Just to avoid any confusion I have compiled a list of common acronyms and their meaning. This isn't just for this chapter but for the rest of the story.
RTB - Return to Base
HVT - High Value Target
ENDEX - End Exercise
LZ - Landing Zone
QRF - Quick Reaction Force
KIA - Killed in Action
TOC - Tactical Operations Center
ISR - Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance
SERE - Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape
2IC - Second in Command
DEVGRU - Naval Special Warfare Development Group (SEAL Team Six)
CHAPTER FIVE
"Speech"
"Different language"
"Radio Calls"
"I wasn't even there dad, I'm only going to this meeting as a formality for me to attend because everyone else is going."
"Yeah I know son, I'm just looking out for you. Look I gotta go save the free world and all that crap. Keep me posted on how things go."
Naruto hung up as he finished putting his uniform on. He grabbed his motorcycle helmet and was about to leave when he saw Hinata standing in the doorway of the room. The blonde put his helmet down and walked over to his girlfriend.
"You reschedule dinner with your parents?"
"Yeah, next weekend with or without you. Did you email the realtor?"
Naruto nodded as he tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear.
"Yup and I have to talk to Marcus about how to fill out the information for the VA loan but I'll take care of it."
Hinata nodded and the blonde placed a kiss on her forehead. "I know you have a lot going on so it means a lot to me that you are taking the time out of your day to do this for our family."
"Geez, it only took like five minutes. And with everything going on I doubt we get spun up anytime soon so I should make dinner with your folks. Tell them the good news and hopefully, they get off my back."
Hinata smiled. "Yeah, I doubt that."
After leaving the house Naruto rode over to the base and was immediately ushered into a briefing from Commander Atkins.
"The President of the United States wants to go on TV and tell the world that Richard Taggart is an American hero and that this confession is pure bullshit. It is, right?"
Naruto studied the faces of his senior team members, but they gave nothing away.
"Sir, there's no way that Rip would say that."
"Not unless he was coerced or worse."
Atkins nodded. "We checked the ISR footage, and there's a gap in the coverage when this was supposed to have happened. The other muj was turned over to the Afghan police, SOP. Anything you want to add, now is the time."
Buddha, Caulder and McCall all shared a look but they all shook their heads.
"Sir, we need to get Rip before they torture him anymore. Did we get any news on that Chechen we bagged in Nigeria?"
"Yeah, we're working on a link between him and an ex-Spetsnaz guy named Akmal Barayev. We thought he was dead, but turns out he may not be. Your all dismissed. The jury is still out on if we will keep working this op or if it will be elevated to DEVGRU. Until then you are all on standby, dismissed."
The team left the briefing room and headed to the equipment lockers.
"Uzumaki, Fishbait can you give us a minute?"
Fishbait was going to leave but Naruto stood his ground. "You trust me with your life, Ortiz?"
Buddha nodded. "Yes, Uzumaki, I do."
"Then trust me."
Fishbait nodded. "You know he's right. We're either on this team or we're not."
Marcus crossed his arms and nodded. "Okay. So, what's on your mind?"
Naruto took a deep breath. "Everything Rip says is true, right?"
Marcus and Buddha shared a look and Fishbait put his hands on his head. "Of course it's true. Caulder, what did you do with the photo of that dead guy? The one I took for the shooter statement."
Caulder frowned. "I erased it."
"Who else knows about this?"
Buddha shook his head. "Just the other muj, the driver."
Marcus put a hand on Naruto's shoulder.
"This is on us okay. You could lose your trident or worse."
"Look what Rip did, shooting that kid. It's not what I signed up for. The bottom line, we're on the right side."
Naruto ran a hand through his hair. "You know what, I signed up to help people who can't help themselves. Like those girls who got kidnapped."
Marcus nodded. "We all did."
"Stay out of this. You got a bright future. Don't screw it up."
Buddha nodded at Caulder's words. "Walkout, brother. You were never here."
The blonde could only ball his fist as he stared down the rest of his team.
A few Days Later
After an all-night battle, the brass decided to let Team Four handle the mission until it was deemed they could no longer handle the situation. This led to the team being back in the briefing room. Naruto himself looked disheveled as he was still trying to wrap his head around what his team had done years ago. He did reach out to Hinata's cousin Neji though. Neji was currently working at the embassy in Kabul, he was also in the CIA so he would be able to help the blonde out with the favor that he asked of him.
