.

More gunfire outside. More howling Skulls.

“Van, Loeb, open these up,” O’Neil said, pointing to the cage.

Van took out the sledgehammer and slammed it against the locking mechanism. The first time, he nearly lost the hammer. Another hit broke the locking mechanism, and broken chunks of metal clattered across the floor. He tried to pry the first cage open to let out the prisoners, but there were two more smaller locks at the top and bottom of the door. Loeb sliced them off with the bolt cutters.

As soon as the locks came free, the Moroccans inside pushed out. A few started to push past the SEALs, running toward the door. Tate grabbed the collar of one of the men. Henderson and Stuart wrapped their arms around the other two.

The men started to yell and kick, struggling to break free.

O’Neil turned to the Moroccan man he’d seen speaking English back in the warehouse. “Hassan, right?”

“You know my name?” he asked.

O’Neil nodded. “Saw you in the warehouse. I’m sorry—we couldn’t help then, but we’re going to now. Tell them we are here to help. We’re Americans. But if they aren’t quiet, they’ll get us all killed.”

Hassan started shouting at the other three in Arabic. They yelled back at him, but he kept arguing, face growing red. Two of the men stopped fighting back against Stuart and Henderson. But the third guy wouldn’t listen. Just kept hitting Tate.

“I don’t want to hurt him, man,” Tate said.

Then the guy suddenly headbutted Tate in his chin. Tate’s teeth slammed together, and the chattering sound nearly made O’Neil cringe. The Moroccan man ran for the lab door, tearing open the lock, and slipped outside.

“Fuck,” Tate said, holding his jaw. “That guy’s fucking dead.”

O’Neil looked at the door. “Russians are going to know what we’re up to now.”

Reynolds nodded. “Let those other ones out, and we can move.” Then he looked at Stuart and Henderson. “Secure the exit!”

The two SEALs ran toward the back of the lab toward a broken window where O’Neil assumed the team had climbed into the facility.

O’Neil took Hassan’s shoulder. “Tell the others we’re rescuing them too. That they’ve got to cooperate if they want out of here.”

The man nodded, eyes still wide with fear, but he spoke to the prisoners in the second cage as Loeb and Van broke down door. The first few prisoners rushed out to join the others milling about O’Neil and Reynolds.

“Thank you,” one of them rasped. He scratched at the plates along his arms.

Another fell to his feet, wrapping his clawed hands around O’Neil’s ankles, sobbing and mumbling. O’Neil fought the urge to kick at him and dispatch him like he would with any normal Skull.

While the first few half-human monsters appeared as frightened and ready to leave this place as the human prisoners from the first cage, the last couple out of the cage did not react with gratitude or pleading or even fear.

Instead, they cranked their head backs and howled before pouncing at Loeb and Van.

-24-

O’Neil ran at the monster baring its fangs at Loeb. The beast was pressing Loeb against the floor, driving its head toward his teammate’s neck, teeth chomping. O’Neil slammed his boot into the beast’s side, knocking the creature over. The Skull crashed against the cage, then pulled itself upright, its muscles tensing.

“Stop!” Loeb said. “What the hell are you doing?”

The monster bared its fangs. Then it said something in a furious voice that sounded like mangled Arabic.

“We’re here to save you!” O’Neil yelled at the beast.

Hassan rushed to help, repeating what O’Neil said in Arabic. The creature ignored him and lunged right at O’Neil, claws outstretched. O’Neil dodged the attack, then bashed the stock of his rifle into the back of the creature’s skull, breaking the bone. The creature slid across the floor, scrambling to turn itself around for another attack, muttering and cursing, eyes filled with rage.

O’Neil swung his rifle back up and fired. The shots blasted straight through the bony armor along the beast’s shoulders and through its chest. It let out a long hiss. O’Neil thought he heard more raspy words escape the cracked lips of the crazed monster, but Tate fired straight into the creature’s back. The monster jerked and stumbled, blood weeping from its wounds.

As it finally collapsed to the floor, O’Neil spun. Loeb was already up, doing his best to yank the other creature off Van. The operator had his back on the ground and was using his boots to push the monster off.

Hassan was yelling at the beast. The creature seemed to keep repeating a word in Arabic, completely ignoring Hassan.

“He is saying ‘Eat. Eat. Eat,’” the Moroccan explained.

While O’Neil rushed to help Loeb, the voices of the other prisoners rose in a desperate clamor.

“They say some of the prisoners are more monster than man,” Hassan said. “These ones do not listen.”

“A little late for that now, man!” Tate yelled back.

O’Neil cranked the monster’s head back as Loeb pulled on the monster’s shoulders. Using all the strength he could muster, O’Neil twisted the creature’s head hard to the left. The monster’s neck snapped, and its body went slack.

O’Neil and Loeb pushed it off Van.

“You okay, brother?” Loeb said as he helped Van up.

“I’m good enough.”

Another shriek exploded outside of the building.

“Bravo, Alpha, we’re seeing Skulls in the base,” the drone operator said. “They appear to be coming from A-Two.”

“The fuck?” Tate asked. “They got loose? How?”

Van shook his head. “You think they got loose? These people probably let them out.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Reynolds said. “We need to move these prisoners. Roll out!”

Tate, Van, and Loeb guided the prisoners toward Henderson and Stuart at the broken window. Reynolds placed a handful of charges throughout the laboratory and operating room.

“We got ten minutes on the fuse,” he said. “That should give us enough time to clear this place.”

O’Neil looked back toward the window. The prisoners were being escorted out one-by-one. As slow as it was to move them all, O’Neil worried ten minutes might not be enough. But if the explosion didn’t get them, then the howling Skulls spreading through the base might.

Van used his sledgehammer to break out a second window, ushering the prisoners through.

“Alpha, Bravo, we’re trying to hold the Skulls off, but we may need to move soon,” the drone operator said. “You have hostiles headed your way on the walls.”

“Copy that,” Stuart called from outside.

Almost as soon as he did, gunfire burst from just outside the window. A few of the prisoners screamed. More gunfire.

“Hostiles down,” the operator said. “But we’re taking more fire.”

Skull howls started to rattle through the building. Shots reverberated through the walls. Something pounded the door of the laboratory. O’Neil couldn’t tell if it was a soldier or a Skull or one of those hybrid beasts. He fired at the wall and the door, sending bullets tearing through both.

An agonized yell roared out in response. Then came a bout of gunfire that tore more holes in the wall, bullets lancing through the lab back at him. Glassware burst into shards. Sparks flew from one of the hit computer monitors. A stray bullet punched through the back of a prisoner. The man tumbled forward, slumping to the floor.

Tate dove to help, trying to get the man back to his feet.

“He’s dead!” Tate said, lowering the man back to the floor gently.

“Just get the rest out of here!” O’Neil shouted back.

More slams against the door, shaking it in the doorframe.

O’Neil switched the selector on his rifle to automatic. He emptied an entire magazine through the door and the wall into the hall beyond. A shriek and another scream exploded in response, followed by a long, angry howl.

“Last prisoner is out!” Tate yelled.

“Then go!” O’Neil said.

Van, Loeb, and Tate slipped out the windows. O’Neil and Reynolds backpedaled toward their escape, keeping their weapons trained on the entrance to the lab. Through the bullet holes in the walls, O’Neil could see more shadows moving. He fired another sustained burst to hold the enemy back, before slipping out of the window.

Once his boots hit the asphalt outside, O’Neil started running with Reynolds covering him as they rushed to catch up with the rest of their teams. The other operators had their weapons aimed up at the walls, firing at the soldiers on the catwalk.

Guttural howls erupted from nearly every side. The clatter of claws over concrete filled the night between the intense gunfire. Stuart and Henderson were leading the prisoners toward two of the Typhoons in the parking lot. Skulls started to swarm between the other vehicles, racing through the lot in the SEALs’ direction. The first were maybe twenty, thirty yards from colliding with the operators.

O’Neil and Reynolds picked them off as they advanced. A couple of the beasts fell from bullets breaking through their armor and flesh. They were quickly trampled by the others roiling over them, desperate at the prospect of fresh meat.

A few shots burst from Charlie’s and Delta’s positions near the pier as the snipers worked to aid Alpha’s and Bravo’s escape. Skulls’ heads exploded in sprays of bone and mist, or they tumbled to the ground, their chests blown out from the devastating rounds.

But even as the SEALs fought back, the beasts filtered between the other vehicles in the parking lot and rolled over their dead brethren with single-minded rage.

The only thing that gave O’Neil hope they might yet escape was the rumble of two Typhoons’ engines. The rear doors on each of those mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles (MRAPs) were open, welcoming in the frightened prisoners.

“Come on, come on!” Stuart yelled from the back of a Typhoon. Henderson waited just outside the vehicle, his rifle shuddering with each burst of rounds cutting into the Skulls’ numbers.

Tate was leaning out the rear of another, helping prisoners aboard. Van and Loeb were just behind a group of six prisoners, herding them onto the vehicle with Tate.

A few of the Skulls charged ahead of the pack, dodging past O’Neil and Reynolds’ gunfire.

O’Neil lost sight of the beasts until one pounced out from behind an SUV, tearing into a prisoner.

Another prisoner yelled in fear and changed directions, running back toward the lab building.

“Don’t!” O’Neil said, gesturing desperately for the guy to follow them. “Don’t!”

The guy was too terrified to listen to words or gestures. He just kept running back toward the lab as if his old prison cell would somehow be safer than the world outside this port. O’Neil thought about racing after him.

But it was too late to save that guy now. Not with the Russians on the walls and the Skulls barreling around the lab.

O’Neil had to focus on the lives he knew he could save. The ones piling into the Typhoons. Reynolds swerved off toward the Typhoon with Stuart and Henderson. O’Neil ran toward the second where his team was.

Skull talons clicked along the asphalt from every direction. The monsters’ screams assaulted O’Neil in a furious salvo. He could almost feel them catching up, ready to tear into him, into his team. Into the prisoners.

Another rush of adrenaline surged through him.

The world seemed to slow in those last few seconds as he raced to catch up to the Typhoon. With the last prisoner aboard, Loeb hopped on. Van was about to get on when a Skull dove for him, raking its claws toward his face.

Tate leveled his rifle into the Skull’s chest and fired, bullets tearing out the monster’s back. Then he kicked the dead beast into another raging monster.

Shrieks exploded from O’Neil’s right. Five monsters charged toward him, some galloping on all fours, their hideous faces painted in unfettered rage.

From somewhere on the wall, gunfire lanced out in a ferocious volley. Rounds sparked against other vehicles and the pavement. Just as he turned to fire back, to cover his advance, a low, aggressive growl erupted to his left.

A beast slashed at him with its hooked claws swishing just inches away from his side. He batted away its claws with the stock of his rifle, then twisted it to fire into the beast’s chest, sprinting ahead as the monster stumbled over itself, carried by its own relentless momentum.

“Get ready to leave!” O’Neil yelled to his team.

Van disappeared into the troop hold toward the driver’s seat of the Typhoon.

Loeb and Tate aimed out the back, firing at Skulls and soldiers and whatever else was behind O’Neil. He pushed himself harder, his muscles straining with the effort. He could almost feel the beasts’ hot breath on his neck, their claws slicing through the air behind him.

Another monster lunged toward him from behind a car. Its mouth opened as if to rip a chunk from O’Neil’s leg, but before it could bite down, rounds snapped into it from the Typhoon. The creature was dead before it hit him. But even in death, its weight slammed against his legs. He staggered and lost his own momentum, hitting the ground hard, hands and chin grinding into the asphalt.

Then something punched into his back, stealing the breath from his lungs. A sharp agony spread from along his spine. Felt like a rhino had rammed into him.

“Come on, man!” Tate said, reaching out toward O’Neil.

He pushed himself up to his knees. Still couldn’t breathe. He barely managed to get to his feet. Dizziness threatened to topple him again as he stumbled toward the back of the Typhoon. Hands pulled him inside, and the door slammed shut, claws scraping at it from outside. More bullets pinged against the MRAP.

“You okay?” Tate asked, checking over O’Neil’s back.

O’Neil was finally beginning to recover, but every breath sent a jagged strike of pain through his side.

“Took a shot to your back,” Tate explained. He patted the broken ceramic plate in O’Neil’s vest. “Just your body armor. No blood.”

O’Neil nodded. “Thanks.”

He braced himself with the handrails along the ceiling and made it to the front of the vehicle. He dropped heavily into the front passenger seat, pain shooting up the back of his ribcage.

“Follow us out,” Reynolds called over the line.

Both MRAPs started to accelerate. Skulls continued to throw themselves at the vehicles. Alpha’s MRAP turned hard to the left and started racing down a short road to the wall where the gates were. Van gunned it after the other MRAP, and O’Neil fell into the side of the vehicle from the rapid change in momentum. Another ripple of pain trembled through his back.

Bullets rained against the MRAP like they were in a bad hailstorm.

O’Neil wanted to do something, anything, to stop their aggressors. But he couldn’t so much as stick his head out the top hatch to fire back or he would be cut down in the onslaught.

Their engines roared with a monstrous rumble as the gate to the facility grew ever closer. O’Neil saw a barrier gate with a boom arm. Just beyond it was what appeared to be a sliding chain-link gate and then another barricade of corrugated metal.

If the MRAPs couldn’t break through, then they would be forced to fight the swarm of Skulls roiling after them. And from the ground on either side of the gate, Russian soldiers were unloading rounds that cracked against the windshield and windows or sparking over the hood of the MRAP. Those soldiers would breach the MRAPs as soon as the vehicle’s wheels got hung up on the broken gate or the barricade.

They had one shot at this.

“Come on,” Tate said. “Faster, faster!”

Some of the prisoners in the back were frozen in their seats. Others prayed, eyes closed, rocking. And more, eyes wide with fright, faces skinny with starvation and disease, yelled or cursed, taken hold by panic.

“I’m going as fast as I can,” Van said, leaning forward as if he could squeeze just a little extra juice from the vehicle.

More gunfire rattled over the windshield, marring it with a maelstrom of chips and white marks. O’Neil instinctively ducked, though no bullets broke through. These MRAPs could take a lot of abuse, but O’Neil wasn’t ready to test their limits.

“Everyone brace,” Reynolds said.

Alpha’s MRAP hit the boom arm on the first barricade.

The candy-cane-striped boom splintered, breaking into three big pieces that went flying at the impact.

With a crunch and the clang of bending metal, the chain-link gate crumpled over the vehicle. Part of it got stuck on top of the MRAP, but the vehicle kept going, bashing into the corrugated metal panel with a bang that sounded like thunder. For a moment, the gate didn’t seem like it would give, even as the MRAPs wheels bit against the asphalt, slipping slightly on another part of the chain-link gate that had fallen underneath the big rubber tires.

But then with another tremendous crash, the metal panel broke free, slamming against the pavement outside the walls.

Alpha’s MRAP pushed straight over the panel and out onto the road beyond. It turned hard to the right, and Van followed the vehicle.

“Watch out!” O’Neil said.

Just down the street, O’Neil could see what appeared to be a massive traffic jam of abandoned vehicles. That mess blocked the Route de la Plage Merkala. If it weren’t for the passenger vehicles filling that street, they could have taken the road straight back toward where the Rangers had left them on tonight’s mission.

But even with the heavy-duty MRAPs, O’Neil didn’t think they could make it through the quagmire of abandoned vehicles. Van twisted hard on the wheel to the left, the MRAP leaning heavily on its right wheels, suspension groaning with the tight turn.

Alpha’s MRAP turned just as hard. The vehicle made the turn halfway, but its side bashed into a taxi and a white SUV. Metal scraped against metal. Tires squealed as they fought for purchase on the pavement against the overwhelming inertia of the bulky vehicle.

Through the back and side windows, O’Neil watched Skulls pouring over the walls of the port base after them. He saw more gunfire flicker from the walls as soldiers painted the MRAPs’ sides with rounds.

Van leaned forward in his seat. The MRAP blasted ahead, this time headed south on the other major roadway leading from the port: Mohammed VI Avenue. That road would take them far in the opposite direction, but O’Neil didn’t care so long as it got him and his team away from this terrifying base full of monstrosities.

Between the gurgling growl of the engine hungrily guzzling diesel and the pop of bullets hitting the MRAP, the Skull howls wailed into the night like beastly sirens.

Skulls began to emerge through the puff of black exhaust from the MRAP in front of them and the lines of broken vehicles littering the streets alongside the coast. The monsters rushed from within the boats washed up onto the Tangier beach to their left or trickled out of restaurants and hotels lining the avenue to their right.

With enough speed, the MRAPs could outrun them.

But as they raced further along the road, coming toward a bend, O’Neil saw the ghostly silhouette of a massive oil tanker against the nearly moonless night. The gigantic ship had been driven up onto the beach, carving into the sand and pushing up across the street, asphalt and pavement and piles of rubble around its hull from the buildings it had plowed into.

The wide avenue would offer them no escape either.

“Alpha, Bravo, enemy QRF headed your way from the north,” the drone operator said.

Of course. It was only a matter of time before the Russians’ mounted a quick reactionary force to come after them, to kill them and retrieve the experimental subjects they had taken.

“You have four aggressor vehicles headed your way,” the drone operator said.

Then another voice broke over the comms. “Alpha, Bravo, we will no longer be able to maintain overwatch or drone support. Enemies headed our way. We are going back toward the—”

Gunfire filled the channel.

“Delta, Charlie, what’s going on?” Reynolds asked, his voice carrying over the team’s channel.

“Taking heavy fire,” an operator reported back. “But we’re—”

The line cut into static.

“Shit!” O’Neil said, pounding his fist against the dashboard of the MRAP.

Delta and Charlie should have had the safer exfil. The water was safe from the Russians and the Skulls, but they had overstayed their welcome at the port.

And now Alpha and Bravo had nowhere else to run on the roadways leading directly out of the city. The Skulls’ screams and howls were only growing louder and closer.

“Charlie, Delta, do you copy?” Reynolds called over the comms again.

No answer.

“Charlie, Delta, do you copy?”

The only reply was the chorus of monstrous voices descending on their beleaguered convoy from every direction.

-25-

O’Neil could only hope that Delta and Charlie had made it back into the water. That their lack of response was because they had already slipped back into those oil black depths of the Strait. That would be the only way they made it out alive.

But even if they had been overwhelmed by the Skulls and Russians, Alpha and Bravo couldn’t go back into that port.

At least, not alone.

The best thing they could do for the teams and for their country was get the prisoners and stolen intel back to the villa for extraction.

Through the back windows, Skulls hurtled along the street toward them. He saw the sweep of vehicle headlights, too, curving around a bend in the highway. That would be the QRF.

Directly ahead, he could even make out the silhouettes of the monsters crawling over the decks of the listing, beached oil tanker. At the MRAPs’ approach, some threw themselves over the side of the ship and smacked against the asphalt or the sand, violently desperate to attack this new threat. Others crawled along the chains and ropes hanging over the side of the ship. Several of the creatures navigated the handholds provided by the metal hull where it was puckered and bent, burst from hitting land.

Toward the west, back into the city, other beasts pushed out of broken doorways or scaled the sides of restaurants and hotels, using their claws to climb the war-ravaged structures.

“Five minutes until those charges explode back in the lab,” Reynolds said. “That means five minutes before the Russians get even more pissed off than they already are. We need to get away from the port.”

“We’ve got to go through the city, Chief,” O’Neil called back. “I don’t see another way.”

“I’m afraid you’re right,” Reynolds said. “Follow us.”

Alpha’s MRAP tore off, turning around again on the highway, sideswiping an abandoned town car and clipping the mirrors off a blackened SUV. Van pressed his foot all the way to the floor and twisted hard on the big wheel of the MRAP. The engine rumbled with a fierce, throaty growl as they barreled after Alpha.

Already Skulls from both the base and the ship were catching up to them. A few grabbed hold of the rear of the vehicle, punching at the rear door, even as their claws broke against the bulletproof glass. Several of the prisoners yelled and curled up next to each other. They trembled with each aggressive attack from the suicidal Skulls.

“It’s going to be all right,” Tate bellowed. “Those pieces of shit can’t break through. Just hold tight!”

His words did nothing to calm the prisoners.

They started straight into the winding streets of Tangier. The MRAPs weren’t built for the narrow confines of the stone, concrete, and rammed earth structures of the historic town center, the medina. They broke through clothing lines still dangling between buildings. Stands filled with rotten fruit and spices, abandoned and mixed together by the winds, exploded when they hit them. Wood and stone shrapnel sprayed from the storefronts they squeezed past.

A cart with the skeleton of a donkey still attached to it crunched under their heavy tires.

“Three minutes until that explosion,” Reynolds called. “Bastards should’ve been paying more attention to their own base and not us.”

“Can’t wait for the fireworks,” Loeb said.

A pause over the comms.

Then Reynolds called, “Hostiles ahead!”

Skulls pounced from a three-story restaurant, lunging from between the tattered curtains fluttering from open windows. A handful landed in front of their MRAPs. The big tires smashed them with the grinding crunch of splintering bones. Two managed to get on top of Alpha’s MRAP, and O’Neil could hear at least a couple pounding on the roof of their own. Claws scraped against the metal hull followed by a steady thump like the creatures were trying to beat their way inside.

Alpha’s MRAP charged through an arched tunnel covering the street. The roof of the MRAP ground against the top of the tunnel, smashing the Skulls up there and sending chunks of broken bricks flying. Van sent their MRAP right in after the other, cleaning their own roof of Skulls with a series of sickening thuds.

The monsters on the back of the vehicle continued battering the door and window, stubborn as ever. Their screams and shrieks permeated the engine noise and troop hold.

“Just two more minutes,” Reynolds said.

Behind them, headlights lanced through the darkness. O’Neil saw the front hood of one of the UAZs. The smaller, lighter Russian vehicles appeared to be more adept at navigating the narrow, dusty roads through the medina.

“I’ve got eyes on an aggressor vehicle,” O’Neil said.

He pushed himself from his seat, groaning with the effort, pain echoing in his ribs, then moved toward the rear of the vehicle. As the MRAP shook and bucked, Van doing his best to navigate the narrow confines of the riads, canopied storefronts, and restaurants, O’Neil spotted a soldier rising from the top hatch of the pursuing UAZ.

“Oh, shit,” Tate said, seeing the guy too. “He’s got an RPG.”

The MRAPs were built to withstand a blast from an IED. They should be able to take a beating from an RPG or two. But O’Neil didn’t trust Russian engineering any more than he trusted a feral Skull to watch his back.

He pushed open the rear hatch window. One of the Skulls on the back of the vehicle reached in. Its claws grasped for O’Neil. He twisted his gun barrel at the beast and fired a quick burst.

Rounds chiseled straight through the beast’s open mouth and jaw. Its head flung back in a pop of bone fragments and splashing blood. The monster rolled off the back of the Typhoon and under the UAZ.

O’Neil roved his aim up at the Russian soldier with the RPG launcher. He braced his rifle against his shoulder, doing his best to hold it steady as the Typhoon bucked and swerved. Every time it ran over another market stand filled with pottery or colorful lamps or rugs, his aim bobbed, making it difficult to get a bead on the man with the RPG.

His first burst made the soldier duck. But the bullets sparked off the top of the UAZ and against its windshield.

The soldier pushed himself back up and aimed the RPG at the Typhoon. O’Neil fired, desperate. But the Typhoon’s constant jostling threw his aim off. His shots went wide or glanced off the UAZ harmlessly.

But the soldier with the RPG never ducked back inside.

A loud whoomph sounded, followed by a stream of smoke from the RPG launcher. The rocket propelled grenade shot toward them.

O’Neil braced himself. “Incoming!”

He prepared for the rush of fire and smoke, the pressure wave that would pound his body, the shrapnel that would fly from the blast.

Instead, the RPG round slammed into a building beside them. A shower of rocks and glass pelted the side of the MRAP. Dust rolled toward them in a blinding cloud.

But they had been lucky.

He wasn’t sure they would get lucky again.

The soldier disappeared into the cabin of the UAZ. O’Neil fired at the windshield, aiming at the driver. Rounds blasted into the glass, but the windshield held.

“I got this,” Tate said, sidling up at the window. In his hand, he held a grenade.

O’Neil leaned back from the hatch, and Tate let the grenade fly. It bounced against the ground, then exploded right in front of the UAZ. A geyser of sand and dust burst up from the blast, sending a spray of rocky shrapnel into the buildings on either side of the narrow roadway.

For a moment, O’Neil thought maybe they had ended the chase. That the car had been ruptured by the blast. It would clog that narrow roadway, blocking the rest of the vehicles from continuing the chase.

But then the vehicle burst straight out of the smoke and dust. The soldier with the RPG launcher had returned to the top hatch, another round loaded and ready to fly.

O’Neil swung up his rifle. He flicked the selector to automatic and fired. Bullets chiseled up the windshield and the roof of the vehicle. Then a few punched into the man. He fell backward, his top half stuck out the hatch. The RPG launcher slid off the roof of the UAZ, disappearing behind it.

