Tex, p.1
Tex, page 1
TEX
SEAL TEAM EAST
ZOE DAWSON
Tex
Copyright © 2022 by Karen Alarie
Cover Art © Robin Ludwig Design, Inc.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Created with Vellum
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Squad Glossary
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
Glossary
About the Author
OTHER TITLES BY ZOE DAWSON
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’d like to thank my beta readers, reviewers and editor for helping with this book, especially Lisa Fournier for her excellent help. As always, you guys are the best.
You need experience to gain wisdom.
Albert Einstein
SQUAD GLOSSARY
Ruckus’s Squad – Tier 2 Operators
Books 1-8
Lieutenant Ruckus “Bowie” Cooper
Ashe “Kid Chaos” Wilder
Wes “Cowboy” McGraw
Thorn “Tank” Hunt – MWDs: Echo and Bronte
Ocean “Blue” Beckett
Arlo “Scarecrow” Porter
Orion “Wicked” Cross
Jude “Hollywood” Lock
Fast Lane’s Squad
Books 9-16
Ryuu “Dragon” Shannon
Errol “Pitbull” Ballentine
Atticus “Hemingway” Sinclair
Max “Mad Max” Keegan – MWD: Juggernaut, (Jugs)
Oliver “Artful Dodger” Graham
Neo “2-Stroke” Teller
Zach “Saint” Bartholomew
Lieutenant Ford “Fast Lane” Nixon
Rock’s Squad
Books 17-24
Lieutenant Adrian “Rock” Lane (Previous CO)
Milo “Professor” Prescott
Lieutenant Elias “Joker” Jackman (Current CO)
Zephirin “Gator” LaBauve
Callen “Blitz” Berenger
Andrew (Drew) “D-Day” Nolan
Mateo “Zorro” Martinez
Sam “Buck” Buckard
Dakota “Bear” Locklear – MWD: Flint
Iceman’s Squad – Tier 1 Operators
Books 1-8
Master Chief Christopher (Kit) “Iceman” Snow
Boyce “Preacher” Carmichael
Remington “GQ” Nash
Jayesh “Kodiak” Lyta
Archer “Hazard” Booth
Cooper (Skully) “Skull” Sullivan – MWD: Bonesaw (Bones)
Carter “Boomer” Findley
Kelly “Breakneck” Gatlin
Tex’s Squad - Tier 2 Operators
Books 1-8
Lieutenant Michael “Tex” Penn
Angelo “Bondo” Zane
Matthew “Easy” Hitchcock
Bale “Shark” Maddox
Shane “Twister” Reeves
Kade “Dagger” Hollis
Christian “Brawler” Beckett - MWD: Beast
Jae “Flash” Shaw
For all those who have fallen with or without stars.
1
Michael “Tex” Penn finished reloading the spare magazines for his Glock 19 and keyed a shooting drill into the computer.
A lot of people worked hard to give their SEALs an edge, and state-of-the-art system to push the envelope on marksmanship skill was the firing range at a warehouse at the Training Support Center Hampton Roads facility located in Virginia Beach, Virginia. It was the home of the Fleet Combat Training Center Atlantic of the United States Navy as well as a training area of both Tex’s team and DEVGRU Tier 1 special operators. Their homeport was located at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story, also in Virginia Beach. Two of his guys, computer program geniuses, Kade “Dagger” Hollis, their lead assaulter and EOD guy, and Jae “Flash” Shaw, heavy weapons expert and sniper, had designed it.
Tex loaded a magazine into the 19, chambered a round, then released the magazine and topped it off with another cartridge before loading it back into the pistol. With the spare magazines on his belt and the 19 in his holster, he was ready to go. Sixteen shots for ten targets, some stationary, some moving. He plan to Failure Drill half of them and double tap the rest in record time firmly in place in his mind.
Failure drill was originally known as the Mozambique Drill—a failure-to-stop-action that was informally known as “two to the body, one to the head” used as a close-quarters shooting technique that was self-explanatory. It required two shots at center mass, and if that failed to stop the target, then a more difficult headshot placed between the eyebrows and upper lip, the most vulnerable part of the human anatomy. This was to guarantee instant incapacitation by impacting the brain and central nervous system.
It had rained earlier and was muggy as hell, but Tex didn’t mind the sweat. The drill was intense and required his full concentration. It kept his mind occupied and pushed the last mission into the shadows of his mind. Now if he could only keep it there, but his mind wouldn’t shut down.
Venezuela was in the midst of an unprecedented social and humanitarian collapse—the result of bad economic policies and political conflict—that led to food insecurity, the second largest migration crisis in the world, and regional instability. The country was in chaos, so it was Murphy’s Law for their target package to have landed smack dab in the center of all that violence and unrest.
