Hot SEAL, Heartbreaker - Cat Johnson Page 0,46

Afghanistan had WiFi so he took advantage of it, scrolling through YouTube videos to kill time.

Stupid cat videos led him down the rabbit hole to alien invasion videos and finally to a group of Irishmen singing. It reminded him of Alicia’s albums and the songs her dad used to sing.

Shockingly, he only had to scroll through a few videos before he came upon a whole bunch of sea shanties.

Curious, he hit to play one of some guy singing. He didn’t have his earbuds with him so he turned the volume down low and held the phone near his ear so he wouldn’t disturb Liam, dozing next to him.

The song had a catchy beat and before he knew it, he was tapping his foot along with the rhythm.

“Why are you listening to The Wellerman?” Liam asked groggily, without opening his eyes.

Was that what this song was called? He glanced at the title on the video and sure enough, Liam was right.

“You know it?” he asked, surprised.

“Of course I know it. I’m Irish.”

And as proof, the man actually started to sing along with the song playing on the phone.

Brian laughed out loud. “Wow. I’m impressed.”

“Pfft. I frigging kick your ass at darts and I don’t even get a good game from you, but I know an old as fuck whaling song and you’re impressed with me? You’re weird.”

“Say’s the man singing old as fuck whaling songs,” Joker mumbled from the other side of Brian.

“Go the fuck to sleep, all of you,” Pops grumbled from his rack. “And for your information, I know plenty of old as fuck songs we can sing. Later.”

“Sleep while you can,” Zig agreed.

“I thought the saying was sleep when you’re dead,” Gator chimed in.

“It’s sleep when I damn well tell you to sleep,” Bear said, a warning evident in their team leader’s low tone.

With that, Brian shut down his cell phone and pulled his ball cap over his eyes. But damned if that song didn’t keep playing in his head.

They weren’t singing anything at all once darkness fell. The team was single-minded, focused on first traveling to and then in breaching the Haqqani network compound Anas was supposed to be operating out of.

According to the information from the CIA, this was his home base, but Anas himself was traveling. His road trip to the peace talks was very publicly documented as he pretended to support the effort while secretly working against it.

That didn’t mean the compound was empty. In fact, chances were good it wasn’t, which was why the team was dressed more like militants than SEALs.

Best case scenario, they’d be able to sneak in, get what they’d come for, and get the hell out.

Things were looking good when they found the gate to the compound secured by a flimsy lock that gave way with one whack of the sledgehammer Brian had in his kit.

But when the door of the residential building on the compound proved to be locked, it was obvious they were going to have to make some noise.

A couple of breaching charges, installed by Liam on the hinges, took care of the problem of the door, but not the issue of the occupants inside.

Calm amid the chaos, the team entered the room guns first, leveled on the three men seated on carpets. As the men all spoke at once in rapid-fire Pashto, Bear shouted first in English, then in their language, “Hands up!”

The show of weapons and the sheer number of men invading their space was enough for them to fall to their knees, their hands up in surrender.

They did as told, cowering on the floor as Liam, Brian and Joker moved further inside to zip-tie their hands and feet.

The team was spread out across the compound, with Mars, Wolf and Gator covering the street, the courtyard, and the back entrance to the house.

The three bearded men, all of fighting age, shot the team killer glances as the team shoved them into a pantry for safe keeping. But they didn’t put up much resistance.

He didn’t let their lack of fight lull him into a false sense of security. It didn’t indicate they were low level. Or unimportant. Or uninvolved.

In fact, how many insurgent leaders had escaped capture by pretending to be regular citizens?

The only thing he was moderately sure of was that they were unarmed. He’d searched them himself, and had taken a knife off one.

He and Liam had torn apart the pantry to make sure there were no weapons or anything they could use