"The target is Nilofar Kazbekov a Chechen rebel. Her husband was the dead Chechen you brought back from Nigeria. He's a key Lieutenant of Akmal Barayev, Nilofar's brother, who may have been leading the group that snatched Rip from Boko Haram. Agency sources tell us Akmal here stays in close touch with his sister."
The team studied the photos as Atkins stepped forward.
"So we need to get her to get him. She lives in a villa in Panama paid for by charities tied to terrorist groups. We estimate a three-to-five-man security detail. Going in low vis, with non-attributable gear. On Wednesday nights, the nanny usually takes the daughter to the movies. That's when we'll grab the target when she's alone. Wheels up in four hours."
After kissing Hinata goodbye and promising to be back for dinner with his parents he went back to base to get ready. After that he and his team were on a C-130 flying to Panama.
Throughout the plane ride,e Naruto stayed quiet, listening to music rather than talking to his team. After the big revelation he had been distant from his team, still attempting to process the information. He didn't look up until he heard the cargo doors open and Marcus yelled one minute out.
A few minutes later after jumping the team was on a boat moving to the target. By the time they reached the house the sun had gone down. They slowly moved closer to the house and Caulder spotted a man on the roof. Fish, who was set up further back saw a man by the pool smoking a cigarette. Once he got the signal Fish fired a shot taking the man out and knocking the man back into the pool while Caulder took the guy out on the roof.
The team then silently made their way to the back door and opened it just as a guard went to open it. Caulder was quick to fire a shoot and Marcus was even faster firing another taking out the nanny as she reached for a handgun.
"Upstairs."
Everyone nodded as Caulder once again took point with Marcus right behind him. On the way to the second floor another guard came down but before he could do anything Caulder took him out and caught his body before he could make any noise.
"Go, go, go."
The rest of the team went to the second floor and dropped their night vision goggles to see in the dark. Marcus opened one of the doors and found a little girl on the bed reading a book. She quickly screamed and the target walked out of the bathroom only to get snagged up by Marcus.
"Uzumaki, get the girl."
"Got it boss."
Naruto went to get the girl, but she just kept yelling for her mother.
"Shh! Stop struggling. It's okay. Come with me."
Marcus led the mother downstairs while Naruto was in charge of the daughter. He even shielded her from seeing the dead body on the stairs. When they got back to the kitchen Buddha had found a hard drive and a laptop.
"Touchdown. Prep for exfil. Delta 1, Delta 4, collapse inside the house."
"Aye boss the girl wasn't supposed to be here."
"Yeah no shit Uzumaki."
"We gotta go, we got lights at the neighbors."
Marcus nodded at Fish's words. "Then lets go, everyone roll out."
The team headed outside to a set of vans and quickly took off before anyone even knew they were there.
Virginia Beach
"How'd you get this?"
"I know a guy, that's all that matters."
The entire team was huddled around a laptop in the equipment cages while Naruto plugged the flash drive he received from Neji into a laptop and began clicking through the files. Neji was able to pull some strings with the Afghan police and get all the police prisoner interviews and dispensations from Khost the night of the shooting plus the day before and after.
"Wait go back. Right there, he looks familiar."
Fish put in the air buds and tried to translate the recording.
"It's hard to understand him. His Pashto sucks. But he's saying that a U.S. soldier killed a prisoner in cold blood after he surrendered. He was American."
The frown on Marcus's face grew deeper as he turned to Naruto.
"Where did you get this."
"The less you know about where this came from the better."
Buddha ran a hand through his hair. "Okay, anybody know what happened to this guy?"
Fish shook his head. "All these guys in these tapes were interrogated and released."
The blonde SEAL sighed. "All right, so besides you guys and Rip, he's the only one who knows what happened right?"
"This guy has Rip or knows who has him."
Marcus nodded in agreement with Buddha.
"It's, the driver."
Caulder kicked his cage wall.
"Rip was gonna kill him too."
"Well why didn't he?"
"Because I stopped him. Because I stopped him."
"All right so maybe this guy's American intel can ID him."
Fish shook his head. "Well hold on we can't send this to intel cause then they'll know what Rip said in the video is true."
"Then it would be the word of a terrorist against us, right?"
Buddha groaned in frustration. "Maybe yes, maybe not, but it's gonna take them forever to sort it out. We'll be sidelined. Could take us months to get back out, if ever."