Matt “Easy” Hitchcock, breacher, sniper, and assaulter, and Angelo “Bondo” Zane, point man and Gold 2, had been ruthless. He’d been pretty fucking ruthless himself.
So, the Venezuelans who had attacked them didn’t know what hit them. Christian Beckett…Brawler, their K9 handler, and Beast, their Belgian Malinois had gotten through unscathed.
Tex made it back with ten stitches to his gut. He couldn’t think about how he and Bale “Shark” Maddox, the team’s communications expert and controller had gotten fucked in Venezuela. Two of his guys had also gotten wounded—their corpsman, Shane “Twister” Reeves, and Petty Officer Charlie Davis, their specialized Aviation Structural Mechanic or AM. Unfortunately, one of them had died, their embedded aviator, United States Navy pilot, Lieutenant Commander Jerry Reed. The mission had been as black as a black hole and they had failed—miserably.
In front of him were pretend bad guys, a training maneuver to check off and get cleared to operate. That is where his focus needed to be. The past was just that, behind him, and nothing could change it. People died in war. Stark fact.
Besides, no one was to speak about those events, ever. The whole unfinished op was beyond even classified.
It would be a one-way ticket to a courts-martial and Leavenworth if they so much as uttered one syllable about the clusterfuck that had killed their specialized pilot.
All that failure fell on him. He was the leader and, therefore, took the responsibility. When things spun out of control, it was his job to act like a magnet and bring it all into perspective.
Instead, the op had continued to splinter, and their objectives had been shot to hell. Every leader hoped for the best but prepared for the worst, except there was no preparing for this kind of clusterfuck.
It didn’t help matters that Reed was a national hero, well-loved by Americans. Tex hadn’t known Reed well, but he lived up to his reputation: a courageous guy who had jumped out of a plane like a pro when he wasn’t, trudged through the jungle, and held his own the whole time they were there, even through all the flyboy jokes.
He regretted the man’s death and the loss of his expertise. Now they were in a holding pattern, and Tex wasn’t even sure he and his team would get another crack at the mission.
Except that was what they were—uber elite and especially trained and skilled in black ops; each man had been hand-picked for the group. They were the Elite Action SEAL Team, known as GG, Gold Guardians, their insignia a shield. Tex was their leader…Gold 1. Deployed on the toughest-of-the-tough missions that even the DEVGRU guys thought twice about.
A hush-hush team the media knew nothing about, and their leadership wanted that to be maintained.
So, he was here at the range, licking his wounds, waiting for the hammer to fall, and blowing off steam.
He had never been prouder of his guys. They had handled themselves better than he had expected. Given the situation, better than anyone could imagine.
Tex flipped the pistol’s safety on and put it in the holster strapped to his thigh.
He’d known what the job was when he’d joined the SEALs, not just the physical requirements, or the hand-to-hand, but here, on the firing range, shooting thousands of rounds of ammo. Every time he pulled the trigger, he’d known exactly what the real-lif e goal had been: to trade paper targets for flesh and bone. No one knew better than him what a bullet did when it hit a chest cavity. He’d been an EMT long enough to have been called out on a few shootings. He’d seen death. He’d seen gunshot wounds, knife stabbings, people’s heads bashed in, and heart attacks. Sometimes all in the same shift. Occasionally more than one at the same time.
He thought for sure he would have become a corpsman and had enlisted in the Navy with that goal in mind, but his CO had seen his ability and acuity for leadership and had nominated him for attendance in the Naval Academy. It was shortly after he’d graduated that he decided he wanted to obtain his trident and get into special operations.
Many people thought SEALs were cold-blooded, heartless, wound-up, brainwashed killers. They imagined the DoD pointed a SEAL in a direction and told them to “Go kill.” The truth was SEALs were all normal guys, except for the thing that set them apart from the ordinary—mental toughness.
He stretched out his right arm and rolled his shoulder, trying to release the kinks he’d gotten during the long, frustrated ride home without moving his left side too much—and he waited.
Tex had always been about protecting others…his whole life. He was all about making it difficult for bad guys to get the job done, especially if they had to go through him.
The screen color changed on the computer, and he stepped up to the firing line.
He took a breath, relaxed, and let the anger leave him. Shooting was both a science and a skill, and both were practiced with cool, calm deliberation. Slow was smooth, and smooth was fast.
Without warning, the lights snapped on at the other end of the range, starting the timer and revealing the random pattern of targets he’d asked the computer to position. With smooth, gunfighter precision, he drew his pistol and started unloading his first magazine, ignoring the twinges of pain. When it was empty, a fluid, tactical reload gave him another fifteen cartridges to run through his Glock—Bam! Bam! Bam! The 9mm Luger ammunition smacked through the targets, one shot after another. His second reload found him cleaning up on the moving targets, trying for another shot on each. Two on every target was the goal, as tightly grouped as he could get them, but he hadn’t done it yet, not with moving targets in the drill.