“Fucking A,” Tate said, as the UAZ swerved, hitting its hood against the side of restaurant, plowing through the chairs and tables on the small seating area on the street.

The UAZ started to course correct, but already Van was putting more distance between them and the smaller vehicle. O’Neil plucked another grenade from his vest, then pitched it at the enemy vehicle. The blast boomed in front of the UAZ. Part of an already weakened riad wall gave way. Stones and bricks fell into the street.

Another obstacle for the car.

Maybe this was finally their chance to leave their pursuers behind. And with just a minute left until those charges exploded back at the port, they might actually complete this mission, ending the horrific experiments turning people into half-Skull hybrid monsters.

“Hey, O’Neil, we got more hostiles!” Loeb said, standing behind Van’s seat at the front of the MRAP. “Look!”

He was pointing out the windshield of the MRAP.

O’Neil navigated between the prisoners and toward the front of the vehicle. He hunched to see what Loeb had spotted.

On the roofs of the buildings, Skulls raced between the forests of satellite dishes and umbrellas. But unlike the beasts that had been rolling through the streets after them, these ones carried rifles strapped over their back.

He counted at least four of the monsters. Half-human, half-Skulls. Hybrid monsters.

Before he could so much as poke out of the top hatch and try to pick them off, one of the beasts jumped from the roof. He heard the scratch of its claws over the Typhoon. It didn’t try to beat its way into the vehicle like the mindless Skulls had, though.

“The hell is he doing?” Tate asked, pointing his rifle up at the hatch.

“Scrape him off, Van,” Loeb said.

“Will do,” Van said, aiming the Typhoon for another narrow passage between buildings with canopies reaching out over the road.

Just ahead of them, two hybrid beasts crawled over Alpha’s typhoon, too. They pressed themselves flat on the roof. Looked like they were trying to pry open the hatch or—

Reality hit O’Neil like a stack of bricks, his gut twisting into a painful knot.

The two Skulls jumped from the Typhoon, lunging through the broken windows of a café. At about the same time, the thump of the two hybrid creatures sounded from the roof of Bravo’s MRAP. Through a side window, he saw them throw themselves into a shop filled with rugs and scarves.

“They just planted explosives on top of the MRAPs,” O’Neil said, checking his watch.

In twenty seconds, the charges they had left at the lab were set to go off. A thousand thoughts whirred through his mind. About the noises he had heard at the lab before they left. How quickly the Russians and monsters must have retaken the lab.

That they must have guessed the SEALs were out to sabotage their efforts. It wouldn’t have been all that difficult for them to find the charges—and then instead of just disarming them, those hybrid creatures had taken them to use against the SEALs.

The MRAP might have survived a hail of bullets. Might have even withstood a hit from the RPG. But with the explosives they had laid out to bring down the lab, there was no way they were getting away without a scratch.

“We need to bail!” O’Neil said.

Van slammed on the vehicle’s brakes.

In front of them, Alpha screeched to a halt, the vehicle ramming over a low-lying stone wall in front of a riad. Stone and dust flew from the impact.

“We need to go!” O’Neil yelled. “Now!”

He barged through the troop hold, unlocking the rear hatch and pushing it open, waving at the prisoners to follow. A few hopped out right away, not questioning his command or urgency. Others appeared frozen in shock.

Hassan was trying to rally them in Arabic. Barely managed to convince a couple more to follow O’Neil. Loeb hopped out of the front of the hatch.

Tate grabbed another guy by the shoulders, practically dragging him off. Hassan ran off after Tate. Van ran back through the troop hold, pulling on the sleeves of a couple prisoners, yelling at them to leave.

“We don’t have time to help!” O’Neil said. “Come on, Van!”

Van looked up at him, still trying to pry the prisoners from their seats.

“Come on!” O’Neil shouted again. “Move, move, move!”

He gestured toward a narrow passage between a souvenir shop and a tour operator stand. Loeb and Tate were leading the prisoners to what O’Neil hoped was safety.

Just as Van started to get off the truck, he heard a pop and a low boom from Alpha’s MRAP. A blinding flash of light exploded from the vehicle followed by an intense wave of heat. O’Neil had just enough time to throw himself to the ground as the pressure wave rolled over him.

The charges on top of his team’s MRAP went off with another thundering roar. O’Neil was thrown through the broken window of the souvenir store. Hot shards of glass ricocheted around him. Pain stabbed through his eardrums, followed by an intense ringing. He pushed himself up, crunching over the glass, agony coursing up his back and through every muscle.

He blinked, trying to clear his vision. Blackness encroached on the edges. At some point in the blast, his NVGs had been busted, twisted on top of his helmet.

But he didn’t need them to see the orange flicker of flames coursing from the MRAP. The top of the vehicle was puckered open. Looked like it had been chewed on by a massive Skull. Fire crept up the canopy of a neighboring café and bits of other twisted debris scattered over the road.

O’Neil tried to stand, stumbling forward, his head filled with dizziness. Stars seemed to blink in his vision, and he fought not to pass out, his brain feeling as though it had been smeared against the inside of his skull.

He managed to hold himself upright, his palm against one of the walls inside the store. His boots smashed broken statuettes and shattered dishes. Through the window, he saw the charcoaled pieces of smoking body parts from the prisoners who had refused to get off the Typhoon scattered over the street.

A wave of sickness welled up inside O’Neil. He tried to choke it down. Couldn’t tell if it was from the concussion or the gruesome scene.

But the why didn’t matter.

He needed to find Van. He tried to call the operator’s name, but he couldn’t even hear his own voice. Nearly falling over, he stumbled toward the front door of the shop. Dust was shifting through a crack in the ceiling, pouring over his head. He blinked, covering his eyes as he stepped out into the street.

Leaning back against the front wall, his ears still ringing, he saw Van. Half the man’s uniform was torched. Embers burned up a pant leg, and blood trickled from his nostrils and mouth. He wasn’t moving, his body pressed up against the tour operator stand that was now host to dancing, ravenous flames.

“Van!” O’Neil tried to yell.

As he started toward Van, he realized he wasn’t the only one.

Across the street, from the restaurant and the store with the rugs, he saw the hybrid monsters peering above the rubble-lined walls. This time they had their rifles shouldered and sweeping down the street.

One caught sight of O’Neil, raised his weapon, and aimed it straight at him.

-26-

O’Neil squeezed off a wild burst. Just enough to force the hybrid soldier to duck. It gave him the time he needed to get to Van. He let off another burst to keep the monstrous Russians back as he reached for Van’s shoulder.

“Come on, brother!”

His hearing started to return. The crack of gunfire and roar of the flames sounded as though they were coming through water. He thought he heard voices over his comms, too.

“Van!” he grabbed the man’s collar and started dragging him toward the passage where the others had gone.

The four hybrids pushed up over the wall again, sighting O’Neil up. He fired on them with one hand, pressing his rifle tight against his shoulder. But trying to pull Van to safety and fend off these monsters was damn near impossible. Each of his rounds hit the walls or slashed past the Russians.

Then he heard the muffled pop of suppressed gunfire to his left. Rounds punched toward the beasts, cutting into their position. One of the monsters toppled forward, dropping his rifle and collapsing over the road.

Tate and Loeb were kneeling at the entrance to the passage to cover him.

O’Neil pushed his agonized muscles. Each step dragging Van toward safety sent daggers of pain stabbing up through his nerves. He felt something catch at the back of his throat. Started coughing, and blood sprayed up.

But he didn’t let that stop him from getting Van to the cover of that passage.

Soon as he made it past Loeb and Tate, he saw the frightened prisoners waiting in the passage. Behind them, only meager starlight filtered in through the slats in the wooden roof of the passage. Just enough light that O’Neil could see rows of market stands. Smelled them too. Some with rotten fruit and decaying meat. Others with mosaic glass lanterns hanging from the ceiling.

It looked to be the entrance to a winding marketplace. Maybe they could lose the Russians in there and finally escape this hellhole of a city. Get Van back to the Rangers. Back to someone who could help.

“I will help, brother,” Hassan said, picking up Van by his shoulders with O’Neil’s assistance.

“Loeb, Tate, we need to go,” O’Neil said. Every word he spoke sent a fiery pain through his head. Red seemed to bleed into his vision. He clenched his jaw, fighting back the electricity coursing through his nerves, starting to limp forward.

As he took point, leading the prisoners through the maze of refuse, Tate and Loeb stayed on rear guard, covering their exit.

They hurried as best they could over a brick-paved walkway, dodging between souvenir drums and bags hanging from a display stand. Blood spattered the paintings and dog-eared postcards at another to their left. Their feet pounded between chewed up bones.

“Two hybrid soldiers down,” Loeb said, sounding nearly out breath. “The other two disappeared.”

O’Neil wasn’t foolish enough to believe that meant they had given up the chase. “Reynolds, where are you guys?”

“We’re heading southwest,” he said. “Moving between the—”

A barrage of howls and shrieks ripped into the night, echoing between every corridor.

“Reynolds!” O’Neil called over the comms. “Reynolds, do you copy?”

Gunfire burst somewhere to their south. O’Neil started limping toward an alleyway, dodging between bags of leaking trash. He advanced toward the sound of gunfire and the scraping scratch of Skull claws on stone. The growls and roars grew louder the deeper he went down the alley.

“Reynolds, we’re on our way!” He let Hassan take Van.

He had to help his brothers. He could not leave them behind. Could not let them be swallowed up by the Skulls, torn apart by the beasts when they were so close to finally getting out of Tangier. To bringing back the intel they’d gathered on the Russians.

They might not have blown the lab. But with everything they had found, they could give ample warning to the United States and all its allies what was going on in Tangier.

He just couldn’t bear to let another SEAL be a victim of the Russians. Not after what had happened to McLean in Lithuania. Not if Charlie and Delta hadn’t made it back to the water.

Each step sent a shiver of pain up through his legs. He felt as though his legs might break under his own weight, but he kept fighting to move forward. Toward the sounds of Skulls.

“Shit, we got Skulls on our ass!” Tate yelled. A second later gunfire blasted from the rear of the group. In between the strobe light of the muzzle-fire, monsters hurtled between the passage walls, tearing out from market stalls and from inside stores and restaurants. They shrieked and screamed, chasing after the group. Loeb and Tate struggled to hold them off with waves of gunfire.

A pair of creatures climbed up the wall of a building. Their muscles and limbs tensed as though they were preparing to launch themselves from their perches on the second floor and over Tate and Loeb’s head.

O’Neil raised his rifle. His arms shook with the effort, his body growing weaker by the second. His vision was growing blurry again, unable to focus on the shape of the beasts. He squeezed the trigger and blasted a spray of rounds toward the monsters. One fell away as its limbs flailed. It let out an agonizing scream when it hit the ground.

The other jumped and landed on a prisoner, tearing its claws into the man’s guts, then biting at his neck. It tore its head back, flesh and blood dripping from between its needle-like teeth. O’Neil held his breath, steadying his aim, and fired. Rounds punched through the beast. The impacts painted the wall behind it with gore as the creature collapsed face-first to the ground.

But as soon as he tried to press forward again, as soon as he spun to advance toward Reynolds’s position, more Skulls appeared at the lips of the roofs above.

“Hurry!” he yelled, hobbling down the passage. Each step sent pain shuddering up through his limbs.

He only made it a few feet before another monster appeared at the end of the passage.

This one carried a rifle.

A hybrid creature.

“Stop,” the beast said in clear, Russian-accented English. Had its rifle pointed straight at O’Neil.

O’Neil would never stop. So long as he could help his men, he wouldn’t listen to the commands of these beasts. He aimed his rifle. Started to squeeze the trigger.

But something punched into his shoulder. His left arm went numb, and the rifle fell on its sling.

“No, no, no,” he said, falling backward.

He managed to pull his pistol. Aimed up at the monster and fired. But his vision was still blurry, the pain rocking through his body, his mind barely hanging on.

His shots went over the beast’s head as it advanced toward him. Another dropped down from an adjacent roof, a rifle in its clawed hands.

Gunfire still exploded somewhere to the rear of the group. More screams rent the air. Blood-curdling voices mixed with the shrieks of the monsters.

He couldn’t tell if it was his people or the prisoners or the Skulls calling out in fury and agony.

All he could do was try to hold his pistol still enough to fire at the two beasts stalking toward him.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Van and Hassan. The Moroccan was cowering, hands over his neck next to Van. O’Neil dragged himself toward Van, determined to shield the man from these two beasts. Determined to help his brother.

He kept firing his pistol at the blurry shapes until the slide locked back, the magazine spent. He let the pistol drop from his hand and reached for Van’s. But before he could, a boot stomped down over his wrist. He heard a snap. A flash of pain shot up through his arm, and he yelled a curse.

One of the Russian hybrid monsters had its boot on O’Neil’s arm, pressing the heel into the bricks. The hybrid soldier twisted it, grinding it harder against the ground.

O’Neil saw nothing but red as he screamed.

The monster had him pinned. And while it looked down at him, he saw the shapes of Skulls perched on the edges of the roofs above. Heard their talons all over the brick and stone walkways.

They were completely surrounded.

There was nowhere else to run.

No way the Rangers could do anything to save them in time, either.

The hybrid drew back his rifle and gave O’Neil a wicked grin, then slammed the stock of it into O’Neil’s forehead.

He fell back onto Van’s limp body.

Then his world went black.

* * *

O’Neil smelled rot.

Carrion.

Death.

It clung to his nostrils, filled his lungs. Made his eyes water in those moments after he opened them.

The world came to him in blinks and flashes as he fought against the pain throbbing beneath his skull and up his arms.

He saw the creatures, half-human, half-beast, pull him into one of the Russians’ Typhoon MRAPs. Felt the cold press of metal against his spine. Pain jolted up through his broken wrist. Every time he tried to move the fingers of his right hand, he felt only hot fire.

A body thumped against the back of the truck with him.

Van.

He reached toward the man, fighting the pain. Desperate to help his brother who was still bleeding from the blast wounds.

His fingers traced over Van’s chest. They were growing number every second. Felt like they were someone else’s, but even as he lost feeling, his nerves were still sparking enough for him to feel the cold flesh around Van’s neck.

“No… no… Van,” he mumbled. He tried to rouse the man.

But Van’s eyes remained closed.

Only a single dome light illuminated the troop hold.

That light was more than enough for O’Neil to see that Van’s chest was not moving up and down. There was no pulse throbbing in his burned neck.

His mouth lay open, slack. The skin that wasn’t burned and blistered was growing paler by the second as blood drizzled from his nostrils and from his wounds.

O’Neil thought back to when he had first met Van at BUD/S. The guy had made the 50-meter underwater swim look like a breeze. Went all the way to the end of the pool and back, shot out from the pool, and merely nodded when the instructors said he passed.

Like his success was inevitable.

O’Neil had thought the guy was cocky, because he remembered how damn hard that swim was. How much pressure there had been in that moment, if he didn’t make it all the way down the pool and back, that was it for his career in the SEALs. His dreams of being one of the Navy’s elite would be finished with a single desperate breath.

But O’Neil learned quickly that Van wasn’t cocky. He just knew what needed to be done and he did it.

Like when O’Neil’s mom had died, hit by a drunk driver. His dad had passed years earlier from heart disease, and she was the only family he’d had left. Soon as Van had found out, he had booked a flight out from Houston where he was visiting his folks on leave—which came about as often as a hard rain in the desert—and came straight to O’Neil’s place in Virginia Beach.

Van hadn’t said a damn word. Just came over with two six-packs. The guy took the beers out to the balcony of O’Neil’s condo, set them down on a plastic table between the two cheap plastic chairs O’Neil never used.

They burned the night away, just sharing that beer until the morning came.

And Van merely left with a tight hug and a nod.

Might have been odd if it had been anyone else. But with Van, the message had been clear.

I’m here for you. Always will be.

SEAL blood ran thick.

That night meant more than any of the platitudes or flowers or kind words from his mother’s friends and those handful of people O’Neil occasionally talked to outside the teams. Friends from the days when he wasn’t spinning up on some deployment or classified mission.

His mother’s funeral had been a blur of condolences and emotion. But he never forgot what Van had done for him, even though the two of them never spoke of it again.

And now, Van was gone.

Other bodies thumped into the truck beside him. The Moroccan prisoners. Some hogtied; others knocked out, gashes in their forehead leaking out over their noses and beards.

Blackness started sucking at the edges of O’Neil’s vision again. He tried to keep his eyes open.

Gunshots blasted outside.

Then yells. Curses.

Another smack of bone against metal.

O’Neil couldn’t fight it. His eyes closed again.

Maybe Loeb and Tate had escaped. Maybe they would reunite with the Rangers. They would fight back.

This couldn’t be the end of his team.

When he woke again, he could feel the rumble of the truck through his body. Felt the warm press of other prisoners around him.

Van had been flipped sideways, pushed over to make room for the half-humans standing around the prisoners, their claws wrapped around handholds in the MRAP’s ceiling. They were chatting in Russian. A couple laughed.

Dark, sadistic laughs.

Demonic.

Van’s jacket had been torn open in the blast. Now that he was on his side, the silver cross necklace he wore hung out, dangling on a chain that almost looked delicate against the dead operator’s muscular body.

Where had Van got that necklace? He’d told O’Neil before, but his head was getting fuzzy again.

Van was Catholic.

Was it from his first communion? His confirmation?

Was it from his parents? Grandparents?

Fuck.

He couldn’t remember anything right now. Just remembered that it was important to Van.

And an urge to take that necklace welled up inside him.

Because he didn’t want the beasts to have it.

The Russians couldn’t have it, either.

That last vestige of Van didn’t deserve to be lost when they fed him to the Skulls or dumped his body into the waters outside the port.

No…

He reached out toward the necklace, gritting his teeth against the pain. Knowing that if he moved too quickly, if he so much as moaned from the effort, the half-humans would stop him.

He needed that necklace.

Slowly his fingers wrapped around the cross. He started to pull. Pain exploded in his wrist. He wanted to scream, to curse. His fingers shook. Sweat poured down the back of his neck, his forehead, stinging his eyes.

Van…

He couldn’t do it. Couldn’t pull it off. He was too weak.

Then one of the half-humans saw him. Glared at him with yellow eyes, lips curling back in a snarl befitting a rabid wolf.

Said something in Russian, then stomped O’Neil’s wrist.

Another crunch. A wave of pain so intense, O’Neil vomited over himself.

Last thing he smelled before passing out again was that vomit mixed with the carrion stink of the animalistic bastards that pointed and laughed at him. His eyes started to close again, exhaustion and pain overwhelming him.

But not before he made a vow.

A vow that he would carry out no matter what.

He would ensure every one of these bastards paid. Every damn Russian responsible for the tragedies in Tangier would answer for their sins.

And then, once more, his mind faded into oblivion.

-27-

O’Neil felt the warmth of the sun on his face and bare chest. Heard the roar of the waves crashing onto the shore. Felt the grainy sand swallow his feet when he pushed them into it.

He turned to see Reynolds standing beside a cooler, talking to a few other guys on the teams. He had a bottle of water in hand. O’Neil didn’t think the guy looked down on alcohol, per se, but he’d never seen the guy so much as lift a can of beer.

Gulls squawked overhead and dove toward a picnic blanket where Loeb’s girls were throwing the birds potato chips, much to their mother Sofie’s dismay. They giggled and shrieked when the gulls got close. Loeb picked them up in his arms, holding them close to his chest, laughing and threatening to feed them to the gulls. He had his favorite cowboy hat pulled down over his brow like he was a vagrant in a John Wayne flick.

Van started chatting with Reynolds. Something Reynolds said must have been pretty damn funny, because O’Neil saw Van actually crack a smile.

O’Neil knew he was dreaming.

But he would rather live in this dream than the nightmare that was his present-day reality. This was a memory, a time before the outbreak. Before the world had been ripped into ragged shreds from the Oni Agent. The beach barbecue was one of their traditional last hurrahs with the troop and their families before they were packed away on a C-17 back to the Middle East or Central Asia.

Loeb took his cowboy hat off, placed it on his eldest girl who wasn’t more than six or seven at the time, then sauntered over to O’Neil. He put a hand over his eyes and looked out toward the white-capped waves breaking and rolling toward them.

A pair of surfers were fighting to catch a wave worthy of their efforts.

“Amateurs,” Loeb said.

“Says the guy from Texas.”

“The gulf has surfing,” Loeb said. Truth was Loeb had been a West Coast SEAL before joining Team Six. Damn near every SEAL O’Neil had met on one of the West Coast teams had been a part of the dawn patrol at one point or another catching waves as the sun climbed into the morning sky. “You ever rode a wave, brother?”

“Does it count if I was in a Zodiac?”

“Hard negative.”

“I’m afraid not.”

Loeb licked his lips. He had a sun-soaked, tawny complexion. With his slightly shaggy hair, he looked more like a beach bum than a rancher’s son. That day, he had looked positively at home on the beach with his girls.

“We’ll have to change that,” Loeb said.

“I’m willing to try.” O’Neil jerked his chin toward Reynolds. His time on the West Coast had overlapped with Loeb’s. “You ever hang ten with the chief?”

“Nah, brother. Wouldn’t dare.”

“Why’s that?”

“He likes to hang eleven.”

“The hell is hang eleven?”

“Hang ten is when you got all ten toes over the side of the board.” Loeb cracked a shit-eating grin. “Hang eleven is when you’ve got an extra, uh, appendage hanging over because you’re a fan of freedom. Every man’s got their own thing, but I don’t want to see that thing. You catch my drift?”

O’Neil laughed and punched Loeb in the shoulder. “You’re fucking with me.”

Loeb shrugged neither confirming nor denying anything.

That day had been well before Skulls had taken over Virginia Beach and the rest of the East Coast. Before Tate had joined their team when DEVGRU was losing some of their best fighting a battle for a country that O’Neil wasn’t even sure was theirs anymore.

O’Neil stared out at the ocean.

These guys weren’t just some people you saw at the office, then grabbed a drink with every other week after you clocked out. They weren’t just the charming, friendly neighbors that would help you shovel your driveway. And they weren’t just some friends he saw a few times while reminiscing about their lives before they had kids and mortgages and a 401K that seemed to be growing slower than grass in the winter.

These guys were family.

O’Neil looked at Loeb’s wife and girls constructing a sandcastle now.

No, truth was, these guys were closer than family.

They knew what it meant to be dropped into a hot LZ. Knew what it was like to take enemy fire or drag an injured brother into cover even as an avalanche of incoming rounds peppered your position. Knew what it was like to look an enemy fighter in the eye—another human being—and squeeze a trigger, knowing you were taking their life with that simple action.

That their life full of memories and family and brothers-in-arms of their own, no matter how twisted by their own radical ideals, ended as soon as you pulled the trigger while your life continued on.

But you lived with that decision because you made it so your brothers would live, too. Because that fighter had been pointing his rifle at Van or threatening to take down Loeb. That fighter might be the one to set an IED that would blow up Tate’s ride the next day or might set up a mortar in the mountains, raining hell down on the chief’s bed while he tried to grab shuteye.

Yeah, truth was, there wasn’t a proper word to describe their relationship—and no one who hadn’t faced oblivion with a handful of hardened warriors who would lay down their lives for you just like you would for them ever understood. Even calling each other family somehow didn’t cut it.

O’Neil recalled a time when they had taken out an entire bomb-making operation in a dusty Afghan compound. How a bullet had grazed Loeb’s shoulder. One even hit a chest plate. Broke the plate.

Two shots that could have ended the guy’s life.

And then they were sent home to wait for their next mission. Loeb had been inches from losing his life and as soon as he got home, he couldn’t say a damn thing about it. His wife just handed him their youngest daughter, an infant then, and asked for help changing her diaper.

Yeah, SEAL blood ran different than family blood. No one really understood what that meant except the other SEALs. Not even their wives and girlfriends, parents and siblings.

So when the screams first tore O’Neil from his unconscious fate, he didn’t care about the throbbing pain in his right wrist or the agony coursing up his left arm. He didn’t care about the headache sending spears through his brain and straight out his eyes. He didn’t care about the sickness welling up inside him, forcing him to spew what little he had in his stomach over the concrete floor.

All he could think of was where the hell Loeb and Tate and Van were.

He searched through a crowd of unfamiliar faces. Most with beards, almost all skinny and covered in scratches.

“Loeb! Tate! Van!”

Dizziness started to take over his mind again. He fell into the chain-link wall behind him. He tried to hold himself up, but the effort sent another wave of unbearable pain roaring up through his nerves.

He heard the screams again, echoing all around him. Through his blurred vision, he realized where he was.

The prison. The lab.

The very place they were supposed to destroy still stood. And worse, he was back in a cell with the very people he had tried to save.

“Are you okay?” a voice asked, hands touching his shoulder.

He shrugged away, trying to raise his hands to fight. But he could barely get them more than a few inches off his lap before the agony forced him to abandon his effort.

“Please, please, you are hurt.”

“No… fucking… shit…” he managed through a clenched jaw.

He craned his neck to see who had placed their hands on his shoulder. Realized it was Hassan.