"But guys this is bigger than Rip, right? It's bigger than the girls and it's bigger than us. Now this guy had Rip in front of the same flag as the Tanzanian bombing. This guy, he wants to be the next Osama Bin Laden."
Caulder removed the flash drive from the computer and stormed out of the room leaving the rest of his team behind.
A Few Days Later
After leaving the team Caulder went to one of the intel officers with the video. He had yet to hear back from her but since no one was being hauled away in handcuffs by NCIS they took it as a good sign and kept prepping. In between his workouts Naruto was able to sit down with Marcus who helped him with the VA loan and Christina helped him pick out a nice outfit for dinner with Hinata's parents, which he was not looking forward to.
Despite everything going on the blonde still made time for his girlfriend and the two were currently walking through the NEX looking at baby clothes.
"This would look so cute."
She held up a onesie with a baseball on it the said, Daddies little Slugger.
"We don't even know if it's a boy yet?"
"A girl can play baseball too."
Naruto just raised his hands in defeat. And went back to looking through baby items.
"You talk to your parents?"
"Yup, they are driving down Friday and we'll get dinner Saturday night. Hanabi will be joining us as well."
"Good, hopefully she can act as a buffer between me and your dad."
"It wasn't that bad the last time."
"Are you kidding me? I thought he was gonna rip my throat out when we told him you were moving to Virginia Beach."
Hinata laughed. "It was bad wasn't it."
"Yeah but don't worry, not even your dad can ruin this for us. We're buying our dream home and starting our family, nothing can ruin this for me."
The blonde pulled her in for a kiss and the two didn't realize they were blocking the aisle until they heard someone clear their throat. Hinata quickly blushed while Naruto chuckled.
"Sorry."
The man smirked while his wife waved them off.
"It's no problem, I remember what it's like to be young and in love, don't you Ray?"
Ray laughed. "You trying to call me old."
Naruto was going to move out of their way but Ray stopped him.
"Your Minato's boy right? Look just like him."
"Yeah. How do you know my dad?"
"I'm over at DEVGRU. I roll with Bravo team. Your dad's on Echo but we've done a few joint ops. He's been running up and down the squadron telling everyone to make room on their team, even though you got at least five years before you can even apply for green team."
"Yeah that sounds like my dad. Just hope that I can live up to his expectations."
"Well your dad may be a cake eater but he's also one of the best men to ever wear the trident so if he says you'll be DEVGRU one day then I believe it."
"Cake eater?"
"Right, you haven't been in that long, cake eater is what we call officers."
"Right, well it was a pleasure to meet you…"
"Chief Petty Officer Perry, but you can call me Ray."
After parting ways with Ray and his wife Naruto and Hinata went back to browsing when his phone went off, signaling another spin up. While the blonde checked his phone Hinata gave him a look.
"I know, I know. With or without me I want you to tell your parents this weekend about the baby. I'll try my hardest to get back by Saturday."
Hinata just kissed him on the cheek and the two made their way to the register.
About an hour later Naruto was sitting in the briefing room with his team. Everyone looked nervous and anxious as they awaited the news of their fate. They didn't have to wait long for Commander Atkins to walk in with the intel officer and two people in suits.
"I think you all know Ms. Houlding, the National Security Advisor. Jim Beauchamp, White House Counsel. Boys we caught a break. We think we know who has RIP and the girls. We just stumbled on reliable intel that leads us to this man."
A photo of the driver came up on the screen and Caulder gave the intel officer a look of gratitude.
"Michael Nasry. Born in Dearborn, Michigan, dropped out of University of Michigan. Same flag from the Tanzania and Dubai bombings is behind Rip in the confession video."
"Sir, are we any closer to a location?"
Atkins nodded at Marcus's question. "The computer you snatched from Nilofar in Panama puts her brother in an abandoned Soviet cement plant in Southern Chad. They got sloppy, we picked up a low-level voice intercept about an American hostage. So there is a very good chance that Nasry is at this location with Taggart."
"Sir is this the same group that killed Buck."
The commander nodded his head to Naruto's question and the blonde balled his fist while the National Security Advisor stepped forward.
"The White House is quietly negotiating Taggart's release. The girls too if they're there. We're hoping to avoid another military adventure in West Africa, but if negotiations don't work you go in and you bring them back."
"Ma'am what about Nasry? We just going to let him go for Rip's exchange?"
"The minute those hostages are safe, we incinerate the bastards."