When he’d run through his ammo, he released the pistol’s slide, flipped on the safety, holstered the gun, and walked down the range to get his targets. He grunted at the precision and walked back to the head of the long lane.
He’d never pulled a trigger in anger, not even in combat. He made sure his guys didn’t either. Tex’s Zen-like imperturbability was legendary.
Still, he worked at being proficient in any fight, including a seven-inch, military-issue, combat knife.
He reached in his pocket for a handful of extra cartridges and began methodically reloading one of his magazines.
There was nothing cool and calm about a knife fight.
He had ten stitches to remind him of that fact.
He slid the last cartridge into the magazine and then reloaded his pistol, performing the same procedure as the last time, as every time—racking one into the battery, then releasing the magazine and sliding in an extra cartridge only this time with his left hand.
His sidearm was always loaded plus one—always. And he was never without it.
He stepped over to the computer to restart the drill when he heard the door to the training facility open.
Bondo probably. His second in command was a mind ninja. He knew Tex was hurting from that mission, both physically and mentally, and Bondo also knew he wouldn’t reveal any weakness.
“If you’re here for a pep talk, or to tell me to rest because I’ve been knifed, fucking turn your muscle-bound, ninja mind fucking ass around and get out.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Lieutenant Penn, but my ass isn’t going anywhere.”
The female voice came out of the dim interior, and he turned around to find someone more delicate than Bondo, but still toned to the max, behind him.
She certainly wasn’t a six-two, bald, bruiser of a male, but she was Navy. The form-fitting khaki uniform told him as much. A lieutenant based on the double silver bars just above the tip of her shirt collar on the right, and a miniature officer’s crest on the left. She was a flygirl, too. The gold eagle insignia on top of her ribbon strip and pocket of the shirt marked her as a pilot. He was drawn completely to her willowy body—nipped-in waist, small, plump breasts, long, slim legs, and delicate ankles—a body that looked more suited to yoga.
His eyes went over her. Fuck, what a beauty.
She had an elfin face, a perfect oval, balancing out her slightly wider forehead than jaw and high cheekbones blending symmetry with the width of her chin and jaw. Champagne blonde hair, just as ruthlessly straight as it was severely pulled into a bun at the nape of her neck, gave her a sleek, librarian look, but every inch regulation. Her eyes were a clear blue-gray with a hint of gold around the pupils, her straight slashes of brow intensified her direct stare. Her elegant nose sat above a tantalizing mouth, a flatter upper lip with no cupid's bow paired with a mouth-watering full bottom one. The mole above the right-side curve of her mouth not only drew his eyes to her sensual lips, but the imperfection made her beauty believable, more human and relatable. A perfect imperfection.
“What can I do for you, Lieutenant…?”
“Nora Wilson, JAG. I’m here for answers.”
Just what he needed in this goatscrew.
A fucking lawyer.
Great. Just great. He would have to be handsome as hell. Distractingly handsome, a warrior who’d been wounded in battle. Not that she was going to back down from her assignment, because she wasn’t. She was here to find out what had happened to Lieutenant Commander Jerry Reed.
She noted how he closed his eyes and took a deep breath when she’d told him she was JAG. That he wasn’t happy to see her was an understatement. He should be dismayed. His covert world was about to get topsy turvy. The man was already closing up, his face hardening, his eyes going steely.
Great. Just great. He was going to stonewall her.
She was used to that, at least. She had been exposed to what it meant to have a family member die and not know a thing, not one detail about the death. She had pointed that out to the admiral when she’d first assigned this ill-fated task to Nora. Nora was biased and felt it was a conflict of interest. The admiral disagreed. She stated that Nora had a unique perspective and the intelligence to know when and how to use it. She also pointed out that if she couldn’t put her emotions aside to do what had to be done, then she was in the wrong job.
Well, she hadn’t expected this to be easy.
Tex was stone all right, and he didn’t have to say a word to express his simmering irritation. The tense set of his body, his clenched jaw, and his fuming silence said it all. He was part of a faction of JSOC that was difficult to get any information from. They were also stonewalling her on him and his team. She would have to go right back to the admiral at JAG. She needed to throw her two-star weight around, because a lieutenant, namely Nora, wasn’t gaining any ground.
Throwing up roadblocks wouldn’t do him a bit of good. Not in the long run at least.
Reed’s wife and Senator Patrick McPherson’s daughter, Mary Reed, wanted answers and as the daughter of one of the most powerful men in the Senate—in fact in government right now—she was going to get her answers.
There was a rumor that McPherson was going to be running for president, and he was the chairman of the United States Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, one of twelve subcommittees of the US Senate Committee on Appropriations. Military defense spending was the largest individual component of federal discretionary spending, making the defense subcommittee one of the more powerful appropriations subcommittees in Washington.