“My brother, please, you will hurt yourself more,” Hassan said.

“Where is my team?” O’Neil asked. “Did they escape?”

Hassan looked down at the ground. “I am afraid they did not.”

“Where are they?” O’Neil asked.

Hassan pointed out of the cell, toward where the screams were coming from. “They are being questioned.”

“Why… why not me?”

“You were unconscious,” Hassan said. “They left you with us.”

Another scream wailed out from the darkened space in the labs beyond the cages. O’Neil bit back against his own pain and tried to grab the steel bars.

“Stop it!” he yelled. “Stop this!”

But no one answered him. The two Russians he saw working in the lab merely looked up at him, then turned their attention back toward a microscope.

“Loeb… Van… Tate… they have them all,” he said.

Hassan’s face screwed up in concern. “Van, he is… May Allah bless his soul with eternal peace.”

It hit O’Neil then.

Again, for the second time that night, he realized Van was gone.

Taken by these monsters.

Footsteps banged down the corridor. O’Neil stared between the bars.

Four men marched toward the prison cell. Each pair of men dragged a person by the shoulders. It wasn’t until they were close that O’Neil realized who those Russians were lugging behind them.

The bastards opened the cell door, then they threw the two unconscious bodies in. O’Neil stumbled toward them, dropping by their side.

Loeb. Tate.

Each with blood dribbling down their faces. Long cuts over their arms. Crimson trickling from the ends of their fingers where their nails had been removed.

“Oh, God, what did they do to you?” O’Neil asked.

Heat started to rush through his chest. He thought of Van, lying next to him in the back of the MRAP. Now probably fed to the Skulls or the thrown into the water.

It was enough to make him fight past the pain. He surged up and charged at the four Russians, yelling louder than a starving Skull.

“Bastards!” he cried, ramming his shoulders into one. He hit the guy with enough force to knock the man off his feet.

The man fell backward into a lab bench. Glassware toppled and rolled off, beakers and flasks breaking against the floor. O’Neil raised his foot then slammed it down hard on the man’s face. Again and again, he smashed his heel into the man’s nose and mouth. Cartilage cracked and snapped, bone busting under O’Neil’s assault.

But before he could finish his attack, before he could turn the guy’s face into a pulp, rough hands wrapped around his arms and wrist, sending waves of pain through his damaged limbs.

The Russian soldiers yelled at him and rammed their elbows and fists into his body. Something else in his arm snapped. Pain rocketed through him. A crack split up his back.

A boot landed on his ankle. Another crunch. Another wave of pain. His stomach twisted from the assault. Bile burned up through his throat from the intense agony. A thousand fires scorched through every inch of his body.

He took hit after hit until he was spitting blood and teeth. Two of the Russians picked him up, hoisting him from under his shoulders. They spit curses at him while they hauled him past the cages. He caught sight of Loeb and Tate again, both still lying motionless.

“Help them, Hassan,” he said.

The Moroccan was shaking in pure terror, but he managed a nod.

O’Neil fought against the pain wracking his body. Saw that his ankle was twisted beyond its anatomical limits. He felt his body starting to give out, weakness overtaking him. He still hurt, but everything felt… distant.

Was he going into shock? Or was this just a nightmare he was starting to wake up from?

He prayed for the latter, but a ruthless voice told him it was the former.

More screams erupted from elsewhere in the facility. But O’Neil was finding it harder and harder to remember where he was or what in the hell was going on.

All he knew was that he was in immense pain.

Until he was thrown up onto an operating table. A man in a white lab coat speckled with blood adjusted the surgical lights above the table, shining them over O’Neil’s face. His face was pocked with old scars. A gray and black beard covered his chin.

The doctor yelled some command at the soldiers. They grumbled, then twisted O’Neil from his back to his stomach. All those injuries, those broken bones seemed to react at once when they did. Another round of agony hammered through O’Neil’s body.

He let out a yell that shook throughout the OR. Tasted more blood on his tongue.

Then he heard the doctor mumbling to himself, along with the clink of metal tools as the doctor’s fingers probed the devices on a surgical tray nearby.

“Aha,” the doctor said. He picked up what appeared to be a small drill with what looked to O’Neil like a propeller on the end. The doctor pulled the trigger of the instrument, and that small propeller started spinning, letting out a low whine.

Looking at another man in a white coat, the doctor said something else in Russian.

“What are you doing?” O’Neil asked, struggling through the pain.

The other man nodded and moved to a toolbox, sifting through until he pulled out a small plastic device. It looked like a thin wafer trailing wires like tentacles.

The doctor nodded, then pointed at what looked to be a refrigerator. Again, the assistant did the doctor’s bidding, looking through the refrigerator before pulling out a plastic syringe.

Beckoning the assistant with one hand, the doctor tested his drill again, the blade spinning at the end, letting out that ear-splitting whine. He held O’Neil still with one hand as the assistant disappeared behind him.

A sharp jab stabbed through the back of O’Neil’s neck, followed by the rush of cold liquid. He couldn’t help but shiver, his whole body seeming to drop in temperature with that injection. Then as the cold started to fade, a fiery pain spread from the back of his neck up into his brain and down his spine.

O’Neil pushed himself up with his elbows, trying to get his feet over the edge of the operating table. He started to yell again as the doctor roared at two of the soldiers waiting at the edge of the OR. They hurried over, pressing down on O’Neil’s arms, using their weight to hold him in place.

Then he heard that drill again. Felt it press against the base of his skull.

This time, his scream didn’t last for longer than a second before the pain took him.

-28-

A slap woke O’Neil. He tried to pry his eyes open, but exhaustion and pain pulled him back toward unconsciousness.

Another slap.

“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” a strongly accented Russian voice said.

A jolt of adrenaline poured through O’Neil with the crushing reality of where he was.

Tangier.

The port.

In the Russians’ custody.

He had been injected with something, then operated on.

For what reason, he didn’t know.

Now he was in a dark room with a single light overhead. He heard feet behind him. Smelled rotten meat. Death.

This had to be another sick dream. Another crazed nightmare swirling from the agony of his half-destroyed body.

Pain still throbbed up and down his arms. He could barely move his fingers.

Then he realized, even when he tried to lift his arms it wasn’t just because of the injuries. Metal cuffs held them together in front of him. Ropes wrapped around his chest and pressed his spine against a pole behind him.

“Where am I?” he asked. His tongue thick in his mouth.

“You do not worry about where you are,” an Russian-accent voice said from behind him. “Only who is here with you.”

Then he heard it. The tap of talons on the floor.

A monster emerged from the shadows. It held its hands tucked against its chest, claws arcing from its bony fingers. Bloodshot eyes stared at him from behind a skeletal mask. Crooked horns protruded around its brow, and stringy, black hair hung between them. Long talons bulged from its toes, and spikes pushed up out of its overgrown vertebrae.

The beast looked at O’Neil and snarled, prowling toward him.

He wanted to fight back, but he was completely tied up. No weapons. No way to stop this monster.

What were these sick people doing? Why did they capture him only to feed him to this Skull?

The beast lunged.

O’Neil yelled, ready to face his death.

The monster snapped back, its claws raking just a couple feet from O’Neil’s face.

He realized then that there was a metal collar around its neck, just barely peeking out from the remnants of its shirt and the bony shoulder plates bulwarking its frame. That collar was attached to a chain behind it.

“What do you want from me?” O’Neil asked.

He heard the people behind him shuffling around. Then another voice. The clinking of the chain.

The beast took another step forward, testing the extra length of chain it had been given.

“Focus on the monster,” the voice behind him said. “Focus on the beast. Only you can make it stop.”

“The fuck are you talking about?” O’Neil roared. “Tell me!”

The beast fought at its collar, its claws battering the metal. Then it snapped at O’Neil. Spittle flew from its jagged teeth. Over and over, it sliced at the air.

The chain kept growing longer. The beast inched closer. O’Neil tried to shrink into himself as those claws came soaring toward him.

One claw sliced just inches from his chest. He tried to lift his feet to kick the beast backward.

But his ankles were secured to the pole, too.

He was going to be eaten alive, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

“You control the outcome,” the voice behind him said. He wondered if it was that doctor that had operated on him. “This is not a dream. This is reality. You will die if you do not focus.”

The Skull drew closer, snapping, violent. O’Neil could almost feel the creature’s rage and anger. As if those emotions were an ember burning in the back of his mind. He started to feel that same fury. Wanted to tear the Skull apart.

As he grew angrier, more frustrated, more fearful that there was nothing he could do to escape, the monster swiped its claws more wildly, its bloodshot eyes pulsing, its teeth snapping over and over. It let out a scream that matched O’Neil’s own frustration.

O’Neil roared back, fueling the flames of the monster’s insanity.

“You are doing everything wrong!” the Russian behind him said. “Calm, you imbecile. You want calm. Focus!”

“Maybe it didn’t take,” another voice said.

“It took. I do not fail.”

The Skull’s claws tore so close he could feel the air rush past his face.

“Focus,” the first voice said again.

O’Neil wanted to scream and laugh and curse. Maybe this wasn’t a dream. Maybe he was having a bad trip thanks to anesthetics or some other shit they had pumped into his body.

If he was going to die anyway—in his dream or in real life—what else did he have to lose?

He stared at the Skull. Caught its eyes.

Then did exactly what the Russian had commanded.

Focused. Thought about calmness. Serenity.

A cool breeze curling over a beach in Virginia. A day spent with his brothers before they were sent halfway across the world to take down another cell of fighters. He started to think about deployment, fighting. Heat rose in the back of his mind again, the Skull growing wilder. A claw scraped dangerously close to his nose, and he twisted his head.

Focus.

Focus.

Focus.

He heard the squawk of the gulls again. Saw Loeb’s girls laughing as they dumped a bucket of sand on their father’s cowboy hat.

He tasted a cold lager. Cheap beer, sure. But he didn’t care. Tapped his can against Van’s. Shared a nod as they both watched the waves crest and crash. That rhythmic sound, the salty air. The sand beneath his bare feet.

He could feel and smell and taste and hear and see it all as if he was back there. Back in that dream of his. Those memories when everything in the world seemed to fall in place perfectly. Knowing he was where he belonged. With the teams. With his brothers.

A SEAL.

Just the knowledge of his place, his service to the country, gave him an inner peace.

He had made it. Despite his parents’ insistence that he do something safer with his life, that he become a professor or doctor or find some other job where he was a working professional in a suit, he had made it.

He had come a long way from camping in the foothills and mountains outside of Boulder, from rock-climbing on the weekends, and seeking other cheap adrenaline fixes in the Rockies.

There was nothing he had wanted more in life than to be a SEAL—and he had done it.

That was the most calming thought he could muster.

He still smelled the death, the rotting meat.

Felt warm, fetid breath rush over his face.

But the memories of that beach in Virginia, of his fellow members on the teams, gave him a sense of peace no Skull could steal.

When he opened his eyes, he was staring straight at the Skull. Its claws hung by its side, its eyelids drooping. A long string of drool roped from its fanged mouth. The chain on the floor was completely slack. The monster looked like a drug addict after finally getting his fix.

If the beast wanted, it could take just one step forward and end O’Neil’s life.

“Very good,” The Russian said. “Very, very good.”

The chain pulled taut and yanked the Skull backward. The monster broke from its lethargic reverie and started twisting and fighting against it once more. But it had been pulled well out of O’Neil’s reach.

“I told you, I never fail,” the Russian said. “It worked. Once more. It worked.”

A hand gripped O’Neil’s shoulder. Then he felt the jab of a needle in his neck. A cool sensation spread through his bloodstream.

No matter how hard he focused, he could not keep his eyes open, once again falling into the pattern of horror and unconsciousness.

None of this made sense.

Just another bad dream. Another nightmare.

He wondered when it would end. When he actually woke up, when he actually returned to the world, what horror would he face next?

* * *

The world came at O’Neil in a blur. He felt the press of bodies around him. The smell of all those people left in the cages, unable to bathe, stung his nostrils. His bones ached, and he had only feverish dreams and visions of the people around him as he struggled to keep his eyes open for long.

He remembered only vague details of the dreams before now. Disembodied feelings. Terror.

Over and over, he passed out then came to. Each time struggling to remember where he was. What had happened to him.

He wasn’t sure how long he had really been out before he woke again to finally realize where he was with painful lucidity.

“Mister O’Neil, you are okay?” a frighteningly skeletal face with a beard asked.

Took him a moment to realize it was Hassan.

The man’s cheekbones jutted out, pressing against his sallow flesh. His eyes appeared to have sunken into his skull.

Maybe it was just his imagination, but O’Neil thought Hassan looked worlds worse than he had when the SEALs had first tried to rescue him.

O’Neil pushed himself up. “Where’s Tate? Loeb? The rest of our guys?”

“O’Neil?” Tate shoved through a few of the prisoners, kneeling beside O’Neil.

Loeb came through next. “O’Neil, Jesus, brother. You’re back.” He put a hand on Hassan’s shoulder. “Thanks for watching him.”

“Yes, my brother. I will always be thankful to you all.”

“Thankful?” O’Neil asked. His head started to throb. He pressed a palm against his forehead. His throat felt scratchy, too, and he thought his voice sounded deeper. Raspier, even. Hell, everyone sounded a little off. Maybe his concussion was getting to him. “We fucked up, Hassan. There is nothing to be thankful for.”

“That is not true,” Hassan said. “You risk your lives to save our lives. You try. Even with a failure, it is more than many others would do.” Then he straightened. “We are also still alive. This is not over yet.”

“You feeling okay, man?” Tate asked, squinting at O’Neil.

As O’Neil met the operator’s gaze, he realized Tate looked almost as skeletal as Hassan. “I… I don’t know…”

He looked up at Loeb. Gone were Loeb’s almost boyish cheeks and the blue eyes. His skin was ghost-white, and O’Neil could swear he saw Loeb’s skull beneath his skin.

Maybe he was hallucinating. Maybe he was just having a nightmare.

Something wasn’t right.

“Where’s everyone else?” O’Neil asked.

Loeb combed his fingers through his hair. A few greasy strands came out as he did. He looked at them, then brushed his fingers together to drop them on the floor. “You sure you’re feeling all right?”

O’Neil sat straighter against the cage bars. “I—”

Then he realized what he had done earlier. He’d pushed himself upright. With his arms. The same ones that had been damn near useless last he remembered.

He held his hands out in front of him, squeezing his fingers open and closed. He could actually feel the tips of his fingers. Only a slight pain echoed in his bones.

“What… how is this possible?” O’Neil asked.

Loeb and Tate looked at each other, not saying a word. For a moment, all O’Neil heard were the murmurs and groans from the other prisoners.

“We got a lot to catch you up on, man,” Tate said, then let out a sigh. “Reynolds, Stuart, and Henderson are in the other cage.”

He used his thumb to indicate the cell beyond the wall of Moroccan prisoners crammed in with Bravo.

“What about Delta? Charlie?” O’Neil asked.

“Most of the guys are in the other cage, too,” Tate said.

“Most?”

Loeb bowed his head. “Not everyone was taken alive.”

“Three Delta guys made it,” Tate said. “Four Charlie.”

O’Neil pinched his eyes close, massaging his forehead. “And the Rangers?”

“We’re not exactly sure,” Loeb said.

“Sounds like you have some idea.”

“I came to first,” Tate said. “When I did, I heard a bunch of commotion. Skulls screeching, vehicle engines. Gunfire. I’m not sure what exactly happened, but you can imagine.”

O’Neil wanted to believe that the Rangers were fine. That command knew what had happened to the SEALs, and Smith would be arranging a rescue operation for his lost troop.

But he remembered what Van had said about being an optimist. About that vet who had claimed it was pessimism that had gotten him through his imprisonment in Hanoi. If he played by Van’s book, then he had to relegate himself to the fact they might not ever get out of this place. That he was stuck here at the whim of these mad Russians.

“What do we do now?” O’Neil asked.

“We were talking to Reynolds through the cages,” Loeb said. “We’re still holding out some hope that the Rangers survived, but there’s not a hell of a lot else we can do right now.”

Loeb slid down to sit next to O’Neil. “I think it’s just a wait and pray kind of thing.”

O’Neil nodded, another realization hitting him. “Shit, Loeb. I’m sorry I didn’t press harder to get that sat phone for you.”

Loeb shot him a bemused look, before his expression turned sorrowful again. “Oh, God, it’s not your fault. My girls know I love them. That’s enough for me.”

By the look in Loeb’s eye, O’Neil could see that wasn’t true. The man regretted not talking to them before coming to Tangier.

“We’ll see them soon,” O’Neil said.

He cursed inwardly. Didn’t want to give false hope. But being an absolute pessimist was a lot harder than the guy in Van’s story made it seem. Even in this darkest hour, there was some inner voice in the back of O’Neil’s mind clinging to hope. To the torturous idea that they would get out and somehow return to the UK.

“Loeb, man, you gonna tell him or you want me to?” Tate asked.

Loeb just gave Tate an almost dismissive wave.

“Fine, man.” Tate let out a long breath. “They… they’re—”

“They’re experimenting on us,” Loeb finished for him. “Injected us with some biological agent and implanted shit in the back of our head.”

“You’re fucking with me,” O’Neil said.

Loeb gestured toward O’Neil’s arm. “I’m not. How the hell do you think your bones healed so quickly?”

“I…” O’Neil had no answer.

“Hey, Hassan, tell O’Neil what you told us.”

Hassan was talking to another Moroccan in a low voice. He turned and joined the SEALs. Another scream wailed out through the facility, and O’Neil craned his neck. He couldn’t quite see what was going on, but he saw silhouettes against the plastic curtains of the OR.

“They turn us into these hybrids,” Hassan said.

“You don’t mean those half-human things that tracked us down in Tangier,” O’Neil said.

“That is exactly what I mean,” Hassan said. “I talk with other prisoners who are here for a longer time. The Russians inject us, then implant this thing in our head.”

Hassan turned and lifted the hair over the back of his neck to reveal a crooked, stitched-up wound at the base of his skull.

“No,” O’Neil said. “No, no, no. That can’t be right.”

He probed at the back of his own head. His fingers bumped into rough stitches and puckered skin.

Then he held out his hands. His nails were yellow and rough, starting to grow out longer. His wrist bones protruded more, and his elbows seemed sharper, the skin tight over the bone.

He looked around at the faces surrounding him in the cage. The gauntness, the cheekbones. It all made sense now. Logically, he knew Hassan was telling him the truth. That they were slowly devolving into these beasts… but… God, he didn’t want to be one of these monsters.

And Tate and Loeb… this was a fate worse than death.

To watch his men transform before his eyes into twisted experiments…

“We have to stop it,” O’Neil said.

“If there is a way to stop these changes, we do not know it,” Hassan said. Then he closed his eyes, pressing his hands to his face. Tears streamed out from his pinched eyelids. “I thought it was a horrendous crime when I found out these people kill my wife and child. Now, I realize it is a blessing that they will not be turned into a djinn like I will be.”

“Nah, man, we won’t be djinn,” Tate said. He tapped the side of his forehead. “If we were going to turn into those djinn—the Skulls—we would have lost our mind already. We’re turning into those hybrids.”

“It is no better,” Hassan said.

“It makes all the difference,” Tate said. “We’ll still have our minds. They can’t stop us from thinking. They can’t control our thoughts.”

“I am not so sure,” Hassan said.

“What the hell do you mean?” O’Neil asked, still trying to wrap his mind around the changes to his body. The more he let his mind wander, the more he thought he could actually feel the bones moving under his skin, pushing up through his muscles.

If the Russians were going to do something to his brain, too, he was going to rip out that device or whatever they implanted in the back of his skull with his fingers.

Hell, he was probably going to grow claws soon enough. That would make tearing it out even easier.

“I learn many things from the prisoners that were here before us,” Hassan said. “I can tell you everything I know about the beasts we call Hybrids.”

O’Neil looked around the cages. Saw that there were twenty-some prisoners total, SEALs and Moroccans, in the four cramped cells. Some looked nearly human; others covered in bony spikes and fins and horns.

“Tell me everything,” O’Neil said to Hassan.

The Moroccan nodded. He started with stories about the oldest prisoners in the cages. Ones whose minds had seemed barely better than the Skulls. Those were the ones that had attacked when the SEALs had tried to rescue the Moroccans from these cells. Apparently, the Russians were trying to develop an agent that could bestow someone with all the physical attributes of a Skull while leaving the mind intact.

Not everyone had responded to the agent the same way initially. The Russians had apparently even tried it on their own people first. The Hybrids that O’Neil had seen in the field were the handful that had survived the procedures.

Then the Russians had turned to experimenting on locals to improve their biological agent. All those who had sought refuge at the port or came to the Russians for help were instead turned into experimental subjects.

At first, very few survived the procedures. Many lost their mind in the same way the Oni Agent overrode a person’s normal consciousness.

Slowly, the Russians honed the agent on their prisoners.

The agent worked similarly to the Oni Agent. It induced almost uncontrolled bone growth. But one thing the Russians hadn’t yet solved was the immense amount of pain that came with the changes. When it really took hold, when the bones started growing too fast for the skin to keep up with, the agony would come, too.

“But what about this shit they put in our skull?” O’Neil asked.

Hassan pulled on his knotted beard, his eyes darting between Loeb and Tate. “I am not sure I understand what the other prisoners tell me about this.”

“What do you mean?”

“I… it is hard to say.”

“Tell me.”

Hassan explained that the prisoners had very little understanding, but they said they could feel the Skulls outside the laboratory. That they could sense them.

“Like some kind of fucking psychic bullshit?” O’Neil asked, finding it even harder to believe.

“Not psychic,” Hassan said. “They say it is a chemical reaction. Like a smell or, how do you say—”

“Pheromones,” Loeb said. “You know how some guys think female pheromones can make a man go nuts over her? Well, that’s what this shit is supposed to do for us. Only the Skulls are the dumb, horny dudes in this case.”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” O’Neil said.

“I know what you mean,” Tate said. “It’s crazy, man. But we were talking to Reynolds. He said he heard some rumors about the Russians pursuing research projects like this in the past. ‘Course he thought it was bullshit before. I would have, too.”

“There’s just no way.” O’Neil pressed his palm against his forehead. He didn’t feel any difference in his mind. And he was supposed to believe the Russians had some way to control the minds of Skulls?

Fucking unbelievable.

“The Moroccans who’ve been here a while said it’s not really mind control,” Loeb said. “It’s more like a subtle influence. Like, you know when you’re at a concert, the crowd is going wild, and you want to go wild, too? Kind of like that. Very subtle.”

“This is nuts,” O’Neil said.

“Exactly what I’m saying, man,” Tate said. “But think about it. Remember in Lithuania how the Skulls never attacked until after we ambushed the convoy? And then when they did come after us, it was with those Hybrid soldiers?”

Loeb tapped his boot on the cracked concrete floor. “This base, too. They don’t care about the Skulls, because so long as they have these Hybrids around, they can keep the Skulls calm and contained. Then when they want them to go wild, like when they went after us, they can influence them to do that, too.”

“Way we heard it, it’s not like they have remote controls for the Skulls,” Tate said. “It’s more like a rough feeling. Like you can control their mood.”

“We know it sounds crazy,” Loeb said. “But how else do you explain everything we experienced?”

O’Neil wanted to come up with another explanation.

He couldn’t.

A distant memory started to return. Mostly in a haze. But he recalled being strapped up to a pole. How he had been told to focus, to calm an aggressive Skull.

“That dream I had… it wasn’t a dream,” he said. “I was in a room with a Skull. They told me to focus. To calm the beast—or it would kill me.”

“Yes, yes,” Hassan said. “Some of the other prisoners mention a similar experience. They do this test, too.”

“God.” O’Neil let his chin drop to his chest.

Hassan spoke in a lower voice. “If you concentrate, if you let yourself fall into meditation like you are in prayer, you can feel it.”

“Feel what?” O’Neil asked.

“All the other Skulls in this base,” Hassan said.

O’Neil did as Hassan suggested. Bowed his head. Closed his eyes. Fell into his own thoughts.

Just like he had when he had been in the room with the Skull.

And this time, when he cleared his thoughts, he could feel it. Just like Hassan said.

An immense pressure, like the ocean was pressing down on him from every side. He could feel discontent and hunger, single-minded rage. He could almost hear the growls and snaps.

The beasts were everywhere.

So many of them. The pheromones or whatever biochemical shit they were leeching soaked into him, and if he didn’t focus, if he didn’t will himself to remain calm, then he could feel their rage trying to worm through him.

Trying to turn him into a monster like they were.

“My God,” he whispered, opening his eyes. “How is this possible? What are we?”

Tate wrung his hands together. “We’re monsters.”

-29-

Days and nights passed in the cages. O’Neil tried to keep track of time, but the Russians had since boarded up the windows or plastered them with black plastic curtains to keep out the light. More prisoners were added to the cells. More Moroccan civilians damned to end up as the ill-fated subjects of the twisted Russian researchers.

Besides those Moroccan prisoners and SEALs, pain was O’Neil’s constant companion.

