454Chapter One
He was in serious trouble.
This was meant to be a simple op. A simple intelligence operation to gather information on a known ex-Russian special forces soldier turned arms dealer who had a nice business selling weapons, explosives and other hardware to terrorists or anyone willing to pay his prices. Zurkoff was a man that he was really looking forward to meeting. But the man had been hard to track down, he never kept the same route twice and never met in the same place. However after getting information about him being in Turkey meeting a new buyer they couldn't pass up the opportunity. One of the main reasons why they needed to get intel on this guy was the fact that the explosives he had sold had been linked to multiple attacks all across the world, killing hundreds of innocent people.
Dealing with people like that made his skin crawl. He hated people who used bombs to kill as it was a cowards method. Place the bomb and walk away. After Manila, and been caught up in that explosion he found that he had a new hatred for bombers, bomb makers and people who sold them the materials. Every explosion made him think back to that day, he was glad that his family, his team had been able to get him justice for him.
Even with the man still alive. But he understood why; Sonny had told him everything one night. He couldn't believe Shaw had thought that he could get Bravo broken up just because of a few bad missions. Not all missions went to plan, they were human after all, not robots.
Taking a man like Zurkoff down would help him sleep a little easier because he would be getting justice for all of his victims. He knew that the team he had watching his back felt the same, even though they weren't his normal team. The op was run not by the Navy, but by the CIA and so his back up was a team of four agents and his handler and leader of the mission. Warren, his handler, had been with the agencies since before he was born and he could tell that the man cared about what they were doing.
His back up team was made up of two former delta force soldiers, Jimmy and Richie who reminded him of Sonny and Ray. Jimmy was hot-headed and quick to temper. As Richie was the oldest out of the four, he was the leader of the team which also made him think of Ray. Alex was very much like Brock, he barely said a word unless it needed to be said. And Jo was very much like Trent as he had been the medic on the team and like Alex was quiet but made his voice heard when he needed too.
And for six men to be stuck in a two-story house, made them all get to know each other. The house had been a running safe house for the agencies for a couple of years, which sat close on the market were their target's hotel sat but enough out of the way that they were hidden. On the first floor, there were two small rooms. A small kitchen with a dining room which was full of their combat gear and weapons that littered the dining table. The other room was set as their office, three laptops running codes, intel and photographs taken of their target littered the scenes. Upstairs was a small bathroom and two bedrooms. Warren had claimed one room for himself and the other five had to share. He didn't mind sharing, he was use to sharing with blokes as long as none of them snored as badly as Sonny.
However, the guys were good to him, made him feel like he had a good team watching his back. And they did, every day he was out there he knew that he had someone watching over him. But now he was alone.
On the fourth day of the op, shit had fit the fan. He kicked himself for not following his gut, four good men were dead because he didn't trust his gut. Maybe he wasn't cut out for this job anymore. He kept making mistakes and others were paying the price for it. He knew that something was wrong when he caught up with their target. The man was taking risks that he would never normally do. Zurkoff exited his hotel with a small smile on his face and happily chattered to the man on the door. Something that he never normally did then spent an hour sat in a small cafe drinking a cup of tea. Before taking a walk through the market talking to one of his men who were with him and the sellers of the small stalls.
Zurkoff never did this, in the three days they had been watching him he never left the hotel unless for a meeting or food. Now he was walking around like he didn't have a care in the world. He was too confident like he didn't care about his own safety or knew that no one would dare to attack him.
And now he knew why. His team was dead. He could still see their bodies litter the floor, they never stood a chance. He had come in later than normal after following Zurkoff to find five armed men stood around his fallen friends. However, with his quick glance, he didn't see Warren. So his handler was ever upstairs dead or missing. But that was all he could see before the guns turned on him. Luckily he had been able to escape with only one hole in him.
He had been hit as he made his way down the alley away from the safe house, luckily for him he had been able to split into the busy market place without having to fire his weapon. He knew that the first thing he needed to do was to get somewhere safe and deal with his own injury. The bullet had entered close to his right kidney, and he had a strange feeling that it had ever gone through or had nicked his kidney. He knew the danger of his kidney been hit and knew that he needed to deal with the bleeding soon.
He also needed to find a secure line to connect command to tell them that the op was blown and that now four agents lay dead in their safe house. But he had no idea how he was going to find that line. He wanted to call his team; get his family to come and save him again but he couldn't risk that. His new team was dead and his handler was missing, calling in his team may just get them killed. He couldn't do that, risk his teams' lives because he had messed up.