Everyone nodded and Atkins cleared his throat.
"With the nature of this op, it was handed off to DEVGRU. But since the intel is ours and your familiarity with the situation, I got you guys a ride along. White Squadron, wheels up in two hours, DEVGRU's Echo Team is already enroute."
Two hours later Naruto was with his team loading their gear onto the plane when Marcus stopped him, holding out Buck's Texas flag patch.
"Take Buck's SAW on this op, all right?"
The blonde quickly smirked. "That's an order I'll be glad to obey."
White Squadron spent the flight either sleeping or getting their gear together. For now, the plan was to hold up at a FOB in Africa for roughly two days until either the exchange or the assault. When they landed at Naruto saw another C-17 parked next to theirs and he could make out a mop of messy blonde hair assisting the cargo team with taking their equipment off. Marcus caught him staring and nodded his head signaling that he was good to go speak to his father.
"Since when does a Captain drag his bags?"
Minato wiped the sweat from his forehead and smirked. "Since this Captain got diverted mid-air to clean up your mess. The faster we get this stuff off the plane the faster I can shower and sleep in an actual bed."
"If you think you're gonna get a decent shower here then you're crazy."
Minato laughed as he looked over at the warehouse on the edge of the runway.
"On my last deployment our 'shower' was a bucket with warm water and a wooden ladle, so the running water in that building will work for me just fine."
"Captain Namikaze."
Minato sighed as he was handed a phone. "Look I gotta make some calls, this op has got a lot of people talking and I'm running point with the brass. Look for me after the briefing and we'll talk."
Naruto nodded and Minato walked away. After a few hours of sitting around Naruto and his team gathered with Echo Team as Minato stood upfront.
"The exchange for Rip is in two days. A Ranger element will provide cordon force security in case the exchange falls through and we have to move in. One Troop will be the QRF. Now as soon as Rip is safe, either through the exchange or we go in and get him, we'll have our JTAC's disappear the place with a couple of two thousand pounders."
"What about the girls, sir?"
"ISR and our birds are blocked by the concrete roofs, so we don't have eye's on them."
"So they might not even be there."
Minato nodded. "That's what we have to find out. They have food but no water, which is delivered every day by a Nigerian, a local Baggara Arab who looks Libyan, and another local grunt. We've identified the route they take. Khan you will accompany my 2IC Fuller and our CIA liaison to grab and swap with them while me and the rest of Delta Team act as your back up. Echo will standby with the QRF but hopefully we won't need it, this is just recon. Everyone gear up, we move out in thirty mikes."
Roughly thirty minutes later Delta Team was in the bushes watching Fishbait, Fuller and the CIA officer stand around a car, changing the tire.
"Target approaching."
"Copy, all stations standby."
A truck with a water tank approached and the driver yelled at them but Fish and Fuller quickly pulled out pistols. The man in the truck bed raised his rifle but Naruto and Marcus both fired shots taking the man out.
"Two minutes!"
Naruto and Marcus quickly went to push the decoy car out of the way while the rest of the team went to clean the blood off the truck and detain the other two. They attached a small camera to the truck and fitted each of them with hidden microphones and cameras also.
"QRF will launch if it goes sideways."
Fishbait nodded to Minato. "Yeah to pick up the pieces."
Minato smirked and turned to his 2IC. "Fuller, you good."
"This what I get for being the only black guy on the team when we operate in Africa."
"Hey if I could go in there I would."
"Oh I know boss, but then you'd stick out like a sore thumb and we'd have two SEALs who need rescuing."
"Be safe brother."
"Always."
The truck drove off and Minato turned to the rest of them.
"Let's roll back to base, it's all in their hands now."
When they got back to the warehouse they watched the footage and were able to confirm multiple targets, the suspected boss as well the confirmation of female hostages on target. The mission went off without a hitch but almost took a turn for the worst when someone questioned Fuller's identity. Luckily years of French lessons from Minato finally paid off and everyone made it out safe.
The negotiations for Rip and the girls were still going on but Minato wanted to be prepared for if they broke down so he had everyone back in the briefing room.
"Based on the intel the Fish and Fuller gave us, we believe that the girls are in the northwest sector. Now we're still unsure as to Rip's location, but we're gonna push through and press the target until we find him. Delta, you are going to air land on the X, move toward the primary entry point. Chalk two, with Echo, are gonna insert on the roof and chalk three are gonna insert on the south side and breach here."