His joints burned with an unholy fire first. Then the bones in his fingers pierced the end of his fingertips, slowly turning into Skull-like claws. He felt his shoulder blades tearing from his skin. Blood constantly wept from the wounds. Agony exploded every time a new bone pushed its way out of his graying flesh.

Across his temple, he felt the knobs beneath his skin. Budding horns. His hair started to fall out in stringy clumps.

Every day, he thought about tracing his claw over his neck. Letting himself bleed out on the cage floor.

The only thing worse than the pain he endured was the agony of watching his brothers succumbing to the same horrific mutations induced by the experimental agent.

There was no escape from the torture his own body was inflicting on him except for those few moments when he passed out from sheer exhaustion and frustration.

The Moroccan prisoners fared no better.

Hassan spent most hours praying on the floor, bent over, his vertebrae jutting up from his spine, his claws tremoring with each bow to a god that would not save them. Others rolled over the floor, groaning and sobbing.

“I miss them,” Loeb said one day. A blood-filled tear rolled down the yellowed cheekbones piercing his shredded flesh. “My girls. My girls. I miss them.”

Tate paced in a corner of the cell, his nostrils flaring, his jaw tensing as he muttered to himself.

Some of the prisoners shook and twitched. Others switched between French and Arabic and English like their mind was being controlled by someone just flipping through the channels.

“Eat. Eat. Eat,” one said.

Others stood at cell bars, staring out, slashing at every Russian that passed by. Their minds seemed to be as lost as the Skulls, but they didn’t attack any of their fellow experimental Hybrids. They only seemed interested in untainted flesh and blood.

And sometimes, when O’Neil let his guard down, when he gave into the chemical signals drifting off those rabid Hybrids, he could feel their hunger. He wanted to escape, too, and tear his teeth into the neck of one of the men strolling through the lab. The thought of fresh blood trickling across his tongue made his stomach rumble until he could get ahold of himself.

The Russians poured buckets of rotting meat or canned goods or even uncooked rice into the cages. The prisoners wolfed down the food, no matter how putrid. Because when hunger struck, O’Neil found it might as well have been a runaway train derailing. He could hardly control himself.

After one such meal, Tate looked up at him, red juice dribbling down his bony chin. “We’re going to get out, man. We’re going to get out.”

He looked almost sad as he said it.

Loeb scoffed.

O’Neil thought again about Van’s insistence to prepare for the worst, expect the worst, and then accept it when things turned out better than planned.

“We will,” O’Neil said, unable to give in to Van’s advice. “We’ll escape, and we will burn this place to the ground. Just like we tried before. Only this time, we won’t fail.”

He clicked his claws together.

“I will tear every last one of these mothers from their sternum to their asshole,” Tate said. “They’ll regret the day they turned me into a Hybrid.”

O’Neil tried to take some solace in Tate’s attitude. Maybe he was right.

The brass would be sending someone else to finish the job. Someone else to find out what had happened to them.

And when they inevitably came, then he would be ready.

Of course… if the Russians were winning, taking over Europe and using the Skulls and Hybrids to their advantage, maybe…

No, he refused to believe they could win.

“Who the hell do you think they’re going to send?” Loeb said. “We’re the best the US has got, and, well, this is what happens.”

“Nah, man, they’ll do it,” Tate said.

“Yeah, sure,” Loeb said. “Maybe they’ll send the Hunters. Those mercs seem to be getting their hands dirty all over the world. Why not here? Or maybe Santa and his fucking reindeer will show up to fly us to freedom. Just as believable.”

“Quit it,” O’Neil said. “Remember, it’s not just the United States in this war now. Hell, Khalid said the Moroccans are in it.”

“Khalid?” Loeb asked.

“The guy that we questioned at the villa,” O’Neil said. “We’ve already seen other countries banding together to fight these monsters. There has to be someone outside these walls ready to break in. Ready to end what we started.”

“We hardly started anything,” Loeb said.

“Jesus, man,” Tate said. “We showed the Russians that they aren’t untouchable. We showed them we know more about them than they realized. We are gonna show them they fucked up, too.”

“You’re damn right,” O’Neil said. He wiped his claws on his soiled uniform. Or at least what was left of it. “There will be an end to this.”

Loeb shook his head, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, cleaning off some of the juice from the rotten meat they had eaten earlier. “You know when I decided to become a SEAL?”

“Nah, man, I don’t,” Tate said.

Loeb traced his claws down the steel bars. “I used to do rodeo. Always dreamed of competing in the Las Vegas Rodeo or the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. Those were the big-leagues.” For a moment, his cracked lips and jagged teeth broke into a grin. “I used to rope calves with my dad when I was a kid. Wanted to eventually ride bulls like my brother.”

“No, shit,” Tate said. “You are crazy, man.”

“I was,” Loeb said. “Watched my brother compete. Then he got thrown off a bull bad one time. Broke his back. He was out of the rodeos for a year, but you know what he did when the doc said he was healed?”

“He didn’t,” Tate said.

“He did. Made it another couple of years before he broke his wrist. Didn’t care. Kept competing until… he took another bad fall. Fluke accident really. Didn’t clear the bull. Fell under its hooves. I can still remember the snap. The ambulance sirens.” Loeb closed his eyes. “I can tell you he never got on a bull again after that. Only thing he rode was a damn wheelchair.”

“Shit, man, I’m sorry,” Tate said.

“For me?” Loeb asked. “Don’t be. When I saw that, I lost every desire I had to be like my brother. Figured I’d take a different route. Joined the Navy.” He let out a low laugh. “I think my parents were relieved. Thought it would be safer than being a wannabe rodeo cowboy.”

Loeb shook his head. “Guess they were wrong, huh?” he asked.

“You did the right thing,” Tate said. “No one could’ve known this shit was gonna happen.”

O’Neil almost forgot his pain for the moment. Almost forgot how much death they had seen. How one of the members of their team was missing.

He relished the distraction. If he ignored the grunts and growls of the other prisoners and just listened to his swim buddies, he could nearly pretend they really were just shooting the shit back on the beach in Virginia.

“Tate, what’s your story?” O’Neil asked.

Tate scratched at his bulging ribs with his claws. Then he gritted his teeth for a second, pinching his eyes closed.

“You okay?” O’Neil asked.

“The pain,” Tate said. “One of those waves where you feel like every nerve is splitting.”

O’Neil cringed. He knew the feeling only too well. “Maybe you should sit down. Get some rest.”

“That ain’t happening,” Tate said. “You asked me about joining the SEALs. I’ll tell you. Simple story. I went to a charter school, southside of Chicago. When I grew up, I heard people calling my city Chiraq. Talking about all the violence, the gangs.

“All I knew was that it was my home, right? I loved the city. But man, all these people talking about shit, I realized I never left the city except for swim competitions. I was pretty damn good at those, but when I was out for a competition, I didn’t exactly explore the places I went to. My mind was on winning, know what I mean?”

O’Neil knew. There was that competitive streak. That striving to be the best so many SEALs shared.

“I got a scholarship to swim in college, but it was just to some place in the middle of the cornfields in Southern Illinois,” Tate continued. “I figured, if I was going to leave the city, I should really leave the city. Dumb kid that I was, I thought riding big ships around the world in the Navy might be good. Then I’d learn to really handle guns, how to fight. All the assholes on the block who thought they were hot shit would be scared of me when I came back to visit my ma. And shit, I was good at swimming, so naïve as I was, I thought the Navy would just welcome me right into the SEALs.

“Wasn’t that easy, but I cut my teeth in EOD and, well, you all know the rest.”

Those stories provided only a brief diversion from the pain.

The screams rocketing through the facility, the shrieks of Skulls outside brought him back to the hell they lived in.

Every time O’Neil heard a gunshot, he wondered if that was the beginning of a rescue op. If maybe someone was trying to infiltrate the Russian base.

But as time wore on, he grew used to the gunshots. He grew used to feeling the rage of the monsters and the chemical signals that he had to fight back, to prevent him from succumbing to them.

He grew used to the idea that no one was coming to save them.

That they were going to rot in this cell.

He could hear constant hammering around the base, and the rumble of engines, like the Russians were working to reinforce the base’s defenses. They even installed key cards on the prison cell doors.

Even if someone was coming, it was going to be a lot harder to get into this base than before.

As the Russians continued working on their base, they also took an endless stream of Skulls through the lab facility. Almost as if they were processing them for slaughter. Rumors flew between the prisoners about what they might be doing. More lab studies. Butchering them for parts. Using them to make the Oni Agent.

No one truly knew, but O’Neil lost track of how many beasts had passed between those walls after he had counted into the hundreds.

Occasionally the Russians would take one of the prisoners from the cell.

Screams would come from the operating room. O’Neil was no exception. The prisoners, when they weren’t being tested on their abilities to influence the Skulls, were cut open and sliced so the grizzled doctor could examine their transformations. The doctor scraped off pieces of the bone growing over O’Neil’s body or sliced off chunks of flesh to run experiments on. He poked and prodded at O’Neil, inflicting pain with every touch.

And other times, O’Neil found himself strapped onto that pole in that dark room again. Asked to fend off a Skull or two using only the power of that chip they had implanted against his brain. It got easier and easier to force the Skulls back. To convince them to leave him alone.

Other times they asked him to direct the Skulls at imaginary foes. Get them to attack the wall or even just a big bag of flour or grain. All he had to do was call on his own anger, and the Skulls would practically do his bidding. Controlling them wasn’t like pulling puppet strings, but more like shooting off a rocket and letting it explode against whatever he roughly aimed it at.

He wondered if he was getting better at it.

Or if it was his body adapting, making it easier.

His claws were long as daggers. His shoulder blades ripped out from his back like he was growing wings. Every rib had grown out from his chest, wrapping around his body, heavy as the ceramic plates he wore into missions.

Even his toes had grown out into talons, ripping through what had remained of his boots. The bones in his joints pushed out from his skin in fin or spike shapes.

He and his team no longer looked remotely human.

If he would have seen himself on the street, he would fire without hesitation.

He was no longer a SEAL.

He was a Hybrid.

A monster, just like Tate had said.

When they had first been imprisoned, there was a marked difference between the SEALs and the Moroccans. The civilians had been scavenging for food and survival beyond the port, while the SEALs at least had had the benefit of reliable food and water before their capture. Their choices might not have been as good as before the war, but O’Neil was used to living on MREs and whatever he could scrounge up where he happened to be deployed.

So he and his team knew how to cope with rough conditions. They stayed physically fit. Looked almost no different than before the outbreak.

But now, after having spent God only knew how long in the Russians’ prison, O’Neil could hardly tell the difference between his men and the Moroccans.

All shared the same monstrous features. All smelled like a pile of corpses left to rot in the middle of a hot, humid Virginia summer.

Van’s story about the Vietnam War vet continuously replayed in O’Neil’s mind. He wondered if he should accept the fact that they would be left here forever. Wondered if that would actually make him feel more at peace with what he had become.

He tried to forget about the outside world. Tried to focus solely on the struggle of ignoring his pain.

Hell, maybe he would take up meditating. He almost laughed to himself at the dark humor.

Like some kind of transcendental experience would transport him from his horrific reality.

O’Neil spent his time trying to tell Loeb and Tate they would make it out. That Tate should still cling to hope. But more and more, the Chicago-born operator said they were just going to die anyway. That their bodies would be dumped into the port with all the other failed specimens they had seen when they first entered the Tangier port.

Loeb turned into a husk of himself, mumbling about his daughters and his wife. About how he wished he could have seen them just one more time. That he wanted to tell them he loved them.

“You will,” O’Neil said, his voice raspier than ever. “I promise.”

Loeb looked straight at him, eyes narrowed. He held up his claws. “Even if I did see them again, they would run from me in terror.”

O’Neil could not find the words to reassure Loeb. The guy was right. Anything O’Neil said otherwise would be a lie.

The outbreak had trained everyone to run as soon as they saw a creature that looked like they did. And good God, what if they were infectious?

What if Loeb could condemn his daughters to the same fate just by hugging them?

O’Neil shook at the thought.

Maybe Van was right.

Hope was a drug people took to fool themselves into thinking things got better.

Instead, he let despair take him. Let the knowledge that his career as a SEAL was over, even if he did escape. His future outside this cage was as bleak as his current situation. So what did it matter?

Then he saw four Russian soldiers go to the cage with Reynolds, Stuart, and Henderson. They pushed aside the other Hybrids and dragged out one of the guys on Charlie.

The SEAL was mumbling. Sounded like he was saying, “Food. Food. Food.”

And as the Russians walked away, yanking the operator behind them, O’Neil knew he had one reason left to live.

All he needed was to stay alive long enough to ensure every last one of these bastards died for what they had done to his brothers.

-30-

The low bleat of alarms sounded outside the labs. O’Neil heard voices calling somewhere in the lab facility. Doors slamming shut. Boots slapping against pavement.

He could feel it, too.

The Skulls.

Like a tide washing over his body, the undertow threatened to carry him away. He felt himself slipping and losing control. The agitation from the beasts outside welled up in him.

He wasn’t the only one.

Reynolds was pressed up against the wall of his cage. Eyes wide, lips pulled back in a tight snarl. A few of the Moroccan were rocking back and forth, swaying to the beat of music only they could hear.

Or more accurately, feel at the back of their mind.

Almost all of the thirty-something prisoners seemed to be struggling to deal with the strange sensation.

“What’s going on?” Tate asked, eyes half-closed. He stood at the front of the cell beside O’Neil.

Loeb shook his head. “Nothing. A bunch of Skulls are pissed. What else is new?”

“It feels different this time,” Tate said.

“There are just more Skulls,” O’Neil said. “That’s all.”

He was ready to settle back against the cage bars, to continue his infernal struggle of fighting against the pain and the burning sensation of the bones moving and growing beneath his flesh.

Then from somewhere in the facility he heard a pop. Sounded like a window being pried open.

Footsteps next.

Not like the loud, deliberate footsteps of the Russians.

But more like someone treading softly over the floor. Almost as if they didn’t want to be heard.

O’Neil hadn’t fully realized quite how his senses had evolved as a Hybrid. But he thought he could even smell these people. They weren’t as musky as the Russians. There was another scent to them. Almost oily, metallic. Like the scent that got in your hair from spending too long in the engine room of a ship.

Then he saw five shapes down the corridor, past the prison cells. They carried rifles, moving as if they were infiltrating the place.

“Tate, Loeb,” O’Neil whispered, gesturing toward the sight.

“What the fu…” Tate let his words trail off. Then turned to Loeb. “I told you, man.”

Hassan came to the cage beside them. “Are we saved?”

“We don’t know who they are,” Loeb said. “Might just kill us when they see us. I would if I was someone else.”

One of the Moroccans started to stand, pressing his face against the bars. He asked Hassan a question in Arabic and when Hassan replied, the Moroccan stuck his claws out the cage. Started to shout.

O’Neil pushed past Hassan and clamped the guy’s mouth shut. “We don’t know if they’re friends or enemies yet. Cool it.”

The man nodded, and Hassan confirmed that the guy did in fact know enough English to understand what O’Neil had said.

Two of the figures—one appeared to be a tall, muscular man with dark skin and the other an athletic-looking, paler-skinned woman—stopped just near the entrance of the prison as if to set up defensive positions. The other three men walked toward the prison, their rifles sweeping the cells. One of the men, the taller of the two, had crisp blue eyes, tanned skin that made him look like he’d spent a life at sea, and a square, set jaw. Another man with dark skin had a build that made him look like a champion lightweight boxer. The third had a ruddy complexion and deep brown eyes. And, O’Neil thought, a prosthetic hand judging by the mechanical black fingers he saw holding up the rifle.

They sure as hell didn’t look like the Russians.

One of the Hybrid Delta team operators stuck a hand out from between his bars. “Help… us. Help, please.”

The man’s voice was more grating than many of the other Hybrids. His claws curled into his palms as he reached out for the new arrivals. The bony plates covering his arms were lined with oozing pus and blood, his shoulder blades jutting out like wings that had been cut off at the stump.

His body had reacted poorly to the agent, worse than O’Neil’s. He felt terrible for the guy. But he worried how these two men would react.

If they would gun down every prisoner they saw because they thought the Hybrids were nothing but monsters. Or if they hadn’t come to rescue anyone from this base but rather to burn the whole place down. Experimental subjects included.

“What the hell happened to you?” the taller, sandy blond guy asked with a clear American accent.

“They… they did this to us,” Stuart responded from his cell where he stood beside Reynolds.

The big man waiting at the entrance of the prison spoke. “They look like Skulls, but they don’t act like Skulls. That’s… interesting.”

O’Neil didn’t want to be interesting. He wanted to be free. He wanted them to see him as a damn person beneath these bones. A growl escaped his cracked lips before he could stop it.

Fortunately, Reynolds spoke on behalf of the prisoners. “Interesting? They made us like the Skulls but kept our brains.” His voice rattled like there was a bone caught in his throat. He held his hands out in front of him, staring at the plates and claws. “I can still feel it moving. Pushing out of my bones, through my muscles.”

“Good God,” the man with blue eyes said. His face was painted in shock for a second before he regained his composure. O’Neil thought the guy should’ve been absolutely shell-shocked to hear a Skull talk, but perhaps they had run into Hybrids before. “We’ll fix this.”

Reynolds laughed. “Fix this? Look at us, brother. Do we look like we can be fixed? The only thing you can do to fix me is put a gun to my temple and pull the goddamned trigger.”

“Shit,” the man with the prosthetic said. He shook his head slowly, muttering in Spanish. “Dios tenga piedad de esta gente.”

The blue-eyed man lowered his rifle slightly. Never quite pulled his finger away from the trigger guard, though. The expression on his face told O’Neil he didn’t want to say whatever he was thinking.

But he did anyway. “Is it safe to let you out?”

O’Neil wondered if the man would believe them. If anything Reynolds or any other Hybrid could say would convince these people that the prisoners needed to be let out. That they weren’t going to kill these would-be rescuers.

At least, not all of the Hybrids would.

Reynolds spoke again. “Me and my boys, you can trust. Some of the others in those cages…” He nodded toward a cell with mostly Moroccans. The Hybrids inside paced around aimlessly, snarling and cursing to themselves, their eyes darting between the five people who had just showed up. “They were the first test subjects. I don’t think the experiments worked so well on them.”

The female soldier walked toward the cell that Reynolds had indicated. One of the Hybrids stuck his claws out, growling and snapping, trying to reach at her.

“Eat… eat…. eat…” the man said.

Another beside him muttered in Arabic, then threw his body against the bars. The bars rattled as he did it again and again. A third Hybrid snarled and growled, teeth snapping together, saliva spraying from between its cracked lips. It threw itself against the bars until blood wept from what had once been its nose, fractures forming in its bony mask.

“Why would they do this?” the guy that looked like a boxer asked.

“Isn’t it obvious?” the one with the prosthetic arm asked. “It’s like the Titan project, only worse.” O’Neil had no idea what they were talking about. But he could read between the lines. This wasn’t the first time the Russians had been experimenting with Skulls and Hybrids and other biological agents. “These are the real super-soldiers, bro. This is what they wanted.”

The blue-eyed man turned back to Reynolds. “We’ll get you out of here. We’ve got a ship, medical supplies. Talented doctors. We can get you back to the States.” He swept his gaze over the other prisoners. Some of the Moroccans that understood English were nodding along. Others were listening to their cell mates translate. “We can get you all out of here.”

Hassan stumbled toward the cell wall, tears trickling out of his eyes, washing down his bony face. “I do not want to live like this.” He lifted his hands. They no longer looked like the calloused brown hands O’Neil remembered before all the experiments. They were almost entirely bone now. “The pain is too much. My body is on fire.”

Another Moroccan rocked back and forth, his teeth clenched together, blood vessels bulging in his neck as he ground his teeth. “All I want is to die.”

“Let us out,” another Moroccan said from Reynolds’s cell. “Let us attack the dogs who did this.” His cracked lips curled back revealing a mouthful of crooked teeth. “I would have as many die at my hands as I could before they killed me. It is what they deserve.”

Another man stood from a cell near the back of the prison. “Let Allah judge their souls, and let me send them to Him.”

Reynolds opened his mouth as if he were about to talk again. But then he doubled over like he was about to retch over the floor, a clawed hand clamping on his abdomen. He looked up, fighting the evident agony roiling through his body. An agony O’Neil knew only too well.

“You cannot imagine what it feels like to have these bones piercing your insides,” Reynolds said, his jaw clenched. “Every movement hurts. Like needles in my lungs and stomach.” His gaze pointed toward the last Moroccan to speak. “He is right, though. These bastards deserve to die. And I would be happy to make that happen.”

The other soldiers—or whatever they were—seemed to be looking at the blue-eyed man. He was evidently their leader.

“I don’t know,” the guy said.

Reynolds’s claws ground together as he made a fist, his nostrils flaring, eyes seeming to bulge from his skull. “Please. It would be a mercy to die in a hail of bullets. And an even greater mercy to die after having taken them down with us.”

“Fucking right,” Tate muttered.

O’Neil nodded. In that moment, he wanted nothing more than to be free from that cage and slice his claws into the soft bellies of every Russian wandering around this God-forsaken base.

The blue-eyed man appeared to consider their request. His fingers tightened around his rifle. O’Neil feared that meant the man was more interested in putting them out of their misery than letting them loose. Letting them do what they wanted more than anything else in what was left of their miserable lives.

Finally, the blue-eyed man spoke. “Fine. But you have to understand, we came here for a purpose. We need to stop the shipments they’re trying to send out of here.”

Reynolds’s eyes narrowed, his chest expanding and deflating more rapidly. Like he was preparing to tear down the cell doors himself if this guy didn’t.

“Understood,” Reynolds said. “What are these shipments?”

“We suspect it’s a new version of the Oni Agent—the biological weapon that caused this mess in the first place. They’ve altered it. Made it airborne.”

“Damn,” O’Neil said. He wrapped his claws around the bar to steady himself. It was bad enough that the Oni Agent spread through so much as a scratch from a Skull. But if that’s what the Russians had been using this site for—not just a place to create Hybrids—but also a port to ship an agent that was now airborne, the world was in a lot more trouble than it already was. He hadn’t seen anywhere inside the base where this new agent could be manufactured, but nonetheless the idea was terrifying. “That’s… that’s not good.”

“No, it’s not,” the blue-eyed man agreed.

“You think they’re…” Reynolds stopped. Grabbed at his stomach again, wincing and grinding his teeth together as pain flashed across his bony features. “You think they’re loading the new agent on ships?”

“Why do you ask?”

“No production facilities here. This must just be a distribution and testing center. Nothing more.”

The blue-eyed man appeared surprised.

“Look,” Reynolds said, “before we were caught, we scouted this whole place. The only labs are in here, across from our little prison. All they’ve been doing is processing Skulls in and out of there.”

“That and experimenting on us,” O’Neil added.

“This is screwed up as hell,” the guy that looked like a boxer said.

“You don’t have to tell us,” Tate said.

Loeb narrowed his eyes, staring through the bars. He finally asked the question O’Neil wanted to know now that he was at least fairly confident these new arrivals weren’t just going to slaughter them. “Who on God’s green Earth are you people?”

The blue-eyed man motioned to himself. “I’m Dominic Holland. Dom, if you want.” He indicated the guy with the prosthetic. “Miguel Ruiz.” Then the boxer. “Spencer Barrett.” The woman. “Jenna Reed.” Then finally, the big guy in the back. “Glenn Walsh.”

“Great,” Loeb said. “We know your names. But who the hell are you with? Give me a branch.”

Dom looked back at his team. “We’re more or less on our own. Maybe you’ve heard of us. We’re the Hunters.”

-31-

“No way, man,” Tate said. “You’re the merc group people have been talking about.”

O’Neil couldn’t believe it. He had been almost convinced these people had come to set them free. To actually return them to the United States. But after what he’d heard about this group of contractors, he was no longer so certain.

This all might be a ploy. A desperate effort to take his team hostage along with the intel they had, bartering it all off to the US government for money, fuel, supplies, whatever these bastards were after.

“What are you going to do when you let us out?” O’Neil asked. “Take us captive? Throw us in your ship’s brig?”

Dom lowered his rifle. “No, of course not. We can let you out of those cages, and as soon as you’re out, if you want, you can run right back into Tangier.”

“But I’m warning you, it’s a bit of a shitshow,” Miguel said.

“You guys were part of the reason the Oni Agent got loose,” Loeb said.

“Definitely not,” Jenna said. “We’ve been risking our asses trying to stop it.”

“We were framed,” Glenn offered, his baritone voice rolling over them. “The same people that put you in this prison, that did this to you, framed us. They proffered false intel to make it seem like we were behind the outbreak.”

Miguel scoffed. “If we were with the Russians, we wouldn’t be sneaking in here and trying to let you guys out. In fact, we’re here specifically because JSOC told us about you SEALs. We just didn’t expect to find you guys like, well, this.”

“I don’t buy it,” Loeb said.

O’Neil was surprised to hear Loeb’s reluctance. But after how he’d seen the man change—both physically and mentally—over their imprisonment, he couldn’t blame him.