As he walked through the market, he kept checking behind him for the shooters however he knew that they wouldn't risk a shot out this openly. The safehouse attack had been planned and done quietly otherwise he wouldn't have even entered the building. Thankfully he had worn his dark blue shirt with his hoodie, the dark colours allowed no one to notice the growing blood stain as he passed people. All he needed was someone to scream and call for help and he would be screwed. He knew that the local authorities would make him go to the hospital and demand him to explain why he was here, something that he knew that he couldn't tell them and would cause one big headache for everyone. But also the people after him would easily find him, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel. But also they all knew that Zurkoff would have people inside the police force, and he wouldn't likely get to the hospital if they picked him up. He needed to find somewhere that was safe for him to stay, however, he didn't have a lot to do that.
All he had on him was a wallet with an ID and a passport (under a fake name), around 3013 in the Turkish lira which was roughly $500, his glock and an extra mag. He also had carried a small backpack with a thicker jacket inside and a small medical kit. He also had a few bottles of water and a few protein bars. He also had a burner phone. He wished he could dial one of the guys' numbers, get some help to him but he couldn't and they would unlikely answer a blocked number.
His team didn't even know where he was. His team and command had been told that the Navy had paid for him to attend a special rehab clinic up north. Somewhere that didn't have a very good phone signal or where he couldn't answer them. Not even Blackburn knew that he was on the operation. So he was cut off from his family. Alone in a country that would easily kill him. The only thing he could think about was getting somewhere safe and then somehow get to the embassy.
It was his only opinion. He didn't have any contacts on his own, and his Turkish was a little rusty. He had only been up on the op because he spoke Russian and the buyers of Zurkoff spoke Pashto. However, he knew that he had only been given the op because Uncle Tommy had offered him the op to get him back into the action. Uncle Tommy wasn't by blood, but he was the closest thing he had to an Uncle left. He had been part of his father's old Seal team and was someone that he had always looked up too.
He reminded him of Jason a lot of the time, the man had a kind heart. He cared about the people he worked with and wasn't scared to do the right thing even if it went against orders. Uncle Tommy, unlike his father, had done very well for himself within the service. He had remained in the Navy and had been appointment Admiral not long before he had joined the Navy. He had even trained with him before he attended BUDs. He was not just his Uncle. He was his godfather.
He had been his father's best friend until they had their fall out, he had never been told what had happened between the two but he hadn't given up his relationship with his godfather. But since he had become an Admiral they had chosen to keep their relationship a secret. It was hard enough dealing with the fall out of what his father had done to the Brotherhood, he didn't want to think about the problems he would have to deal with if word got out.
His godfather had heard about his injuries and had visited him when he had returned stateside in secret and not in uniform. He could tell that he had been itching to get back out on deployment but he still hadn't been given the all clear to return to action. This op was meant to help him get more ready and to prove to command that he was ready to return. When he had returned home, he had dropped by when Bret was gone and more so after Bret had killed himself. He had also tried to get Bret his medal but was shot down by the top command. Not even an Admiral could change the rules. Not yet anyway.
He knew however that when he heard about what had happened, he would blame himself. He had sent him in alone, without his brothers. He could only guess that soon when they missed their check-in, that command would find out that something had happened. But they were hardly going to send a full Seal team to check up on a classified black op CIA mission. Maybe a few other agents but as they didn't know he was here, they weren't likely going to send a team.
He kept walking as he made his way throw the streets until he could feel his body react to the blood loss. He needed to get off the streets as the sun had already started to set. If he was still on the street at night he knew that the shooters had a better chance at catching up with him. Also, he had a feeling that he was been watched, but he didn't know if it was because he had joined with a group of holidaymakers. He easily blended in with them. However, as they turned into one of the restaurants he quickly moved the alleyway and quickly made his way to one of the abandoned buildings. He had clocked it when he had checked the surrounding buildings, it was close to the safe house but at the same time far enough away that hopefully he wouldn't be found.
The building was an old warehouse that looked like it had been a factor once. Luckily for him, the second floor was one big room with windows facing in all directions. He could use it as overwatch, allowing him to watch the streets around him and also make sure that the bodies of the falling agents were used in any way. He might not have known them that well but they were his team. They were fellow soldiers.
By the time he had cleared the whole building and made his way up to the second floor he was losing the light. He moved over to the wall that faced the safe house, he needed to be close to them even if he couldn't be with them. Pulling out his jacket he laced it on the floor, along with the bottles of water and lend against the wall. He took in a deep breath before he opened his med kit. It was only small, but it had what he needed. Painfully and carefully removed his hoodie and his shirt and wrapped the wound. The bullet was still in him. At least he only had to worried about one wound. He, however, knew that he still could bleed out.
But he couldn't do anything else tonight. He needed to rest, even if it meant letting down his guard a little. He needed to sleep. Tomorrow was going to be interesting, all he needed to do was get out to the embassy without being killed and work out how or who was trying to kill him. Yes, he knew that he was screwed.