Minato highlighted each entry point to make sure everyone was clear.
"What about the cordon element sir?"
"Rangers are gonna come in and tighten the noose once we're inside. Nobody gets in, nobody gets out. Pack your kit, keep studying this, know your deconfliction points. All right?"
"Sir, take a look."
Minato walked over to a screen that displayed the current ISR of the cement plant.
"Those four men just came on station. They posted a guard outside."
The Captain nodded and picked up a phone that looked like a landline but was a radio.
"Echo two, this is Echo one. Do you have eyes on the hostile on the south side of the target? Over"
Just outside the cement plant, Fuller was posted in the forest with one other member of Echo team performing surveillance.
"Echo one, roger. He just came out."
Fuller kept his sights on the man while his teammate took photos.
"Bastard has night vision."
"Roger that. Sit tight, over."
Minato hung up the phone and Ortiz shook his head.
"So they have NODs now. That's a game changer. They see us on insert, they kill Rip and the girls before we even get close, sir."
Minato nodded and ran a hand through his beard. "Yeah, I know."
"You guys hear that?"
Everyone turned to the intel officer.
"Metal on metal, voices, footsteps, a lot of activity."
"So what do you make of it?"
"They're getting ready to move, something must have spooked them."
Marcus frowned. "That means our window is getting tighter. We might lose them."
Everyone looked grim but Minato's sat phone rang and when he was done, he smirked.
"Negotiations for Rip broke down. SIGINT picked up some Boko Haram chatter, and a group based north from Benin City is sending a truck to rendezvous near a cement factory in Chad."
"Our cement factory.
"The only cement factory in Chad Uzumaki. Predators tracking the truck and they're two hours out. The President pulled the trigger. We roll out at 0600 local time."
Buddha and Marcus shared a look. "First light?"
"What's wrong Ortiz? Afraid to shoot targets that can see you?"
The rest of Echo snicked but Buddha shook his head and before he could say anything Minato stopped him.
"I know, the last daytime op you pulled you lost a man. But this one is different, we know what to expect and they won't catch us by surprise. If we hit now, we lose the tactical advantage with them having NODs."
Buddha nodded and Minato walked away to get ready. Everyone followed suit and soon they were all going through their pre-op rituals. Naruto had his headphones in and was rolling up a bunch of extra rounds. Marcus came over to him.
"You good."
"Yes sir, I'm good."
"That's what I like to hear. I bet you talk to anyone you graduated with and they're still running training ops. And here you are working alongside tier one operators running a mission directly under the President's orders."
"Straight into the fire."
Marcus smirked and Minato walked over.
"I'll let you two talk."
Marcus walked over to Fish and Minato took a seat next to him.
"You ready?"
"No."
"Good."
Minato looked down and twirled a glow stick between his hands.
"Look don't tell anyone but, this is my last op."
"Really?"
"Yeah. They're still working the paperwork for my promotion, but they want me in some type of leadership position so they're moving me to Echo's OIC. I haven't said anything because this op isn't about me, it's about Rip and those girls."
"Damn, well mom will at least be happy. You'll still travel and deploy with the team you just won't be getting shot at anymore."
Minato nodded and Naruto followed his eyes to Fuller who was still going over his gear.
"You going to move Fuller to Echo One?"
The older blonde sighed and shrugged his shoulders. "Beau is the most squared away Sailor I've ever seen. But he's afraid to call audibles or stray away from a plan."
"Is that bad?"
"Not always but sometimes you need to think outside of protocol and I'm just not sure if he can do that."
Their conversation was interrupted by Marcus walking back over to them.
"Birds are ready to go, sir."
Minato nodded and pulled his phone out.
"Do you mind, pretty sure this is the first time a father and son are operating together?"
Marcus nodded and Minato threw an arm over his sons shoulder and the two smiled. Once the photo was taken Minato picked up his rifle and turned to his son.
"Be careful out there."
The younger blonde nodded and Minato walked towards the helicopters.
"Echo! Let's move!"
Soon everyone was on the helicopters heading to the target and Naruto was going over his weapon one last time. Once he was satisfied he pulled Buck's Texas patch out of his pocket and placed it on his plate carrier. Caulder looked over at him and nodded approvingly at him.
And Done!
So I know there's a lot going on in this chapter but it helped me make it longer than it originally was. I am really enjoying writing this story but I have not abandoned my other work.
As always read, follow, favorite and review!
Duces!