Then Spencer gave Loeb a nod. “I get it. I really do. I served on the SEAL teams myself. When I retired, I joined up with Dom’s group, ready for a new challenge. Never could get used to civilian life. I can’t imagine what the hell you guys have been through, but I know what you went through as a SEAL.”

Spencer gestured toward Glenn. “He’s a Green Beret.” Pointed to Jenna next. “One of the first women to make it through Ranger school.” Miguel, next. “Another veteran of the 75th.”

“We’re not the type of contractors that run around just to make a quick buck,” Dom said. “I devoted my life to protecting the country we all love and doing my best to stop the kind of awful shit that’s happening here. I thought I could protect the world from threats like the Oni Agent. But it looks like we’re going to need some help. You in?”

Loeb turned away.

“Come on, man,” Tate said. “All we got to do is get out of here. Fight.”

“We’ll get you back to your girls, Loeb,” O’Neil said.

Spencer let his rifle go completely. It hung on its sling, and he held up his hands. “All the people on our team come from various branches of the armed services. We could’ve gone and joined some contracting firm that sits on their asses punching numbers into a computer or chased the high six-figure salary checks that I know the same groups have dangled in front of you guys. You guys have served. You know the types I’m talking about.”

O’Neil could picture it well. There were contractors who did the right thing. Did the job because it was a way for them to serve, even though they weren’t in the military or had left the service for whatever reason. Then there were the guys who walked around the sandbox, especially early on in the Iraqi war, who thought they owned the place. But they didn’t report to any of the same people he did.

They reported to their corporations, their companies.

The ones owned by millionaires and billionaires who feverishly joined in the war efforts, not to fight for freedom, but to get their slice of the pie, stealing from the taxpayers.

These weren’t the people who fought to protect American citizens from threats both foreign and domestic because of their love of country, but for their love of the dollar.

“We’re not like those other types,” Spencer said. “You know, we could’ve run off into the night, escape with our ship. Settle in a real nice island, free from the Skulls. But we didn’t.”

“And we aren’t making a dime doing this,” Miguel said.

Spencer nodded. “We all originally enlisted for the same reasons you all did. And we’re still here, in this shithole Russian base, because we’re still fighting that same fight.”

O’Neil wasn’t sure whether this was real or just an act. But the words these Hunters spoke sounded eerily similar to when Loeb had initially defended the Hunters’ motives.

“We’re not forcing anyone to go anywhere,” Dom finally said. “But if you all want to fight with us, if you want to stop the monsters—I’m not talking about the Skulls—that have done this to you, then come with us. Otherwise, when we open these doors, you go wherever you want to. We won’t stop you.”

O’Neil looked at Loeb, then Tate. They seemed to be watching him, waiting for an answer. “I’m not going to let you guys down. Tate, we’re going to make this right. We’re not letting this happen to anyone else. Loeb, your girls are waiting for you.”

A wave of pain spread from O’Neil’s gut, spreading through his legs and arms.

He fought past it. “We’ll fight.”

“Count us in,” Stuart said, banging his claws against the bars of another cage.

“I’ve been waiting for this day,” Reynolds said, standing taller, his bony armor flexing as his muscles coursed beneath the plates. “We will not let you down.”

Hassan let out a low growl. “I use all the strength left in my body to rid the Earth of these evil people.”

“Good,” Dom said. “I—”

Gunfire exploded somewhere outside the laboratory, followed by animalistic howls that O’Neil had grown only too familiar with.

Dom pressed a finger to an ear. It looked like the Hunters’ leader was listening to someone calling over his comms.

“Meredith?” he asked. “Meredith, do you read?”

The concern painted over his face told O’Neil that she didn’t.

“Bravo, Alpha. SITREP?” he tried again.

Evidently, he still hadn’t gotten a response.

Dom turned his attention back to the Hybrids. “What’s your name?”

“Master Chief Petty Officer Craig Reynolds.”

“From the intel I got, I’m assuming you’re in charge of these SEALs.”

“I’m their chief.”

“I’m making a big ask here, but I need your help,” Dom said. “We need to take out this place’s command center. That’s where we think the people responsible for this twisted work might be. You scouted this place out long before we ever set foot in Tangier. Can you take me there?”

“I can.”

Dom looked back at the rest of his team. “Miguel, you’re in charge of Alpha now. Do whatever it takes to rescue Bravo and fulfill their mission.”

“You got it, Chief,” Miguel replied.

“We won’t let you down,” Spencer added.

Dom gestured toward O’Neil’s team and the other SEALs. “I want you to take these fine men down there with you, if they’re willing.”

“More than willing,” O’Neil said.

Loeb gave a guttural harrumph in agreement, and Tate tightened his claw-tipped fingers into fists.

“Reynolds, make sure we only let out the ones who are capable of following orders,” Dom said.

“I catch your drift, Captain,” Reynolds said, voice scratchy. “Men, you heard him.”

Stuart, Henderson, and the other Delta and Charlie operators whose minds hadn’t been nuked by the Hybrid alteration process lined up near the door to the cell. Miguel took a deep breath, then slid a keycard that he must’ve stolen from a guard through the reader. The cage opened up, and Reynolds stepped out, almost towering above the Hunters.

A few of the mercs took steps back. O’Neil saw even Spencer raise his rifle slightly, ready to fire off a shot if Reynolds proved to be wilder than anticipated. But as the other SEALs and Moroccan prisoners exited, Reynolds turned back, putting his hand against the chest of a Hybrid that kept muttering, “Eat. Eat. Eat.”

“We’ll be back for you, brother,” Reynolds said.

O’Neil felt a pang of remorse at the sad, but necessary lie.

Miguel released the other cages. O’Neil and his team helped corral the more aggressive Hybrids, pushing them to the back of the cells until the ones with healthier minds cleared the exit.

As the Hybrids milled around the Hunters, Dom gestured to Miguel. “Lock it back up. Reynolds, you’re with me. Everyone else, follow Miguel. Now, go. Bravo’s waiting.”

Reynolds grabbed O’Neil’s shoulder before he left. “Take care of our brothers.”

“Only easy day was yesterday.”

“And yesterday was harder than hell,” Reynolds replied. “You make our brothers proud. Make Van proud.”

“You got it, Chief,” O’Neil said.

He gave Reynolds a final nod.

Miguel looked at O’Neil. “Hey, bud, what’s your name?”

“Brendon O’Neil.”

“Can you tell me quickly who I’m working with, O’Neil?”

O’Neil did his best to make a quick round of introductions before the group of Hunters and Hybrids moved through the lab, toward the sounds of gunfire and shrieks of monsters. The sounds of the raging battle filled O’Neil with a powerful heat, one that radiated between the other Hybrids. A few Moroccans snarled, holding their claws in front of them as if they were ready to pounce on the first Russian that dared come near them.

That same wrath filled O’Neil from his talons to brain, festering at the back of his mind. He felt like there was an animal inside his mind, waiting anxiously to be let loose.

He felt fear, too.

Not fear for his life.

But fear for the Russians who he would soon face.

This time, the bastards would see what they had created. Not in a controlled experiment where he was tied up on a pole, but face-to-face for the first time.

He couldn’t wait to show them.

Spotlights raked across the shipyard, flashing over the shipping containers and crates. New concrete barriers surrounded the warehouses. Throughout the base, voices rose, shouting.

Gunshots echoed from one of the warehouses. They used the cover of the crates and vehicles left in the shipping yard to get closer to that warehouse. There were even more shipping containers than when O’Neil first stepped foot on this base. He saw anti-aircraft guns close to the pier, and a pair of helicopters near a parking lot. Three giant freighters were docked at the pier. Shipping containers filled their decks.

The Russians had definitely expanded their operation since O’Neil had last been outside that lab facility.

As their taloned feet pounded over the concrete, anger surged at the back of O’Neil’s mind. Each time the wind shifted, carrying with it the scent of death, the scent of Skulls, from around the port, that fiery rage swelled.

He felt as if he was surrounded by the beasts. But he saw and heard only the Russian soldiers. Most of whom were too focused on the warehouse or the lab to notice the Hunters and Hybrids lurking in the shadows of the port.

“Come on,” Miguel said, waving on the ragtag team.

They stopped just outside the warehouse. The gunfire had stopped.

O’Neil’s heart pounded. He feared what that might mean. Was the rest of the mercenary team they were supposed to help already dead?

He might not know these people. But too many had already died trying to stop these crazed Russians.

He couldn’t stand another life taken by these monsters before this base was brought to its knees, before every one of the Russians here became Skull food.

“O’Neil, can you guys climb like the Skulls?” Miguel asked.

O’Neil gazed up at the warehouse. From their vantage point, he could just see the skylights Miguel was looking at.

“If the Skulls can, we can,” O’Neil said.

“Take the roof then,” Miguel said. “We’ll go in through the back doors. Our teammates are supposed to be somewhere in there, pinned down by the Russians. We’ll hit the enemy from all sides.”

“You heard him,” O’Neil said, looking at his Hybrid force. “We’ve all been waiting for tonight. We’ve been waiting for this moment. Let’s make it count.”

“I’ll see you on the inside, bro,” Miguel said with a nod, then split off from the group.

O’Neil started sprinting straight toward the side of the warehouse. Next to it was a row of shipping containers stacked two high. Just before he made it, a pair of Russian soldiers came running around the other side of the containers, hurrying toward the front of the warehouse.

Maybe to reinforce their comrades. Maybe to respond to some other threat.

“Get them,” O’Neil said.

Loeb and Tate ran ahead, leading Stuart, Henderson, and a couple other SEALs. The Russians spun at the sound of talons clicking on the ground. They barely had time to shout when the pack of Hybrids hit them.

The two men disappeared under a blur of slashing claws and unfettered growls. Chunks of what was left of them hit the ground with wet slurps, the smell of blood almost cloying as it spilled from their ruined corpses. That odor was enough to waken something in O’Neil. A beast that forced buckets of adrenaline through his vessels.

Something primal.

He felt like a wolf hearing another of his kind howl in the distance. He could not resist it. Could not fight it.

His mind was owned by this animal. His body was driven by instinct.

All he could do was buckle in for the ride.

When the Russians were no longer screaming in pain, their fingers no longer twitching, O’Neil’s team looked back at him. Blood splatters covered their faces and the ragged remnants of their uniforms.

If he hadn’t known any better, he would have thought those SEALs were ordinary Skulls instead of his brothers-in-arms.

“To the roof,” he said. They lunged up the sides of the shipping containers, the Moroccan prisoners following their lead.

O’Neil felt stronger than he ever had in his life. Even with pain rocketing through him with every jump and every reaching claw, he could sense the power coursing beneath his skeletal armor, churned on by a freshly awakened bloodlust.

Peering toward his left, he saw Miguel stacking up with the Hunters at an entrance to the warehouse. Miguel shot him a hand signal, telling him the Hunters were ready.

Soon as O’Neil was on the roof, he waved back. The other Hybrids flooded around him and positioned themselves around the skylights. He worked his claw between the rubber lining of the skylight, prying it up.

Loeb and Tate stood beside him, their ribcages expanding with each heaving, rattling breath. Hassan led the Moroccans at another skylight. They had already removed the cover, ready to jump down from the roof and into the warehouse.

Toward the middle of the warehouse floor, between shrink-wrapped machinery and crates and pallets, O’Neil saw two individuals surrounded by a ring of soldiers. Those two in the middle, blood covering their faces, must have been the Hunters they were supposed to save.

O’Neil spotted a few bodies in the warehouse. Smelled them. Could practically taste the blood.

Looked like they had come just in time. Just the thought of what was about to happen set O’Neil’s heart racing, thumping against the inside of his overgrown ribcage.

He looked at his SEALs. Each wore a mask of gruesome determination, more frightening than any monster O’Neil had seen in the States. There was no question that every one of them was prepared for this moment of retribution.

No matter the cost.

His vision already going red, the anger flooded through his body, reaching even into the tips of his claws. He could not help but snarl, feeling the call of the wild, wanting nothing more than to rip back his head and howl.

Instead, he looked at his brothers and said simply, “Let’s roll.”

-32-

O’Neil leapt from the skylight to the catwalk around the warehouse and down to the floor barely conscious of his own actions. He felt as if he was a biological homing missile. All he had to do was set his sights on the Russians and his body did the rest of the work.

The other Hybrids hit the ground around him, each breaking into a sprint as soon as they did. Gunfire exploded from every direction. From the Russians. From the Hunters in the middle of them, and from Miguel’s group bursting in through another doorway.

One of the Moroccan hybrids went down in a hail of bullets as they ran toward the Russians. Another Russian soldier landed a shot that blasted away part of a Hybrid prisoner’s face. Bone fragments and tissue sprayed away from the shot, but the prisoner kept running, even with half his jaw missing.

The Hybrid launched itself at the Russian who had shot him, tearing at the man with an unholy fury. Other Hybrids rushed past the crates and other cargo. They leapt between shipping containers and crates at the soldiers like a pride of lions descending on a herd of frightened gazelle.

Bullets rang out against the walls of the warehouse or cut through the crates. Some rounds connected with the Hybrids. The crack of breaking armor and falling bodies echoed from every direction.

O’Neil aimed toward the Russian closest to him. The man had his rifle aimed at another Hybrid, squeezing the trigger. His rifle shuddering against his shoulder, eyes wide with fear.

With every sense tuned into his prey, he saw the beads of sweat rolling down the man’s forehead. The vessels bulging in his neck. His clenched his jaw. Could practically smell the man’s fear.

O’Neil lunged with his claws outstretched. The man swung his rifle around on O’Neil. But it was already too late. O’Neil’s claws slid into the soft flesh of the man’s throat, ripping into the cartilage and muscle and vessels. Blood spurted up around O’Neil’s claws as he tore into the bastard.

The man tried to push back, to kick O’Neil off, and hit him with his rifle.

But no pain the man could dole out was worse than the feeling of his own bones squirming through his body. This man could do nothing that would stop O’Neil’s attack short of killing him. The vicious drive of aggressive animal instinct erupted from his every strike and blow, driving him to destroy this damn soldier.

O’Neil’s claws connected again and again. Warm blood splashed across his face. It pooled around the concrete. He continued his attack until he realized the soldier had been dead for the last several strikes, the man nothing but an unrecognizable mess.

Chaos filled the warehouse as soldier and Hybrid met. Prisoners collided into the soldiers with rabid ferocity. O’Neil saw another Hybrid go down. As soon as the prisoner’s body met the floor, another leapt over him. His talons landed hard against the chest of the soldier responsible for the other Hybrid’s death. The Russian screamed as he fell backward. His rifle fell from his hands, and his head thunked hard against concrete.

Another soldier took a knee. Started to turn his rifle on Loeb.

O’Neil threw himself at the man, shouldering him. The mans’ rifle went off. Bullets lanced toward the ceiling.

“Stop! Stop! Stop!” the Russian cried as O’Neil tore at his face. He tried to block the claws with his arms, succeeding only in turning his arms into ribbons of shredded muscle and skin. “Please!”

“You did this to us,” O’Neil said, his words darker and deeper than he had intended.

The Russian took his last rattling breath surrounded by spreading blood as O’Neil chose his next target.

As the gunfire grew more sporadic, the screams grew louder. Everything seemed to blend together in a frenzied blur. O’Neil and his team descended into the ranks of the soldiers as they scattered and ran for their lives.

The Hybrids gave them no quarter.

O’Neil blasted into soldier after soldier. These people had turned his body into a living weapon, and he was determined to show them just how good of a job they had done. Each time he felt another soldier die beneath him, he felt a wave of grim satisfaction. Those moments he allowed the beast within him to take over, the pain that made every second its own individual torture session disappeared.

Violence was his only escape from the terrifying agony.

Between targeting the enemy soldiers, he did his best to protect Tate and Loeb and Stuart and Henderson and the rest of the SEALs. Threw himself at any soldier that so much as looked at the other SEALs.

Until finally the deed was done.

Nothing was left of the Russians but their scattered, bleeding corpses.

O’Neil stood among the Hybrids as they searched the room, their eyes hungrily seeking other targets. Miguel and his crew stood warily beside the carnage. A couple changed their magazines, the rest roving the warehouse with their gun barrels, waiting to see if another soldier would dare pop up.

The two mercs that had been at the center of the chaos were now surrounded by bodies. One of the Moroccan prisoners stalked toward them, claws outstretched.

“Stop!” O’Neil said.

The Hybrid didn’t listen. Kept moving forward. Probably giving in to the same bloodlust, the same shower of chemicals flowing through O’Neil, too.

That beast lurking at the back of his mind told him to continue the killing. The attacks. Made him think driving his claws back into even the Hunters’ flesh would be a good thing.

But unlike the Moroccan civilians, his mind had been honed through years of training. Of a professionalism so deeply ingrained in him that he could hold back the monstrous part of him.

He rushed toward the Moroccan. Planted his claw on the prisoner’s chest. “Stop.”

The Hybrid snapped at him, eyes filled with rage. For a second, O’Neil thought the man might actually be a Skull that had snuck in during the fighting.

“Stop.” O’Neil repeated. Then he placed both hands against the Hybrid’s shoulders.

The Hybrid tried to shrug his claws off. Tried to push past O’Neil.

Maybe…

O’Neil focused on that beach in Virginia. On sharing drinks with Van and Loeb. And even though it was before Tate was on his team, he pictured the younger operator there, too. All of them at home by the shore. At the place where sea, air, and land all met.

Thought about staring out at the ocean, knowing his own life was so small. That he was nothing but a drop of water in a sea of human life.

The Moroccan Hybrid lowered his claws. Stopped fighting to get past O’Neil.

“I am sorry,” he said in thickly accented English.

So it did work. The same chemicals that affected Skulls affected Hybrids.

The rage they had all felt during the battle, the anger that churned between them had an almost network-like effect.

And even though he had focused on calmness, he felt the embers of a fire reawakening. Not from the Hybrids in the warehouse around him.

But from outside. From the howls and shrieks he heard penetrating the base.

Skulls.

“Go gather weapons with the others,” O’Neil said finally to the Moroccan Hybrid. He gestured toward the other Hybrids already picking up rifles from the dead soldiers.

The alarms around the base grew in pitch and volume.

O’Neil turned to the two mercs that they’d saved. One was a woman missing an ear, the side of her face a mess of scars already. Red hair peeked out from below her helmet. The other was a thickly built man who had a ragged gash along his cheek, weeping blood.

“You okay?” O’Neil rasped to them.

“We are now,” the woman said. For a moment, she looked as though she might scream in terror at the sight of him. But whatever she might have been feeling inside, she shoved it away quickly, adopting an expression of cool professionalism. “You’re the Hybrids Dom said were coming for us.” Her green eyes gave O’Neil the elevator treatment, up and down. “You’re one of the SEALs.”

“Was,” O’Neil said. “Petty Officer Brendon O’Neil.”

“Meredith Webb,” the woman said. She looked at his claws. Must’ve thought better than shaking his hand.

“I am Andris Jansons,” the man said. Didn’t seem an ounce frightened by O’Neil.

His accent sounded as though he had grown up in Eastern Europe. Maybe Northeastern Europe by the sound of it. What was this guy doing on the Hunters?

Even with O’Neil’s bony features, Andris must have seen the surprise on his face.

“Former French Foreign Legion,” Andris continued. “Latvian, but now one-hundred-percent with these guys.”

He gestured toward Miguel as the mercenary came toward them with the rest of his team.

“There are more Skulls out there,” O’Neil said. “More headed our way. And the Russians will send reinforcements.” He looked around at his men, at the Moroccans. Several of the prisoners had given their lives, their bodies riddled in cracked plates and bullet holes. “We may not survive whatever they throw at us next.”

“Understood,” Meredith said. “Miguel, we need to move out. To the pier. We have a mission to finish.”

A few of the Hunters fell into rear guard positions at the back of the pack. Andris and Meredith led, with O’Neil rushing along beside them.

“What’s your mission?” O’Neil said in a low voice as they cleared the exit to the warehouse. “Did you come just to rescue us? Because you’re a little late for that.”

Andris shot him a concerned look. O’Neil immediately hated the pity he saw in the hardened warrior’s expression. “Yes, we were sent to save you. But that is not all.”

They filtered through the shipping containers, stopping in the middle of the shipyard to regather. Spotlights continued to pour over the port. Sporadic gunshots sparked in the night. Skull shrieks and howls continued their demonic chorus.

O’Neil felt hunger and agitation drifting from the beasts.

“Should’ve saved your own asses while you had the chance,” O’Neil said, feeling the pain return to his body as the adrenaline wore away. “We might as well be dead.”

“But we are all here now,” Andris said. “And we have a common goal, yes? Now we must stop those freighters.”

O’Neil turned his eyes toward the waters and those three hulking ships with all their shipping containers. He didn’t know what was on those ships—and the Hunters didn’t seem to have any better idea. He did know if the Russians wanted to load them up and send them away from this port, they had to stop them.

But with a group of Hybrids and mercs, he wasn’t sure what in the hell they could do. “Did you have a plan?”

“Explosives,” Andris said. “I have enough to take out the propellers. These ships will never leave the harbor.”

“I see,” O’Neil said. All across the pier, he saw soldiers running between the ships. Others set up shooting positions. The Russians were gathering their forces, ready to stop this insurrection in its tracks. “It would be suicide for you to try planting something on those ships now. The bastards have forces all over the port aimed in our direction.”

“We could swim for it,” Spencer suggested.

O’Neil wasn’t surprised by the suggestion from a former SEAL.

“That’s a long way to swim,” Jenna said.

“And if we’re spotted…” Glenn shook his head. “Well, you know the old saying about fish and barrels.”

“Either we kill every last one of them in our way,” Miguel said, “or else somehow convince them to leave the docks.”

O’Neil figured he meant that as a sarcastic remark. But the merc might not be so off target. Maybe there was potential there. He tapped his chest with his claws. “You know why they did this to us, right?”

“Super soldiers,” Andris said.

O’Neil shook his head. “More than that.”

“On our last mission, we infiltrated another stronghold run by these people. They were running projects to develop devices to help control the Skulls… We’ve seen the Russian Hybrids in action. Do you have the same abilities they do?”

“If you’re asking if we can influence the Skulls like the Russians seem to do, yes, we may be able to manage that.”

“I do not believe any of this is possible,” Andris said. “How can this be?”

O’Neil tapped the side of his skull. “Pheromones, I think. They implanted some shit in our brains. If we focus, if we think the right thoughts, it does something. I can practically smell it. I’m no scientist—none of us are—so I can’t explain it any better than that, but we can make angry Skulls, well, less angry. I believe we can also get them to follow us or rile them up.” He paused. “You know how the Skulls tend to swarm?”

The mercs nodded.

“I don’t think it’s just them attracted to sound and prey. I can feel them right now. Their anger. Their hunger. They feed off each other. Like a crowd at a football game. Get one guy hyped up, and the people around him can’t help but cheer.”

He knew this because he felt it. Because in those moments of rage, even when they were in the cages in the lab, that energy poured through him. Anger, calmness, whatever, it was constantly pressing on him from the other Hybrids—the Russians included—and the Skulls beyond their cages. Beyond the port base’s walls.

That gave him an idea. One he hoped the Russians hadn’t prepared for.

“Best way to win a battle like this is split up the enemy defensive forces,” he said. “Attack on multiple fronts to keep them confused and sow chaos.”

“We don’t have the numbers to do that,” Meredith said.

“We don’t,” O’Neil said. “But maybe we”—he used his claws to indicate his SEALs and the Moroccans—“can call in some Skull reinforcements.”

Andris looked at Meredith. The big, muscular Latvian almost looked scared. “Before you do, tell me, how well can you control them?”

O’Neil thought back to what he had learned from talking to Hassan. The man had relayed knowledge from the prisoners who had been in those cells longer. His own experiences had been limited to handling no more than two Skulls at a time, too.

“Not well enough, maybe. The goal wouldn’t be to let the Skulls loose in here. Just get them excited and aggressive outside the gates. Make the Russians scared, so they’re forced to defend the walls and not just against us. Maybe even loosen their control over the ones by the docks. Then we can fight our way past the defenses around the ships, and you can plant your bombs. How does that sound?”

The Hunters gave each other glances as if they were communicating through their own unspoken language. Despite the horror surrounding him, despite what the people had done to him, these people were actually considering his plan as if he was still the SEAL he had once been.

Miguel was the first to speak. “Sounds insanely risky and, well, insanely insane, bro. I like it.”

“Damn right, man,” Tate said.

“We can do this,” Loeb added.

“I—” Meredith started.

But spotlights drew toward their positions.

“We got movement headed our way,” Stuart said. “At least another ten hostiles.”

O’Neil could feel the wave of anger filtering between the prisoners. The SEALs were prepared to move out, to do what was strategically necessary. But judging by the faces on the Moroccans, they did not feel the same. Many had been imprisoned far longer than O’Neil. And they didn’t share the same discipline that he had carried with him throughout his career in the Navy.

