Читать книгу Alpha Bravo Seal - Carol Ericson - Страница 8

Prologue

Slade Gallagher sucked in a salty breath of air and got ready for the kill.

Oblivious to the sniper rifles pointed at their heads from the yacht bobbing on the water just over three hundred feet away from them, four Somali pirates held their hostages at gunpoint as they communicated their demands to the two men who’d boarded their rickety craft. The two were US Navy seamen, but the pirates didn’t know that—didn’t need to.

The relatively calm seas made tracking his target easy—and safe for the hostage.

Slade zeroed in on his target, his dark skin glistening in the sun, one skinny arm wrapped around the hostage’s throat, gun nestled beneath her ear. Slade’s focus shifted to the hostage, a young woman with light brown hair blowing across her face and a tall, thin body, taut and ready.

What the hell was a woman doing out here in the Gulf of Aden? The orders for this assignment had made clear that this rescue didn’t involve a cargo ship. This time the Somali pirates had captured a documentary film crew. Idiots.

Not that Slade couldn’t understand the thrill of risk taking, but he preferred risks that pitted him against a big wave or a cave on the ocean floor, not desperate men in desperate situations.

The negotiator waved his arm once and shifted his body to the right, giving the SEAL snipers their first signal and a clear view of all four pirates. Slade licked the salt from his lips and coiled his muscles. He adjusted the aim on his M107.

The snipers had to drop their targets at the same time—or risk the lives of the hostages. He tracked back to the pretty brunette, now scooping her hair into a ponytail with one hand and tilting her head away from her captor. Good girl.

Had the negotiators been able to hint to the hostages that a team of Navy SEAL snipers was on the boat drifting off their starboard and watching their every move? It didn’t matter. The men on deck would make their best assessment and the snipers would take action.

It wouldn’t be pretty. That tall drink of water would suffer some blood spatter—but at least it wouldn’t be her own. He’d make sure of that.

The other negotiator held both hands out in supplication, the final signal, and Slade set his timer to five seconds. He murmured along for the count. “Five, four, three, two...”

He took the shot. All four pirates jerked at once in a macabre dance and fell to the deck.

Slade inched his scope to the woman he’d just saved. She hadn’t fainted dead away, screamed or jumped up and down. She formed an X over her chest with her blood-spattered arms, looked down at the dead pirate and spit on his body.

Hauling back his sniper rifle, Slade shook his head.

That was one crazy chick—just his type.