Gunfire burst from the enemy positions, slamming into shipping containers and crates. The Russians were getting desperate. Aggressive. Doing their best to keep O’Neil and the others from moving.

Soon enough they would be surrounded completely. Even with the weapons O’Neil’s men had gathered from the soldiers they had killed, they simply did not have the numbers to make a stand.

“I do not think we have another choice,” Andris said finally.

Meredith nodded, looking toward O’Neil. “Do it. We have to.”

O’Neil felt a sense of purpose swell in his chest. He had lost his place in this world. Lost the career he had spent his life cultivating. Failed his men. Van, who had died. Tate and Loeb whose lives may as well be forfeit now.

But at least he could do this one last thing. He could bring hell to the people who had turned him into this abomination.

Because they were the real monsters.

-33-

The gunfire pelted the shipping containers in a fierce rattle. Russian voices barked between the blazing gunfire, and their footsteps echoed between the rows of crates and containers in the shipyard. Sounded like they were spreading out around O’Neil and the others’ positions.

O’Neil gathered the Hybrids as the mercs provided cover. He told them what he had discussed with Meredith, Miguel, Andris, and the others. Then he asked if the Hybrids had any objections to his plan. When Hassan translated his instructions to the nearly twenty Moroccans standing around them, not one objected.

“Stuart, Henderson, take these three to the western part of the wall,” O’Neil said, gesturing to a group of Moroccans. He split up what was left of Delta and Charlie, too, to lead two other groups of prisoners. Then he motioned for Loeb, Tate, Hassan, and a final group of five Moroccan prisoners to stay with him.

At his commands, the teams dispersed through the shadows around base, hightailing it between the raking spotlights.

“I hope I didn’t just send them to their deaths,” O’Neil said.

“We were already dead the moment they injected us with this shit, man,” Tate said.

“Death would be a release,” Loeb added.

Sporadic gunfire blasted from elsewhere in the base. The rumble of vehicle engines roared into the night, too. O’Neil figured maybe the Russians were preparing to bring in the big guns or escape. Which he figured was fine now.

Once the Hybrids got the Skulls raging outside the gates and walls, no one would escape. Big guns didn’t matter. The beasts were like hundreds of millions of tons of storm water building behind a cracked dam, ready to ravage everything in their path.

Less than a minute later, he felt the first tingle of rage.

Like a spark igniting dried leaves, the fury carried in the air. A chemical cocktail that flamed at the back of his mind, heating the furnace of his own animalistic instincts, feeding the beast of annihilation residing in his bioengineered body.

Slowly he felt that signal grow. What had been a neglected bonfire spread to the dry trees and grass around it.

He assumed each of the groups he sent out were now in position, focusing on doing exactly what the Russians had designed them to do. He concentrated on amplifying that signal, too. On making it all-consuming.

Instead of picturing that peaceful beach in Virginia, he saw Van’s body as he pulled it from the wreckage of the MRAP. He saw his country turned to an ashen, rubble-filled landscape. He saw his neighbors and friends and innocent civilians across the globe infected by a biological agent, forced to fight in a war they had no part in, their bodies transformed into gruesome beasts.

All of them living weapons.

Like him.

He saw his life as a Navy SEAL stripped from him. Everything he had worked for torn away in an instant. His body was a ragged mess, his life destroyed. Constant pain was the only thing he had been left with.

It was working.

His chest heaved; the device in the back of his head responded to this anger, his nerves firing, activating all the cells in his body. He started to feel an intense hunger, his metabolism working overtime, converting all his innate energy into churning out the pheromones or chemicals or whatever crap the Russians had imbued the Hybrids with.

The howls started to erupt with a new fervor outside the base.

“Now we wait?” Andris asked in a low voice.

“Now we wait,” O’Neil rasped back.

“How will we know when the others start calling the Skulls?” Jenna whispered.

“It’s already begun,” O’Neil said. He almost felt as though his feet were lifting off the ground. Like the unfettered, sweltering heat of fury could send him soaring above this port as a god of death. “I can feel it. That pheromone, chemical bullshit… whatever it is. I could feel it each time the Skulls went crazy outside the base, even when we were stuck in our prison cells. They’re always inside my head, you know?”

The mercs stared at him, each with their own personal expression of horror and pity painted over their faces.

“That’s so messed up,” Spencer said.

“I’m so sorry,” Jenna added.

O’Neil hated what he had become. But he didn’t need these people telling him how screwed up it was. “What’s done is done. All that’s left is revenge.”

Loeb harumphed beside him. Tate nodded.

The tap of boots sounded over the concrete. More Russian soldiers rushed into positions around them. Their voices came at him as though he were diving under the sea. His attention was focused on the Skulls he could feel gathering outside the walls. Starting to mob, ready to swarm at the source of anger flooding through them.

Then he heard all the soldiers rushing toward them stop. Peering from beyond a crate, he could see a couple of them in the distance prop their weapons on crates or lean around shipping containers.

“What are they waiting for?” Tate asked.

O’Neil stiffened, feeling a cold ball of dread expand in his gut. He had expected the Russians to turn their attention to the monsters threatening their base security immediately. To start splitting off so they could head off the impending danger.

But something wasn’t right.

He closed his eyes, sniffing at the air. An icy dagger of chemicals cut through the anger. It felt like pure hatred.

A hatred only humans could harbor. That feeling of utter contempt that people fostered so they could justify killing others. A hatred he had seen in the eyes of some of the Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters over his years in service.

But now, he could feel it in the air like the electricity before a violent thunderstorm.

“Is it starting?” Andris asked.

“It already has,” O’Neil said. “But there’s something else.”

“There,” Loeb said, pointing toward the roof of the warehouse they’d come from moments ago.

Dark shapes were silhouetted against the purple sky, illuminated by the lights flickering and swarming over the base. Light glinted off the weapons they carried and revealed the bony growths pushing out of their shoulders and backs, the horns twisted around their head, the plates covering their limbs.

“More Hybrids.” O’Neil fought to control his breathing. He sensed that these ones were combatting against his teams’ efforts to enrage the Skulls. The ones sending that spike of hatred through his mind. “And these ones aren’t ours.”

Andris set up his MK11 sniper rifle and let loose shot after shot at the Russians. The other mercs returned fire, fighting to provide cover for the returning Hybrids.

“I see Stuart,” Tate said, posting up alongside a shipping container. He let loose a rattle of gunfire that cracked into a crate where a pair of Russian soldiers were. The soldiers dipped behind the crate under a shower of splintering wood.

Past those soldiers, O’Neil saw Stuart and Henderson with their Moroccan comrades. The group was trying to focus on amplifying the signal, but incoming fire hammered their position, forcing them to duck behind a forklift and shipping container near the wall.

The Russian soldiers at the crate Tate had indicated were turning their rifles toward Stuart’s group.

O’Neil aimed his stolen rifle at one of the soldiers and fired a burst that clipped the soldier’s head. Fragments of the soldier’s skull flicked off from the impact.

He tried to focus on his next shot. But the chemical signals drifting on the air were almost too strong. His vision began turning red, a deep hunger welling up inside him. The shrieks of more Skulls wailed across the base.

The Russian Hybrids on the rooftop of the warehouses started firing down at the mercs and O’Neil’s Hybrid allies closer to the walls. Echoes from the boom of rifles and machine guns pounded against O’Neil’s ears. Tracer fire screamed overhead.

A few of the mercs returned fire at the soldiers trying to advance on them. But even as the bullets speared through the soldiers, the enemy forces did not turn back. They seemed to know they had the advantage of numbers and firepower.

O’Neil squeezed another blast from his rifle. The stock kicked against his bony shoulder.

The soldier he was aiming at took a shot to the chest and neck, crumpling, lifeless as two more soldiers rushed past him. They slid into the cover of a rusted oil drum. O’Neil fired at them until his rifle’s bolt locked back.

He had only scrounged up one extra magazine. He let the spent one clatter to the ground, then jammed the fresh one home.

His men didn’t have much more ammunition, and he wasn’t sure how much these mercs had brought. However much they had, he wasn’t sure it was enough.

The Hybrids on the roof began screaming hideous cries. Their voices sounded almost as horrifying and blood-curdling as the Skulls. All around the docks, the Russian soldiers returned the fearsome yells, joining in the war cry. They rushed forward as if they were medieval warriors looking to smear their foes’ brains across the battlefield with swords and clubs and axes.

O’Neil could still feel the anger simmering in the air. And for half-a-second, he wondered if the Russian soldiers were impacted by the pheromones from the Hybrids as much as the Skulls were.

Every rifle in the ranks of the Hybrids and mercs went off with a desperate fury. Rounds lanced into the incoming forces, slashing through a few of the enemy soldiers and sending them tumbling.

One of the mercs threw a grenade that clunked in between a pack of the soldiers. The grenade went off in a blinding flash of fire and smoke. Several soldiers disappeared in the blast, and bloody debris rained down over the shipyard.

All the while the Russian Hybrids carried on with their war cries.

“What’s going on?” Meredith asked, crouching near O’Neil. “Why isn’t it working?”

O’Neil fought to control his breathing. Felt the ebbing and flowing of the pheromones in the air. The Hybrids he had sent out to the walls with Alpha, Charlie, and Delta were still in position. Still doing what he had asked of them.

“It’s happening,” he said.

“Are you sure?” Jenna asked. Gunfire punched into the crate she was ducking behind. “These people don’t seem to notice!”

“I’m positive,” O’Neil said. Realized his words had come out as a growl. But he couldn’t help it. Not with this infectious wave of rage washing through him.

The same wave of rage that he hoped would be filling every Skull around Tangier. He could already feel it strengthening.

“I… want… to fight,” Tate said, eyes growing redder. The vessels pressing against his nearly translucent skin seemed to dilate, pulsing.

Loeb let out a low growl, a wild look in his eyes as he fired on the Russians.

The innate rage was growing harder and harder to control. O’Neil could feel that beast of instinct and hunger at the back of his mind trying to drive his body again.

One of the Moroccan prisoners gave into those emotions. The Hybrid let out a shrill cry as he rocketed from his shelter behind a stack of crates. He ran at the closest Russian soldier even as bullets punched into his armor and chipped away at the bony growths covering his body. Red mist puffed from each hit, his body lurching and jerking in response.

But he carried on until he got close enough to leap into the air. Tracer fire blasted past him, a few shots chiseling into his arms and legs.

He never stopped shrieking. Not until he had his claws plunged deep into the chest of a Russian soldier. The two of them hit the ground together.

Dead.

“Hold the line!” O’Neil roared to the other Hybrids clamoring to charge. “Hold the line!”

For every one of them that ran out on their own, they would lose influence over the Skulls. But as they enraged the Skulls, those pheromones were mirrored back toward them from the beasts. It took every ounce of self-control he had not to stand up and meet the enemy in a clash of slicing claws and snapping teeth.

A couple more of the weaker prisoners gave in. They broke ranks and charged headfirst into the gunfire hammering their positions. They reached the Russians, sending the soldiers into chaos, before losing their lives in the return fire.

Closer to the wall, O’Neil spotted one of the operators on Delta who hadn’t responded as well to the agent. He was running from cover like a feral Skull. He started scaling the warehouse, climbing toward the Russian Hybrids. Gunfire punched into the side of the warehouse, tracing up toward him until rounds blasted into his spine and head, sending him tumbling back to the ground.

Another Moroccan made it past the American. He threw himself onto the roof and met two Russian Hybrids. He went after them like a wild animal, even as a couple of rounds struck his body sending up puffs of bloody mist. He collided with the enemy Hybrids in a blur of slashing claws, raking at them until all three of them fell off the edge of the roof. Their bodies hit the concrete with sickening thuds as their bony armor cracked open from the impact.

“Take out those Hybrids,” O’Neil hissed, pointing a crooked claw at the roof. If anything or anyone was going to ruin his plans, it was the creatures on that warehouse. They were the most frightening and deadly of the Russian forces.

And they had the same abilities he did.

The mercs concentrated most of their fire on the Russians on the roof. Bullets tore into the beasts and a couple of them slid off the roof when rounds tore through their chests and faces.

O’Neil considered for a second how Reynolds was doing with the leader of the mercs, Dom. He wondered if they had reached the command center of the base yet. Maybe they had. Maybe they had even taken down the leadership of the base, and this was the Russians’ last stand.

He hoped so.

Because if he had any say in the matter, he would bring the hammer of god down on their head. He kept focusing on his anger. Not letting it control his body, but instead reaching out toward the Skulls beyond the port. The monsters whose lives had become a senseless cycle of violence. Let them do what they did best.

But this time, he let them turn their hunger on the Russians.

The chorus of monsters outside the base grew into a wild cacophony. Howls and high-pitched shrieks joined the wails and guttural cries of beasts whose minds had rotted away. Then came the clattering of claws and talons against metal and concrete. The sounds of a Skull horde doing its damndest to break past the Russian defenses and destroy everything in their path.

The Hybrids on the warehouse started to pull back. A few rushed away. O’Neil guessed they were going to try to calm the Skull horde.

But it was already too late for them.

The only thing that would calm this horde was death.

Several of the squads of Russian soldiers started to fall back. Others dove behind the cover of oil drums or crates or shipping containers, giving up their charge.

Their confidence in an easily won victory appeared to have been vanquished by the emergence of the horde.

“It’s working,” O’Neil said, fighting to control his rapid breathing. He looked at Tate and Loeb who appeared to be in a trance like him, their claws curled into firsts, their jaws set, nostrils twitching. “It’s working.”

-34-

The gunfire slowed like a small trickle of rain after a downpour. Most of the Russians were falling back, directing their shots toward the beasts outside the wall. Which meant only one thing to O’Neil.

Their plan had worked. Too well.

What he had originally intended to be a distraction had turned into something else. The first few Skulls made it to the top of the wall. One tore into a Russian soldier manning a machine gun aimed at the beasts. He went down screaming as the monster ripped out his throat.

The destruction of the Russian port was almost certain at this point. But the ships that they had to destroy would still be floating with their cargo, ready to sail away. Even if the Russians at the port all died under the claws of the incensed Skulls, the bastards could always send reinforcements to recover those ships.

“Your plan to destroy the ships…” O’Neil started.

“Yes, we must get to the ships now,” Andris said.

Confusion riddled the ranks of the Russians. They had turned most of their attention toward the feral beasts, leaving only a meager group holding the Hybrids and mercs down.

Loeb let out a low growl. “We have to stop them soon.”

“Can’t keep holding our positions much longer, man,” Tate said. “Especially not when those Skulls get into the base. Not going to be able to protect these mercs. I already feel the signal weakening. Like some of our own got killed out there.”

“Understood,” Meredith said. “If we’re going to do this, we’ve got to do it now.” She reached into her pack and handed out the explosive charges their team had prepared. “Jenna and Glenn, take the closest ship. Miguel, Spencer, next one after that. Andris and I will take the last.”

“Put the explosives as close to the propellers as you can,” Andris said. “That means we might have to take a swim to reach them. I will set them off when you give me the all-clear. Even if we can’t sink the ships outright, the damage should be enough to keep these ships from ever leaving this port.”

“Roger that,” Miguel said. “Let’s make some fireworks.”

Andris turned to O’Neil. “Ready when you are. We need to make a hole through the Russians to get to those ships, though. Can you handle that?”

O’Neil swept his gaze over the ranks of soldiers blocking their path to the freighters. They had dug deep into their positions, aiming their rifles straight at the mercs and Hybrids. Whenever one dared to peek their way, a rash of gunfire exploded out in response.

There was no way to clear a path to the pier without heavy casualties. But they had no other choice.

“Consider it done.” He turned back toward the Hybrids. “You heard the man. This is our chance to stop these bastards. This is our chance to give them hell for what they’ve done to our brothers. Our friends. Ourselves. Let’s tear these assholes to pieces.”

“Yes, let us!” Hassan said, screaming.

The rest of the Hybrids let out cries to rival the beasts they had seen on the warehouse roofs.

O’Neil looked hard at Tate and Loeb. Each of them knew they might never return from what they were about to do. But ever since becoming Hybrids, their lives had been packed aboard a rocket with a one-way ticket to Hell.

Might as well bring as many of the enemy down into that eternal inferno with them.

He leapt over the first crate in his way, then charged, running low and zigzagging between shelter. Bullets scorched the air past him. They cracked against the crates and cargo or deflected off shipping containers. O’Neil didn’t need to turn around to know every one of the Hybrids had joined his kamikaze charge.

He heard their roars. Their talons pounding the concrete. Their claws scraping over wood and metal as they hurdled over every obstacle in their path.

A few of the remaining Delta and Charlie operators joined them with other Moroccan Hybrid prisoners, racing from the walls, away from the crush of Skulls and Russian soldiers. Bullets stitched their backs. Several died before they even had a chance to catch up to the charge.

O’Neil still didn’t see Stuart or Henderson. Wondered if they had been killed before they had a chance to join this macabre assault.

That only fueled O’Neil’s anger as he closed in on the Russians. He fired wildly at their ranks until his rifle was empty. He threw it away, letting it clatter across the ground. It would only get in his way for what was about to happen.

As the rounds seared overhead, the crack of bullets smashing through bony plates burst all around him. One of the Hybrids let out a scream of pain as he went tumbling over the ground. Another beside him crumpled in a bloody mess.

But not a single Hybrid let up.

They slammed into the first of the soldiers, exploding on them like firecrackers. Ripping, tearing, stealing their weapons from their bloodied hands and turning them on the other soldiers. All the while, O’Neil never stopped howling and roaring as the blood splashed over him. He let the rage build, reverberating between him and every Hybrid fighting beside him.

He stared right into the frightened eyes of a Russian starting to backpedal from him. The man lifted his rifle, aiming at O’Neil.

“No,” O’Neil said simply, pushing the gun barrel down. Rounds slammed into concrete, and O’Neil thrust a clawed hand at the man’s wrist. He squeezed until he felt the breaking of bone and flesh.

This is for every one of our men who lost their mind to the agent. For every man who has died or will die tonight. For Van.

O’Neil dragged his claws across the man’s throat. The man dropped his rifle, letting it fall on his sling. His hands reached his throat in a pathetic attempt to stop the blood rushing from the wound. He gasped for a breath that would never again come. O’Neil tore his rifle away, and let the man crumple, immediately turning the rifle on the nearest Russian soldiers. A few more Hybrids went down as the Russians started to fall back.

The last couple of SEALs on Delta and Charlie were torn apart by a grenade. Other Moroccan Hybrids went down when shots punched through their organic armor or tore through their faces.

But they did not let the carnage stop them. Not until the Russian lines started to break.

At first, only a couple Russians ran from them, trying to speed past them one-by-one, racing toward the safety of the other forces closer to the walls and warehouses. Then as more and more started to give up their positions to the Hybrids, the Russian lines broke completely.

The enemy ran toward what they must have thought were safer positions with the rest of their forces. O’Neil stood and picked off a couple as they retreated. Rounds careened into their backs, and the enemy soldiers toppled.

The Hybrids were victorious. But it had come at a cost.

All that was left of his team was Tate, Loeb, Hassan, and a couple other Moroccans. The rest of his Hybrid forces were scattered among the corpses of the Russians, dead.

He saw more shapes running toward them. Started to lift his rifle, the red still creeping into his vision, the rage burning at the back of his mind from the Hybrids’ signal and the death of all his allies.

Then he recognized them.

The mercs.

“Hold your fire!” he said to the others. “Cover those people!”

The Hunters broke apart into their teams and raced along the pier toward the freighters. Russian forces perched in the shipping containers or closer to the warehouses started to fire on the Hunters.

O’Neil and his men unleashed a fierce salvo in return. The anger scorching his brain seemed to be growing hotter and hotter, especially at the sight of the Hybrids still perched on the roofs of the warehouses. Some of the soldiers that had fallen back found new, entrenched defensive positions. Their rifles came alive with the spark and chatter of automatic fire. Waves of rounds pinged against the territory that O’Neil and his brothers had paid for with their blood.

“Thank you,” Andris shouted as he ran past O’Neil.

“Just hurry!” O’Neil said back.

A Russian soldier raced toward them, an RPG on his shoulder. He started to aim it, and O’Neil twisted his aim toward the man. Filled his chest with bullets. But not before the soldier launched the rocket. The round blasted past O’Neil, missing and winding upward toward one of the ships. It exploded against a shipping container on the ship’s deck.

A surge of red-hot agitation filled O’Neil. Not because the blast itself bothered him. But almost as if there were Skulls on that ship. Like they had been pissed off from the explosion.

It wasn’t until the smoke from the blast cleared that he realized the shipping container had ruptured. Puckered metal revealing the cargo within.

Skulls.

Most of the beasts were dead, but a handful clambered out between their charcoaled brethren. They sniffed at the air, their eyes roving and seeking their next target.

“Oh, shit,” Tate said.

The Skulls poured out of the container, screaming and yelling. A couple of sailors that were on top of the freighters, seeking shelter from the gunfire, started running away. The monsters went racing after them.

Loeb raised his rifle to take the beasts down.

O’Neil put a claw on his rifle barrel lowering it. “No, let the monsters clean up those bastards. They’ll do our fighting. Focus on the real danger. Once the explosives are set, all we need to do is leave this place.”

Loeb nodded, turning his attention back on the Russian Hybrids and soldiers. With the help of the other prisoners, they kept the path to the pier clear from the enemy, fighting to hold their ground.

The first of the Hunters returned to their side. It was Meredith and Andris, both sopping wet.

“Explosives are placed,” Meredith said. “As soon as the others return, we can make it out of here.”

“How exactly?” O’Neil asked. “I’m not sure how well we can swim.”

“No need,” Andris said. “There is a tunnel, a drainage pipe that we took to infiltrate the base. A couple of locals showed us. They’re waiting there for us.”

O’Neil thought of Khalid. Of the local fighting force the man had mentioned. Perhaps the mercs had found Khalid’s people after all and they had been the ones to help the Hunters get inside the base.

The rest of the mercs gathered around the Hybrids trading fire with the Russians. They pushed their way between the shipping containers and crates toward the location of the drainage pipe that Andris had mentioned. Another pair of Moroccan Hybrids were torn apart by sniper fire.

“No!” Hassan yelled.

More screams echoed over the decks of the freighters. It appeared that the wild storm of pheromones had turned the mobs of Skulls in the shipping containers wild. More of them burst open, releasing the monsters on the decks of the ships.

O’Neil tried to ignore them. To focus on the real problem. The Russians.

He could feel the Hybrids’ signal weaken even further. As though another of his comrades were gone, swept away by the soldiers and Skulls now fighting on the walls.

Must have been Alpha.

Stuart. Henderson…

The wild howls of the beasts on the ships shook over the shipyard.

Soon as the group had put enough distance between themselves and the ships, Andris would detonate the explosives. All those Skulls on the boats would be sent to the bottom of the harbor.

The sound of breaking glass drew O’Neil’s attention to one of the freighters. A monstrous Skull had been pounding at the windows along the bridge. It reached through the cracked and busted glass, then pulled out sailors, one-by-one, throwing them screaming to the deck nearly three-stories below the bridge.

Some of the Skulls started to pour over the side of the ship. Many landed in the water, slipping beneath the dark surface. Others hit the pier, their heads whipping around wildly as they sought out targets.

“Please tell me we can disable those ships now,” Jenna said.

Andris tightened his grip on the detonator remote. “Here we go.”

He pressed the button.

The Skulls kept screaming. The Russians kept firing.

For a moment, O’Neil worried nothing was happening. That the explosives had been duds or been disabled or that these damn mercs were less capable than he had hoped.

All this fighting had been for nothing. All the deaths of the SEALs and the prisoners wouldn’t get them any closer to finally completing the mission they had embarked on weeks, hell, maybe months ago, for all he knew.

But then he heard it.

The most glorious sound in his life.

Water erupted from the stern of the first ship with a violent screech of protesting metal. The whole freighter lurched, groaning right as a second explosion boomed from another ship. That vessel listed violently to its starboard side. Shipping containers slid across the deck, and Skulls spilled into the water. Sailors started to rush from the superstructure of the vessels. They jumped into the water or scrambled to get across the deck filled with the Skulls. Several of the sailors were crushed as the ship’s listing grew worse and sent more massive shipping containers sliding across the deck.

Both ships started to take on water, their sterns dipping deeper into the harbor. They and their cargo would not be going anywhere.

But the third still floated, unharmed. No explosion had boomed from near its props.

Andris hit the detonator again and again.

Nothing happened.

“We have to stop that ship,” he muttered.

O’Neil looked at his men, ragged, covered and blood. Then back at the mercs. “What happens if we don’t? Can we stop it some other way?”

“I don’t know.” Meredith gulped hard. “It looks to me like they’re staging armies of Skulls. They’ll use Hybrids like you all to control those armies. We knew they were preparing to make shipments of something from around the world, and now we know why.”

“Judging by the number of shipping containers on that ship, if they’re all filled with Skulls, any one of those hordes would be enough to wipe out a small country,” Glenn said.

“Then there’s no question that we have to stop them,” O’Neil said.

The pier was beginning to fill with Skulls that had escaped the mess of the sinking ships. Other beasts were still pouring over the walls and streaming between the warehouses. O’Neil lost any hope of seeing Stuart or Henderson again in that avalanche of monsters. Russian Hybrids and soldiers were everywhere, fighting back against the monsters while still raining fire down on the mercs and O’Neil’s people.

The sailors on the third ship were already releasing the chains holding them to the pier. Only one shipping container of Skulls had gotten loose on the vessel, and they were managing to fight back against the monsters. O’Neil could already see they would regain control of the freighter—and as soon as they did, they would continue out safely to sea, escaping the destruction of the Tangier port.

“We got to stop that ship,” Tate said.

“Imagine if it got to Maryland,” Loeb said. “Frederick would be overwhelmed by a force a quarter of that size.”

O’Neil could tell the man wasn’t just thinking about the seat of the US government. There was a sadness in his eyes behind the skeletal mask. His daughters…

“Can’t we call in support?” Tate asked the mercs.

“By the time they arrived, that ship might already be out to sea,” Meredith said. “It’ll be too late.”

“Then we have no choice,” O’Neil said. “We have to go back and destroy it.”

-35-

O’Neil looked back at the freighter. The ship taunted them, floating unperturbed as the other two sank beside it.

But those two ships weren’t the only two things sinking. He had lost the signals from the other Hybrids completely. Not because they had shifted focus. But because they were dead.

He felt it with absolute certainty. Like those damned Hybrid pheromones provided a kind of radar, pinging between the Hybrids he’d been imprisoned with for so long.

The constant rattle of gunfire and the screams of the Skulls overwhelming the positions where those others had been sent made it all too clear that the entire situation would soon be out of control.

That there was very little hope of leaving this place with Stuart or Henderson. The Moroccan prisoners who had gone with them probably shared a similar fate, buried under the press of Russian soldiers and Hybrids.

“We’ve lost most of the remaining Hybrids,” he said. “Maybe all of them.”

“You can tell?” Meredith asked.

The wind curled around O’Neil, fluttering the tattered remains of his uniform. “The signal or whatever it is just feels weaker.” He worked his jaw muscles, his pulse growing slower, taking big gulps of air. Another wave of pain poured through his body. Without the rage to distract him, without the pheromones from the others, the agony took hold of his limbs and guts once more. The contorted expressions on Loeb’s and Tate’s faces showed they must be feeling the same. “We’ve got to finish this fast. We’re losing control.”

Andris patted his pack. “We only have two more bombs. This must count.”

“I’ll take them to the ship,” Glenn said.

“Send me with him,” Spencer said. “We’ll end this bullshit right here, right now.”

These mercs were ready to sacrifice themselves. Because O’Neil saw no other way to accomplish this mission. They would need to spear through a veritable wall of Skulls and soldiers and enemy Hybrids to make it back to the remaining freighter. The entire port base had turned into hell on Earth, with demonic monsters clashing against humans. Not a lick of refuge in sight.

For the first time, he truly believed these mercs were trying to do good. They were willing to run headlong into that hellish mix of monsters and men. They had to know they would die if they did. That there would be no return trip.

It reminded O’Neil that these people weren’t just military contractors working for a dime. They were people who had served the same country he did with a similar passion and dedication. Former Rangers and SEALs and Marines and Special Forces.

They had chosen this vocation not because it was easy.

Not because it would make them rich.

No, they had chosen it for the reasons O’Neil had become a SEAL.

Because they believed in their cause. They believed in their duty to protect those who could not defend themselves.

They would lay down their lives to save others.

But these Hunters were healthy. Human. They still had their lives ahead of them—lives they could use to help combat the Oni Agent and any of the Russians that escaped from this base today.

O’Neil did not have a future like that. None of the Hybrid prisoners did. And, as much as it pained him to admit, Tate and Loeb didn’t either.

They were all monsters. They were in intense pain. And even though these mercs had promised that maybe they could help his condition, he doubted it. There were much larger problems in the world to worry about than a handful of men who had become experimental subjects.

The Hunters began discussing their plans. Who would drive through the enemy forces. Who would cover them. They didn’t even bother discussing how they would make their way back to their planned exfil point. They knew they were on a boat ride down the river Styx to the Underworld.

O’Neil couldn’t take it any longer. He interrupted their plans.

“No,” he said. “None of you stands a chance. The Skulls will eat you alive if you don’t get shot first.”

“We have no choice,” Jenna said. “I’ll swim from here if I have to.”

“Too slow,” O’Neil said. “The ship will make it out of port before you reach it.” Then he gestured to the rest of his Hybrid Team. Loeb. Tate. Hassan. They were all that was left. “We are three Navy SEALs and a Moroccan citizen with nothing to lose. We have the armor and speed. We can do this for you.”

Andris hesitated, looking at Meredith. They seemed to share an uncertain glance as if they didn’t have faith in the Hybrids.

“Trust me,” O’Neil said. “I will get this done. You just make sure that your people keep up their end of the bargain. Take out the command center. Then get the hell out of here. Tell the world what you saw in Tangier.”

Andris handed O’Neil the last of the Hunters’ explosives and the detonator. “Very well.”

O’Neil took the explosives, handing one to Loeb. He gave a signal to the others as they left the Hunters behind.

Ahead, he saw bodies sprawled between the crates and refuse. The concrete was slick with blood from soldiers and Skulls killed in the fray.

“This is it, boys,” he said. “Tate, Loeb, this might be our last mission as SEALs. Even if we escape, God only knows what the hell is next for us.”

Tate nodded, his eyes narrowing, looking fiendish in the flash of gunfire erupting around the base. “Man, I wouldn’t have it any other way. We never failed a mission before, and I’m not planning on starting now.”

“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m going back home after this,” Loeb said. “Hug my family. Then get the fuck back out here and kill some more of these assholes.”

“They already slaughtered my family,” Hassan said. “Today, we slaughter them.”

“Well put,” O’Neil said, nodding to the man who had faithfully stood beside them as a translator and ally since being taken prisoner.

O’Neil regretted that they hadn’t done anything to help Hassan’s family. Revenge was the only remedy they could offer.

“Stick close to me,” he said. “I don’t think there are any other Hybrids on our side out there, so we’re it. We’ve got to do everything we can to keep the Skulls from attacking us. Calm them down, or direct them back toward the Russians, I don’t care. We’ll do whatever it takes to get to that ship. Got it?”

The other three nodded, their faces and bodies and claws covered in blood.

And so he ran.

He scooped up a rifle from a dead Russian. A pack of Skulls about twenty feet ahead had their faces buried in the guts of another dead soldier. O’Neil sent a burst of bullets ripping through one of the monster’s ribs. Two other skeletal beasts looked up at him between the horns and bulbous bony growths erupting from their flesh. Blood dripped down their faces in crimson beards. A third tore its head up, long tendrils of hair matted to its scalp. It had a rope of intestine in its yellowed teeth.

O’Neil squeezed the trigger again. The rifle butted against his shoulder with the shots. One of the Skulls went down hard. The other two started to run at O’Neil and the others in a dead sprint.

Tate rushed to the meet them. He grabbed the first by its throat, lifting the monster off its feet, then slammed it against the ground hard. The back of its head split open. Its limbs twitched as a halo of crimson spread around its broken skull.

The other monster leapt at Loeb. He snagged its shoulders, preventing it from impaling him. Hassan sent his own claws straight through the monster’s face. The creature fell limp in Loeb’s arm, and they let its corpse drop to the ground.

Next to the soldier, Tate picked up a rifle and threw it toward Loeb. Loeb caught it as Tate found a second. Hassan scavenged his own weapon from a Russian whose skeleton was already nearly picked clean.

An explosion sounded somewhere deeper in the base. Maybe from the merc’s leader, Dom, and Reynolds. He could only hope their part of the mission had been more successful than his.

Orange balls of fire bloomed into the night, carrying with them massive black clouds of smoke. The air was thick with the odor of blood and death and burning plastic and flesh. Gunfire continued to pour from every direction, sparking against the concrete or deflecting off the shipping containers. Skulls leapt down from the tops of the walls. Screams of people and beasts rose in a symphony that would make the devil smile.

Somewhere else another boom roared from the warehouses. Fire danced across crates, casting long shadows from monsters rushing toward the confusion.

O’Neil led his team through more groups of ravenous Skulls. Fought them off with bullets and claws. Focused on sending them away from their group in a rage, hoping they could redirect the beasts toward the Russians instead.

But the monsters were so caught up in the frenzy, he was finding it damn near impossible to do anything but fight.

The group pushed their way toward the beginning of the pier, where the monsters were most concentrated. Three Russian soldiers were surrounded by the beasts. They fired frantically into the monsters’ ranks, but the creatures encircled them, rushing over the crates and oil drums in a bony wave of terrifying abominations.

The first Russian soldier was torn apart by the beasts’ claws. He disappeared as four Skulls descended on him. The other two soldiers had their backs pressed against each other. O’Neil only caught glimpses of them as the sheer number of beasts swallowed them beneath their masses.

O’Neil looked for another way around the monsters.

But he saw none.

They would have to force their way through the tangle of feverish creatures to get to the pier and the freighter already drifting away from port.

“Open fire,” O’Neil said.

He caught the first Skull in his sights, blasting away at its chest and head. Bone fragments sprayed away from its overgrown jaw as its head snapped back. While the beast collapsed in a gory heap, O’Neil aimed at his next target. Sent a burst of rounds that hammered into the monster’s shoulders and chest.

But just as he roved his sights over another Skull, his bolt locked back. The rifle clicked uselessly. He saw no spare magazines anywhere nearby.

“Empty!” Tate said, dropping his weapon.

Loeb squeezed off a few more shots just as the rest of the Skulls turned in their direction.

O’Neil let his rifle fall to the ground, too, ready to make a run for it through the beasts. He tried to focus on that beach in Virginia. That feeling of peace he had learned to call in. But with the booming explosions, raging fires, and the relentless odor of charred bodies, he could not concentrate.

There was no strength left in his exhausted mind to summon. No ability to stop the Skulls in their tracks.

Tate and Loeb and Hassan appeared equally spent, their chests heaving. Scratches and blood covered their bodies.

They were the last of their comrades left alive tonight. And it looked like they too would soon meet the fate that the others had if they didn’t do something, anything to stop those Skulls.

Hassan stepped forward as the first of the dozen beasts started toward them. “Let me take them. You run.”

“We ain’t going to leave you, man,” Tate said.

“You three know how to use these explosives. I do not. I will distract the Skulls. You will run.”

“That’s suicide,” O’Neil said.

“It is courage. Courage that will take me to Allah. I could not ask for a better death.”

O’Neil noticed a tear streak down the man’s grotesque face, mixing with the blood. “You’re right, my friend. I will not forget your sacrifice.”

“Nor I yours when I am with my children and wife in paradise.”

Then Hassan stepped onto a crate and cranked his neck back, opening his maw to the sky. He let out a roar that split the air, his claws cranked back. A newfound ferocity radiated off him.

The Skulls turned toward him roaring in response to meet his challenge. They started toward him. He barreled at the beasts, screaming all the while.

His raspy voice rising above the din of the insatiable monsters. “Allahu Akbar!”

He tore into the first few Skulls. His claws moved in a bloody blur. Some of the beasts fell to his strikes, but others attacked back with snapping jaws and tearing claws and ripping talons.

“Let’s go!” O’Neil said, sprinting hard down the concrete.

Hassan was still yelling and howling, doing his damndest to keep the Skulls occupied. O’Neil stole a final glance at the brave Moroccan when he passed the boiling mass of creatures all fighting to get at Hassan.

He could no longer see the man beneath their numbers.

But the man’s voice still called out. His war cry rang against the tumult.

O’Neil had a feeling, for the rest of his life, no matter how short, he would continue to hear Hassan’s cries.

-36-

O’Neil never looked back as he ran. There was only one direction to go on the pier. Skulls and men continued to stream off the sinking ships. Both damaged freighters groaned. The pops of metal buckling and bolts giving away as the vessels listed hard into the water blasted over them.

Each time one of the beasts made it to the pier, either by scuttling down the massive chains connecting the sinking vessels to the structure or by simply throwing themselves from the ship, O’Neil, Loeb, and Tate tore through the beasts, slashing at them, clawing at them, and tossing them into the water, letting them sink beneath the oily surface.

Toward the end of the pier, a group of Russian soldiers were stranded behind crates and oil drums. Skulls from the sinking ships ran at them in groups, shrieking. Bullets tore from the Russian’s rifles in response and ripped into the monsters.

When O’Neil hopped onto a crate to get a better view of what lay in wait for the last hundred or so yards down the pier, he saw that some of the sailors from the ships had joined the soldiers. They were fighting with pistols and pipes and knives and anything else they had gotten their hands on to make their last stand.

Problem was that while the Skulls appeared to be slowly winning this battle of attrition, they weren’t winning fast enough. Soon someone was going to get the engines started on the last freighter, and it wouldn’t just be drifting. It would be churning out toward the sea. It would escape with all those Skulls, destined to slaughter innocent people who had no idea what horrors were traveling the oceans.

O’Neil was a good swimmer. He knew Tate and Loeb were. That came with the job.

But they had never tried to navigate these murky waters with the bodies of Hybrids. He feared the dense bony plates and claws, the lack of body fat from the agent eating away at his body, would make it hard for him to stay afloat. A long swim just simply wasn’t in the picture. Might even be more suicidal than running headlong at those Russian fighters.

“Those people are our last obstacle to the ship,” O’Neil said. He could feel the rage emanating off the Skulls as they threw themselves at the Russians. “We can’t calm them, but we can make those Skulls work harder. Fuel their anger.”

He stood beside Loeb and Tate. The three of them falling into a trance. O’Neil focusing on the shrieks of the beasts, of his imprisonment, of everything that had been stripped from him, including his humanity, thanks to these bastards.

That anger seemed to penetrate the monsters, making them in turn more ferocious, more desperate to get at the Russians. If there were any Russian Hybrids left around Tangier, they weren’t strong enough to overcome O’Neil and his team. And it was far easier to enrage these monsters than trying to calm them. After all, it was simpler to push a boulder faster downhill than to try stopping it and rolling it back up.

He hoped that would be enough to rip the entrenched Russians from their positions. But as determined as the Skulls were to slaughter the people, those soldiers were just as determined to keep themselves alive.

“We can’t wait forever,” O’Neil said.

“I wouldn’t want to,” Tate said.

“Then we force our way past them,” O’Neil said. “Loeb, you still ready with that charge?”

“Always.”

“Follow my lead.”

O’Neil sprinted between crates and oil drums. He leapt over the bodies of monsters who lay crumpled across the pier. Some were barely more than torsos and limbs, shredded by gunfire. A few were still alive. They pulled themselves across the concrete, leaving a blood trail behind them. Hissing and swiping, they reached out as the SEALs ran past.

Gunfire rang out into the monsters charging the Russians. Shots pierced through the beasts and cut right over O’Neil’s head. One of the rounds slammed against his overgrown right shoulder blade. Bone chunks flew off from the impact.

He heard a thump, then a yell.

Glanced behind him. Saw that Tate had taken a shot to the abdomen. Blood was already trickling out from the fractures in the bony plates. Tate’s dry, cracked lips curled back into a snarl, and he let out an ear-splitting roar.

Another round hammered into Tate’s shoulder. Sent a spray of blood and bone shards flying.

Loeb cursed when an errant round lanced through one of his horns.

They wouldn’t survive the onslaught. Not like this.

But they had no cover. Nowhere else to go.

There was only one way O’Neil could think to shield themselves.

He picked up one of the dead Skulls.

The weight of the beast threatened his flagging strength, but he would not relent to the pain coursing through his muscles.

He held the dead creature in front of him as a monstrous shield.

Tate and Loeb picked up corpses of their own. Tate nearly stumbled, trying to lift his beast. More blood poured out of the wound in his abdomen, and he yelled out in pain with the effort.

“Hold on, brother,” Loeb said. “We’re almost there.”

O’Neil ran ahead, barreling between the other clawing, snapping monsters. Each time a round slammed into the Skull’s body he carried, the impact shook through his limbs. The heavy beast seemed to grow heavier the longer he held it up.

But the thought of stopping that ship full of Skulls was more than enough to fuel him. If he succeeded, he might be saving countless lives. Might be protecting the country he loved and, for that matter, other countries around the world just barely struggling to survive the Oni Agent outbreak.

All of that hinged on holding this Skull up long enough to shield his body from the brunt of the Russians’ attack. Loeb seemed to have made a similar calculation, storming through the mess of Skulls beside him, avoiding the occasional claw that sliced their direction.

Tate, though, could not.

With every step he took, more dark blood pumped from his gut wound. Crimson trailed from his mouth too. It bubbled out from the corners of his mouth as he screamed. Another burst of fire crashed into the beast he held, and finally, Tate could endure no more.

He dropped the monster and shrieked, his voice rising above the Skulls.

“Tate!” O’Neil roared.

But the younger operator was no longer listening. He sprinted through the Skulls, then lunged over their numbers, landing right in the gaggle of Russians sheltering behind the oil drums and crates. Rounds tore into him, each sending up a cloud of red mist, bone fragments flying as his armor was torn apart.

Tate never stopped slicing and clawing at the Russians. He picked up one of the soldier’s rifles, bringing it to bear against a few of the sailors. One of the men rushed him with a rusty pipe in his hand. The man’s face was promptly erased by a burst of rounds. Another started firing at Tate with a pistol. Each blast chiseled into Tate’s bony plates. But just as quickly, Tate swung the rifle on the man, bullets tearing into the man’s body, sending him tumbling backward into the water.

Another soldier tried to backpedal from Tate, adjusting his aim to end the operator. But Tate was quicker, lunging at the man, digging his talons into the guy’s chest and driving him to the ground. As he squirmed under the SEAL’s weight, Tate fired on another soldier with a rifle. The man’s body jerked as the rounds crashed into him. He fell over another of his dead comrades. His head cracked against the concrete.

But when Tate twisted to fire on another man, his rifle clicked. Empty.

“Help him!” O’Neil roared, dropping the Skull he had been using as a shield. He shoved his way past the mess of creatures still fighting with each other to be the first to feed on the soldiers. Loeb stuck close to O’Neil.

But they couldn’t reach Tate before a soldier charged the younger operator. Tate swung his rifle at the soldier like a club. The man ducked, then smashed his own rifle into Tate’s jaw. The blow was enough to stagger Tate.

“No!” O’Neil said.

He saw it all happen in slow motion.

Other soldiers fought to hold their position. Muzzle-fire flashed in the dark as rounds blazed into the beasts surrounding O’Neil and Loeb. O’Neil tried to break free from the crush of monsters, even as he egged them on, pushing them to attack, to kill, to stop the Russians.

None of it made a difference.

The Russian attacking Tate aimed his rifle straight at the operator’s face. In that moment, O’Neil saw everything clearly. The blood covering Tate’s body. The grim determination set in the operator’s expression. The trigger finger of the Russian pulling back. The bone giving way from the point-blank shot.

Then Tate teetering as if he might still be alive. Might have somehow resisted the deadly shot. He started to twist, turning back toward O’Neil and Loeb.

Half of his face was missing, from the jaw up to the eye. All gone from the blast.

There was no coming back from that.

The rest of Tate’s jaw fell open, slack. His remaining eye rolled up into the back of his head, and he crumpled.

“No!” O’Neil bellowed.

A new fire roared up through O’Neil’s chest. Not from the angry Skulls. Not from whatever Russian Hybrids remained around base.

This anger was all his own.

He threw his arms out, knocking over two Skulls near him. Gave him just enough room to coil his muscles. Then jump.

His claws thunked straight into the neck of the Russian who had killed Tate. He drove the man backward as the warm blood sloshed over his claws, and they crashed into a crate. Behind him, he heard Loeb land on the concrete, then the click of his claws against metal as he picked up a rifle.

“You killed my brother,” O’Neil said, baring his fangs in front of the Russian’s face.

He thought he smelled urine as the man’s eyes filled with fear. He lifted the man, his agonized muscles screaming with pain, then threw the bastard into another sailor trying to seek cover behind an oil drum.

Loeb took a knee near an oil drum, firing at the scattering Russians. Skulls continued to fall around him as the desperate soldiers and sailors sprayed wildly into the pack of beasts. A couple of the creatures shot past Loeb and O’Neil, rushing the last group of sailors and soldiers left.

Those assholes were no match for the wrath flowing through O’Neil and Loeb, then passing into the Skulls. They swarmed over what was left of the Russian resistance, and as soon as the last Russian stopped firing, his body pinned to the ground by the beasts, the monsters began to feed.

All around him, O’Neil heard the snap of ripping flesh and the wet slurp of body parts slopping over the concrete.

He barely had time to think of what had become of Tate. What the man had sacrificed. He wanted to break down and yell and curse. But there would only be time to mourn the dead if he lived through the next few moments. Because this was his chance to save the living.

The path to the water near the stern of the ship was clear. The only thing left in their way was a few dead bodies and the weight of the mission they carried on their shoulders.

O’Neil raced ahead. Loeb followed, talons pounding against the pavement, just barely keeping up with him. Each still had their explosive charges. He prayed these things would work. That these wouldn’t be duds like the others that the Hunters had placed.

Because he would not be able to live with himself knowing Tate had died for nothing.

If he lived at all.

O’Neil sucked in a deep breath, then dove into the water.

-37-

O’Neil’s plates and bony armor dragged him down immediately. He fought against his own body sabotaging his swimming efforts, paddling at the water, kicking as hard as he could toward the looming silhouette of the freighter.

Underwater life hidden in the murk clicked and hummed and buzzed. Already fish and crabs picked apart the Skulls that had tumbled into the water. Saw more of those bodies that the Russians had discarded by tying them to concrete anchors. He was surrounded by an underwater forest of death, each sight more horrific than the last as he fought through the water toward the propeller.

Suddenly he heard bullets slicing through the water. Trails of bubbles tore through the murk. The sailors on that ship must’ve seen them dive in, and after what had happened to the other two freighters, they had to have some idea of what he and Loeb planned to do.

Those trails of bubbles speared all around him as the incoming fire grew more frantic. Deeper, he saw Skulls. Some still struggled as they sank, slowly drowning but reaching toward him, trying their best to swim up at him.

Death was all around him.

But he compartmentalized each of those threats and the fear trickling through him.

He could not control the gunfire or the Skulls or whatever horrific scenes were still unraveling on the shore.

All he could control was his own actions. He kicked hard.

Even his body seemed determined to stop him. He was only a few yards from the ship’s propeller, but exhaustion wormed its way into his mind, telling him he didn’t have the power or energy to continue. Pain scorched through his muscles and screamed through his nerves. And the weight of his body never let up, daring him to stop clawing his way through the water, daring him to see what would happen if he gave in.

He kept kicking and fighting and pushing through the water until he could see the metal hull of the ship more clearly. Saw the massive propellers. Should the Russians start the engines at that moment, he would be turned into chum for the underwater creatures surrounding him in the blackness.

But he pushed that out of his mind, locking his claws onto the edge of a prop blade, finally able to pull himself toward the stern. He turned back to see Loeb frantically swimming toward the props. Bullets continued to harpoon past him. A few Skulls plummeted into the water, their mouths open in perpetual shrieks, bubbles escaping their nostrils and mouths. Their claws flailed wildly in the murk.

O’Neil’s lungs started to burn, his mind screaming at him to suck down air. His muscles were burning through what little oxygen he had in his body too quickly.

He thought back to that fifty-meter underwater swim during BUD/S. Felt that same sensation now that everything rode on his ability to fight against the fading of his consciousness.

He fumbled with the explosive, his fingers growing numb. Managed to place it against the hull of the boat. He patted it, securing it with the adhesive the mercs had placed on one side of it. When it didn’t fall away after he removed his hand, he figured his job was almost done.

Just needed that second explosive in place to be sure.

Loeb continued to paddle toward him, but his strokes looked weaker.

O’Neil noticed a dark cloud left in the water from Loeb’s side. He was bleeding.

Worry crept its way into O’Neil’s mind shoving past the burning desire to shoot up toward the surface and fill his lungs with precious air. He reached out toward Loeb. His claws met Loeb’s and he dragged the other SEAL through the water toward the prop.

Loeb’s eyes were bulging, his mouth opening like his body was about to override his brain and gulp down water instead of air. He was in bad shape. No condition to finish what they had started. O’Neil quickly took the explosive from him and pressed it hard against the hull near his own. Then he pointed up toward the water’s surface where bullets and Skulls continued to rain down.

They just needed one quick breath of air. One breath was all it would take to get them back toward the pier, and then they could get the hell back to the Hunters. O’Neil could detonate the explosives, and that would be it.

For a moment, as he pushed himself up from the prop, climbing toward the surface, once again combatting his body’s desire to sink itself, he thought about simply pressing the detonator. About killing that ship right now, right here.

But he hadn’t just made a promise to the mercs to finish the mission.

He had made a promise to Loeb.

Told the guy he would get him back to his girls, his wife.

He knew the risk of breaking the water’s surface now. Knew that if he showed his face to the Russians, they could pinpoint his position. Direct their fire more accurately, then tear O’Neil and Loeb apart with their gunfire.

But he saw no other way. Even if he could take the rest of that swim back to the pier, with Loeb bleeding, hurt, the other operator couldn’t, no matter how strong his willpower was.

So he pushed upward. Right up against the hull, trying to stay as close to it as he could, pulling Loeb up with him. He burst out of the water and sucked down a long breath. Air never tasted sweeter, even between the odor of rot and smoke and burning oil.

Loeb’s face was even paler than before. His mouth opened like a fish on land. He sucked in a deep breath. Shouts burst overhead. O’Neil saw a few of the soldiers and sailors leaning over the side of the gunwale. They directed their rifles toward the SEALs.

“Dive,” O’Neil said simply, pulling Loeb back under the water, then pushing off the stern with as much power as he could.

Rounds screamed through the water. Loeb flailed a little, even as he kicked. O’Neil could practically feel the man’s pain. Knew what kind of agony must be searing through him from the agent coursing in his bloodstream to the wound in his side to his lungs yearning for oxygen.

O’Neil took them past the reaching arms of sinking Skulls, back toward the picked-over corpses of other failed experimental subjects and prisoners the Russians had terrorized. Made it to the pier.

He pulled himself up to the side, grunting and screaming with the agony in his muscles. Bobbed next to the pier, water lapping over him. Felt like his bones were trying to rip through every fiber of tissue in his body as he dragged Loeb out of the water, then pushed the guy on the pier first. Then O’Neil finally climbed up.

Loeb was on his hands and knees, retching and coughing. But they didn’t have time to recover. O’Neil scooped the man up, forcing him to stand. He let Loeb lean on him as they ran as best they could between the bodies littering the pier and the crates and oil drums. Gunfire from the sailors and soldiers on the ship pounded around them, but O’Neil never glanced back.

A few Skulls looked up at them from their meals of fresh human meat.

But he carried with him that image of Virginia Beach. Of a time when all his teammates were alive. When it wasn’t just him and Loeb finishing a mission. It was just enough to keep the Skulls focused on their food, satisfied with the fresh meat sloshing between their knife-like teeth.

Another explosion roared from the warehouses. A column of fire split the dark sky, illuminating nearly the whole base for a moment. O’Neil could feel the heat and pressure roll over him from the blast.

The Russians were losing this place to the Skulls.

All because they had turned him and his teammates into tools for their own cause. And O’Neil had successfully turned the tables on them.

Shown them the power of a few Navy SEALs and disgruntled civilians who would take no more abuse.

“I’m not… I’m not going to make it,” Loeb said, clutching his side with one claw.

“We’re almost there,” O’Neil said. “Just hang on a little longer. We’ll get out of here with those mercs, take a ship back to the US, and we’ll be back in Frederick before you know it.”

More gunfire rattled from the ship. Soldiers and sailors continued to fire at them, even as they approached the end of the pier. Rounds pinged off the ground and sent splinters flying from the crates. Loeb leaned more and more heavily on O’Neil’s shoulder.

“Don’t you fucking stop, man,” O’Neil said. “Don’t you fucking stop.”

Loeb didn’t respond. He just kept limping along. The screams of other Skulls erupted from everywhere around the base, filling the air with a violent chorus of ungodly voices.

They were at the end of the pier now. He heard the first rumble of a ship engine travel over the harbor. The Russians thought they could still escape. That they might win something after this tragic day.

“Come on, brother,” O’Neil said.

Loeb looked at him, his mouth hanging open, face ghostly white, every vessel beneath his skin visible now. Blood covered his side and drenched what was left of his uniform. Long fractures spiderwebbed from the gunshot wound in his side.

He must have been hit when they were underwater. Or maybe shortly after Tate had died.

It didn’t really matter when he’d taken the shot. O’Neil just didn’t want to believe what his eyes were telling him.

Loeb’s fingers wrapped around O’Neil’s upper arm. He squeezed hard enough for it to be slightly painful. “O’Neil, I am not going to make it. Let me die here. I can’t—”

His face scrunched up, his whole body contorting in a wash of pain. “Give me a minute.”

O’Neil felt his adrenaline fading even as the battle raged on. He heard other blasts, gunshots from everywhere. Felt the anger of the Skulls. Heard the rattle of automatic gunfire.

But he tuned it all out. Because at this point, he didn’t give a shit about anything else. Just his brother. Loeb.

He set Loeb against the side of a crate. Let the man prop himself up so he could get a clear view of the ship, then tore off part of the bottom of his pants. Tried to fashion it into a bandage and secure it to Loeb’s side.

“We’re getting you back to your girls,” O’Neil said, tightening the bandage.

“No…” Loeb managed. “It won’t… help. Just…”

He held up a hand, pointing at the ship, his finger trembling. Then his arm fell to his side, his eyes glued on the freighter.

O’Neil knew what he wanted. He fished the detonator from his pocket. Thought once more of Hassan. Van. Tate.

He pressed the detonator into Loeb’s hand. Had to help the SEAL close his fingers around it.

Then he put his thumb over Loeb’s. Together they pressed the button. He took his hand from Loeb’s, letting the man hold the detonator.

Only a second passed.

Water geysered from the stern of the ship with a brilliant flash of white light. Metal puckered and groaned. Shrapnel erupted from the water and peppered the pier. The ship’s engine growled louder, then let out a high-pitched, grating sound as the vessel started to list.

That ship would never leave. The vessel was just as dead as the monsters trapped beneath it in the silt and sand. It would rest in that graveyard with its cargo of Skulls, another army of beasts that would not make landfall on some hapless city struggling to survive the apocalyptic landscape.

Another boom burst through the ship, and flames spewed out from the rent metal splitting up its side. Dark smoke rolled out from the fatal wound.

“We did it, Loeb,” O’Neil said, voice rasping, lungs scratchy with the smoke filtering around him. “We fucking did it.”

He clapped Loeb on the shoulder.

The operator made no reply. The detonator clattered to the concrete.

O’Neil turned to see the light of those distant flames flickering across Loeb’s still face, his vacant eyes directed in an eternal gaze toward that ship.

And despite the grotesque mutations covering his body, despite the mortal injury that had stolen his breath, there was a look of peace on his face.

As if Loeb realized, in that last moment on Earth, he was finally being released from his agony.

-38-

O’Neil lurched between columns of smoke and spreading fires, dodging past soldiers rushing from the Skulls terrorizing them. His whole world seemed to devolve into a blur of chaos, his eyes sheening, watery.

He was alone.

Utterly alone.

He followed the sound of sustained gunfire and the boom of the two anti-aircraft guns. Someone had brought them to life and was using them against the Skulls. The huge shells tore through the monsters’ ranks. Each blast sent showers of gruesome shrapnel into the air.

Between those blasts, he thought he heard the voices of those mercs. The Hunters.

Were they making their last stand near the AA guns? Were they as dead as he felt?

O’Neil figured that he had no other hope. Might as well die fighting like his brothers had.

He rushed toward them, watching Skulls get torn apart. Saw a rifle lying next to a soldier whose neck had been torn open. Skin flapped open over an exposed rifle. O’Neil ignored the gruesome corpse and picked up the rifle.

As he drew closer to the AA guns, he could better see the black fatigues of the Hunters forming a perimeter around them. They had a man on each gun, too, firing at the waves of Skulls descending on them from around the base.

O’Neil thought about trying to influence the Skulls. To turn them around. But he had no more strength, physical or otherwise. Every breath was torture. All he could do was weave between the beasts and shoot any that got too close.

It took everything left in his body to close that distance to the AA guns. Everything to keep running. Because after he lost Loeb, he figured he didn’t deserve to wear the trident of the SEALs anymore. He had lost everyone who had depended on him. Every Hybrid he had sent across the base had died to carry out this mission. And he carried every single one of those sacrifices, from the first Moroccan prisoner to the last SEAL.

He was all that was left.

And he couldn’t answer why.

He didn’t deserve it.

He had no family to go back to.

No one else to protect.

No team.

All he had was this twisted, mutated body and the monstrous weight of guilt.

Trying to compartmentalize it all no longer worked.

Didn’t matter that a battle still raged. That fires still devoured this base between the monsters running rampant.

He had completed the mission the brass had given him.

But was everything he had done, everything he had lost, worth it?

He stumbled toward the AA gun where the Hunters were. Saw Meredith first.

She beckoned him. “Where are the others?”

He tried to answer. Tried to open his mouth, but he couldn’t. He simply collapsed, his chest heaving as he gulped down air. Agony raced up and down his limbs. His body was starving and broken, his will sapped.

He had nothing else left to give.

Meredith crouched beside him as the others continued to fire on the raging beasts. She offered him water, and he gulped from the tube connected to her pack, letting it fill his body.

Finally, he wiped the back of his hand over his mouth. Looked up at her, and for the first time, admitted aloud what had happened.

“They’re gone. I’m all that’s left.”

“This isn’t the end, O’Neil,” Meredith said. “We’re still in this fight.”

She gave him one last look of concern. One look filled with pity, then turned back toward the Skulls threatening to overwhelm their position.

That look gave him all the fuel he needed.

No matter how terrible this mission had gone, they had succeeded in sabotaging the Russians’ efforts in the Tangier port. The SEALs had still done what they had come to do.

O’Neil would not wallow in pity.

Either self-pity or someone else’s.

He took a knee and pressed the stolen rifle against his shoulder. Aimed at the first Skull he saw and fired. Saw another beast climbing over a shipping container. Wild hair fell from its head in stringy knots. Its armor was already pocked in bullet holes. The monster let out a howl, tensing to jump off the container.

Instead, he sent rounds peppering its torso. The monster took a few more steps. Raked at the air with its claws, then toppled face first to the ground. He aimed at another beast. Squeezed the trigger. Ensured it was dead, then picked his next target.

The instincts honed over his career turned him into a machine. He operated off muscle memory alone. Ignored his pain, his exhaustion. His whole world became the rifle and whatever he saw through its sights.

Monsters turned to corpses, one after the other. And when he was out of ammunition, Meredith handed him her pistol.

Didn’t matter that the weapon wasn’t as reliable long-range. The beasts continued to press on the Hunters, pushing closer and closer. There were simply too many of them. The beasts continued to pour from the sinking ships and over the walls of the base, even breaking out of the shipping containers. O’Neil could still feel their anger, the hatred instilled in them by the biological agent that had wrecked their body.

That anger kept him functioning. He aimed his pistol at a beast with spiked shoulder blades running straight at him between crates, screaming, its hair trailing behind it, the torn remains of its clothes sodden with blood. Bullets punched through its open mouth and sternum.

It fell forward, carried by momentum. Its body scraped over the concrete, leaving flecks of flesh and blood behind.

And still, the monsters flooded toward them.

“We’re losing control!” Meredith yelled.

She appeared to be talking over her comms. Probably to the merc’s leader, Dom.

If he was alive, then maybe Reynolds had made it, too.

The thought that there was another SEAL left alive renewed O’Neil’s will to live.

Meredith appeared to be listening to a reply, nodding along with words O’Neil couldn’t hear. Then she looked at O’Neil.

“We’re getting out of here,” she said.

The sound of rotor blades beat at the air. O’Neil watched two choppers lift off from near where the command structure was at the center of the port. Was that their ride out?

Then he saw the mercs twist the AA guns toward the choppers. Andris was at the helm of the closest one. He began firing, rounds bursting like fireworks in the darkened sky. Those blasts traced through the darkness until they hit the first chopper, then the second. Both birds went down in fireballs, plummeting toward the harbor.

O’Neil watched them plunge into the dark waters.

“That was all that was left of the people running this base,” Meredith explained. She fired on another Skull lunging over a pile of skeletal corpses. “But we need to move now. Our captain’s got a ride out of here for us.”

She pointed toward the harbor where O’Neil saw a tugboat motoring along toward them. The growl of its throaty engine rolled over the water.

He couldn’t believe that after everything he had seen here, everything he and these mercs had done, they might actually escape.

As the stolen tugboat neared the water’s edge, Meredith ushered the mercs after her. O’Neil saw Andris drop a couple of explosive charges at each of the AA guns before they began running to meet the boat.

Skulls continued to rush toward them, relentless in their attack. O’Neil saw the spark of gunfire elsewhere in the base, then heard human screams as those last bits of resistance were squashed by the monsters.

The tugboat pushed through the water, motoring alongside the pier, still moving as the Hunters threw themselves into it. O’Neil leapt onto the deck. His talons clicked against it as he rolled, then propped himself upright, aiming his weapon back toward the shore. He fired in concentrated blasts, taking out the monsters chasing the last of the Hunters.

Each Skull he killed was one less creature left to haunt this god-forsaken world.

The last Hunter, Andris, threw himself aboard as the team’s captain, Dom, manipulated the steering levers at the helm. The vessel’s engines churned as it pushed away from the pier, chugging away from the hellish landscape. Beasts threw themselves into the water after them. But even those that managed to swim were quickly outpaced by the boat.

The AA guns where the Hunters had been only seconds ago were now covered in Skulls. O’Neil had never seen so many of the monsters in one place.

“Blow the AA guns, Andris!” Dom called from the helm.

Andris nodded and pressed the trigger on his detonator. The charges exploded, sounding like someone had fired a cannon across the base. Columns of fire clawed into the air, carrying with them chunks of burning Skulls. Other monsters leapt through the flames. Their bodies burned even as they continued their reckless charge, jumping after the tugboat. Those flames hissed out as the bodies hit the water.

Fingers of dark smoke lifted up from the fires devouring the base.

The Hunters must’ve planted those explosives while O’Neil was taking out that last ship. Smart of them to clean up like that after they left.

The last packs of monsters left let out howls that wailed over the water, and O’Neil could just see their silhouettes flickering in front of the flames as they descended on the scraps of the Russians left behind.

O’Neil looked over the pier, even as it shrunk, wondering what would happen to the bodies of his brothers.

They would be left behind in that madness. None of them deserved that fate.

But he vowed then, even if he couldn’t give them a proper burial, he would make it up to them somehow. He had to figure out a way to make their sacrifices worthwhile. Figure out a way to stop the monsters ruling this world and turn the tide of destruction.

Because this one mission wasn’t enough.

It would never be enough until the world was rid of every last Skull and every last bastard responsible for their existence.

He felt the presence of someone near him and turned to see Andris.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’ll never be okay,” O’Neil said.

Andris gazed over his body. “Maybe that is a stupid question. I wanted to thank you.”

“I did what I had to.”

“You did everything, friend,” Andris said. “Everything and more.”

Then he bowed his head to his chest.

“Our captain tells me that your troop chief, Reynolds, sacrificed his life to complete the mission.” Andris pointed at the sky. “They managed to take out the people responsible for running this base and the labs, though, and with those AA guns, we killed the last of them as they tried to escape.”

“We did it,” O’Neil said.

Andris patted O’Neil’s bony shoulder with a gloved hand. “We did it.”

Then O’Neil finally let it take him. The exhaustion. The pain. All of it was too much. He had, as Andris said, given everything and more.

He fell back against the gunwale of the ship as it rocked in the rough waters. Slid down to the deck. Then closed his eyes.

* * *

O’Neil sipped from a can of beer and looked out toward the sea. The sun was rising over the Virginia shore, painting the sky in swirling streams of orange and purple and red and blue. A few stubborn clouds drifted lazily in front of the fiery disc.

Yeah, it was early for the beer, but who was watching?

No one came to the beach this early. And if they could not get a sunset on the east coast that fell over the ocean, might as well drink to the next best thing.

He smiled as the warmth of the sun traced across his face. His skin. Not bones.

Turning away from the rising sun, he saw them. His team. Van, who gave him a slight nod. Tate, who was shooting the shit with Stuart, Henderson, and McLean. Loeb, wearing his cowboy hat, busy chasing his young daughters. The other SEALs gave the guy crap for bringing the girls to an early morning tailgate. Said it was supposed to be an adults-only thing, but Loeb had told them every day they were on deployment was an adults-only thing. He only got so many days at home and he sure as hell wasn’t going to spend them all away from those girls.

Right now, he seemed to regret it as the older one, maybe eight, was whining about how early it was and the younger one, five or six, told Loeb she wanted to go back to bed.

O’Neil couldn’t help but chuckle.

This was happiness.

Peace.

He had some distant memory—maybe a nightmare—of his body being turned practically inside out. His skeleton pushing through his skin and turning him into a monster.

None of it made sense.

How in the hell could something like that happen?

He turned back to the ocean and watched the waves rush in. Watched them crash over the shore, carrying with them the glint of the sunrise.

God, yes, this was Heaven. This was the place Van was always talking about going. How the rest of them needed to get their shit in order so he didn’t find himself at the Pearly Gates without his brothers.

Yup. Heaven.

Then it hit O’Neil.

Was that really, literally where he was now?

Had he died?

Because as he let the thought percolate through his mind, he remembered Lithuania and Tangier and the Hybrids and Skulls and those three freighters full of containers destined for foreign shores.

Then he saw the armies of beasts. Monsters and men that had destroyed his team. Killed the people around him.

He shook his head. If they were dead, then it seemed like he was, too.

Was that such a bad thing?

Because after all, he had lost everything on Earth. He was a monster. A Hybrid.

Not a SEAL any longer.

Just a twisted abomination.

Then he heard it. A rhythmic beep. He looked around for its source. Saw only empty beaches.

Van. Loeb. Tate.

They all vanished.

“Guys, where the hell are you?” he asked, voice scratching up through his throat.

As he turned around, looking toward the ocean for them, the water too had disappeared.

Then the sand.

All that was left was yellow sun floating above him, glowing, reaching out toward his eyes and scraping at his retinas.

He tried to raise his hand to block the light, but the movement was torture. That throbbing agony spread through his body as he blinked.

“O’Neil, do you hear me?” a soft voice asked. “O’Neil?”

The more he blinked, the more he realized he wasn’t looking at the sun. Instead, it was a light, gently glowing above him.

He felt a gentle rocking motion. Like he was on a ship.

What in the…

“O’Neil?” a voice asked.

He twisted his neck slightly, wincing at the shock of pain. A woman in a white coat stood above him. She looked down at him with crisp blue eyes, her blond hair tied back from her face. It took him a moment to realize he was in a bed—a patient exam bed—and the beeping he had heard was an EKG.

“Where… Where am I?” he asked.

His tongue clung to the roof of his mouth.

“I’m Dr. Lauren Winters,” the woman said. “Chief medical officer of the Huntress. You remember the Hunters?”

O’Neil managed a painful nod.

“Yes, well, you’re on our ship. You’ve been out for a while. Can you tell me your name?”

He did.

“What do you last remember?”

The fires. The port. The Skulls. The death of his brothers. He told her everything.

“Good, I’m glad to hear you seem lucid,” she said. “If you want, I can increase the pain meds again. It’ll put you back in a gentle sleep.”

He thought about saying yes. About returning to that beach again. But there was nothing for him in those dreams. He thought that he wanted death.

But in death, there was no retribution.

There was no chance to help others from turning into the monster he had become.

Drug-induced sleep was no better either. It was a deceptive escape filled with false promises.

“No,” he said. “I don’t want to be put under again.”

“I understand,” she said. “We’ve been working on figuring out what happened to you. Do you want me to catch you up on everything or would you prefer to rest?”

No use hiding from his present or his future anymore.

“Tell me everything,” he said.

She started with what had happened to the rest of the men that had been sent on the mission. How the Rangers had evidently been wiped out. How the brass had tried to send other groups to rescue the SEALs, but they disappeared elsewhere in Europe or Morocco. The Hunters had been lucky to make contact with a group of local Moroccans who had helped them infiltrate the base. Khalid hadn’t been lying after all.

She promised him there was far more to that story, that he would have to ask one of the field operatives as she didn’t have all the details. What she did know was that he had indeed been infected with a biological weapon adapted from the Oni Agent. She wanted to study that agent, to learn more about the changes to O’Neil’s body, but promised she wouldn’t experiment on him without his permission. There was so much they didn’t yet understand about this new weapon.

What they did know was that the people responsible for that biological agent had been hoping to use the Hybrids to guide hordes of Skulls to invade those few cities and bases around the world resisting the monsters. It was part of a much larger conspiracy the Hunters and the United States were still fighting to unravel. But she and her team believed that the blow they had struck in Tangier had set back the Russian forces considerably.

Humanity might yet have a chance at recovery, although their ultimate future was uncertain.

He heard the smack of boots against the deck as Lauren finished explaining all this to him. Into the small sick bay room walked the man who had led the Hunters into Tangier.

Captain Dominic Holland. Lauren caught Dom up on O’Neil’s condition and told him what she and her medical team had discovered regarding O’Neil’s condition.

Dom turned to O’Neil. “I never really thanked you for what you did for us.”

“You don’t have to,” O’Neil said, pulling himself upright. His bony spikes rattled against each other, and a fresh wave of pain echoed through his body with the movement. “You freed us.”

“But the sacrifices you and the others made can’t be taken lightly.”

O’Neil thought about it for a second. Recalled what it was like to be stuck in that prison cell. To be experimented on and treated like an animal.

Worse than an animal.

“They weren’t sacrifices,” O’Neil said. “Not really. We wanted revenge for what those people did to us. The torture they put us through. The experiments.” He could not help the shudder that rippled through him. “We spent every day wishing we could die. You gave us a chance to free ourselves from that prison—both the one with the bars and our bodies. You owe us nothing.”

Dom looked away for a second, his brow furrowed like he was thinking about what he should say next. Finally, he spit it out. “Do you still feel the need to free yourself?”

O’Neil let those words sink over him, considered the chaotic emotions churning in his brain. He swallowed hard. “I thought I still wanted to die. But I’m not ready. As long as the doc here can keep me at a dull seven or eight instead of an agonizing ten on the pain scale, I still want my revenge. Because until every last one of the people responsible for what has happened to the world are dead, they’re just going to keep making more monsters. Monsters like me.”

“Understood,” Dom said. “If you want, I can get you back to your command. See if they want to assign you to work with the SEALs again.”

O’Neil thought about it. But he knew what USAMRIID was doing to the Skulls in their possession. He would be a unique specimen. The scientists would want to dissect him and figure out everything they could about how he had been turned into this monster. They would probably consider him more valuable as an experimental specimen than a SEAL. And he had a hard time believing they would find a place for him on the teams again.

He looked at his claws.

Not like this.

“That’s the last thing I want,” he finally said to Dom. “You know what’s going to happen if you hand me over to the military. More poking and prodding. I don’t want to be an experiment again.”

“I’ve already promised not to do any research on O’Neil without his consent,” Lauren said.

Dom took another step toward O’Neil’s bed. Put a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t even wear a glove to protect himself from touching the bony armor on O’Neil’s body.

“You’d make a damn fine Hunter if you want to stay and fight with us,” Dom said.

O’Neil thought of his brothers. The ones he would never see again. He wasn’t sure he belonged in the SEALs again. And he wasn’t sure he would ever really be accepted on a team of mercs like this either. But he saw no better way to carry on the torch of their memories, honor what they had given for the country than fighting to end this war.

“I was hoping you’d ask.”

Dom gave him a nod and a slight smile. “Glad to have you aboard.”

THE END

-For the Reader-

Dear Reader,

Thanks so much for reading Hybrid, a novel in The Tide universe. If you are an old fan of The Tide, I hope you enjoyed learning more about one of my characters from the original series. O’Neil seemed to be a fan favorite (and personally one of mine), and when I finished the main series, I realized I hadn’t told enough of his story.

If this is the first time you’ve read a book in the world of The Tide and want to learn more, please consider checking out the series. You’ll learn far more about the Hunters, the Oni Agent, and the biological weapon that twisted O’Neil’s fate. You can check out The Tide, Book 1, here: http://amzn.to/2FeuFq3

Or as of this writing, there is a box set with the first four books in the series here: https://amzn.to/2QoeDRK

I hope you’ll dive into the world of Skulls and Hunters if you haven’t given it a try yet.

In the meantime, if you’re interested in future releases and other works of mine (I’ve got plenty more new ones coming out), please consider joining my mailing list. I won’t spam you and I won’t share your email: http://bit.ly/ajmlist

I love to hear from readers. If you want to get in touch, there are a number of ways to reach me.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/anthonyjmelchiorri

Email: ajm@anthonyjmelchiorri.com

Website: http://www.anthonyjmelchiorri.com

Best,

Anthony J. Melchiorri

April 2021

-About the Author-

Anthony J Melchiorri is a scientist with a PhD in bioengineering. By day, he develops cellular therapies and 3D-printable artificial organs. By night, he writes apocalyptic, medical, and science-fiction thrillers that blend real-world research with action, adventure, and suspense. When he isn't in the lab or at the keyboard, he spends his time running, reading, hiking, and traveling in search of new story ideas.

Read more at http://anthonyjmelchiorri.com and sign up for his mailing list at http://bit.ly/ajmlist to hear about his latest releases and news.