Aiden, page 20
For a moment Mason felt sorry for the world.
Finally a voice spoke through the phone. “Mason, this is Alpha here. I run the Mavericks. We’ve got a problem with that ICE training center. Mountain, tell him.”
Mason shifted to include Mountain in his field of vision. Mason wished the other men on the conference call were in the room too. It was one thing to deal with men you knew and could take the measure of; it was another when they were silent shadows in the background.
“My brother is one of the men who reported for the Arctic training three weeks ago.”
“Tergan Rode?” Mason confirmed. “I’m the one who arranged for him to go up there. He’s a great kid.”
A glimmer of a smile cracked Mountain’s stony features. He nodded. “Indeed. A bright light in my often dark world. He’s a dozen years younger than me, just passed his BUD/s training this spring, and raring to go. Until his raring to go then got up and went.”
Oh, shit. Mason’s gaze zinged to the commander, who had kicked up his feet to rest atop the big desk. Stocking feet. With Mickey Mouse images dancing on them. Sidetracked, Mason struggled to pull his attention back to Mountain. “Meaning?”
“He’s disappeared.” Mountain let out a harsh breath, as if just saying that out loud, and maybe to the right people, could allow him to relax—at least a little.
The commander spoke up. “We need your help, Mason. You’re uniquely qualified for this problem.”
It didn’t sound as if he was qualified in any way for anything he’d heard so far. “Clarify.” His spoken word was simplicity itself, but the tone behind it said he wanted the cards on the table … now.
Mountain spoke up. “He’s the fifth incident.”
Mason’s gaze narrowed, as the reports from the training camp rolled through his mind. “Four dead. One was Russian. One was from the German SEAL team. Two were our men. All four were deemed accidental deaths.”
“Except they weren’t.”
There it was. The root of the problem in black-and-white. He studied Mountain, aiming for neutrality. “Do you have evidence?”
“My brother did.”
“Ah, hell.”
Mountain gave a clipped nod. “I’m going to find him.”
“Of that I have no doubt,” Mason said quietly. “Do you have a copy of the evidence he collected?”
“I have some of it.” Mountain held out a USB key. “This is your copy. Top secret.”
“We don’t have to remind you, Mason, that lives are at stake,” Doran added. “Nor do we need another international incident. Consider also that a group of scientists, studying global warming, is close by, and not too far away is a village, home to a few hardy locals.”
Mason accepted the key, turned to the commander, and asked, “Do we know whether this is internal or enemy warfare?”
“We don’t know at this point,” Alpha replied through the phone. “Mountain will lead Shadow Recon. His mission is twofold. One, find out what’s behind these so-called accidents and put a stop to it by any means necessary. Two, locate his brother, hopefully alive.”
“And where do I come in?” Mason asked.
“We want you to pull together a special team. The members of Shadow Recon will report to both you and Mountain, just in case.”
That was clear enough.
“You’ll stay stateside but in constant communication with Mountain—with the caveat that, if necessary, you’re on the next flight out.”
“What about bringing in other members from the Mavericks?” Mason suggested.
Alpha took this question too, his response coming through via Speakerphone. “We don’t have the numbers. The budget for our division has been cut. So we called the commander to pull some strings.”
That was Doran’s cue to explain further. “Mountain has fought hard to get me on board with this plan, and I’m here now. The navy has a special budget for Shadow Recon and will take care of Mountain and you, Mason, and the team you provide.”
“Skills needed?”
“Everything,” Mountain said, his voice harsh. “But the highest priority is that these men need to operate in the shadows, mostly alone, without a team beside them. Too many new arrivals will alert the enemy. If we make any changes to the training program, it will raise alarms. We’ll move the men in one or two at a time on the same rotation that the trainees are running right now.”
“And when we get to the bottom of this?” Mason looked from the commander back to Mountain.
“Then the training can resume as usual,” Doran stated.
Mason immediately churned through the names of possible team members, already popping up in his mind. How much could he tell his men? Obviously not much. Hell, he didn’t know much himself. How much time did he have? “Timeline?”
The commander’s final word told him of the urgency.
“Yesterday.”
This concludes Book 18 of The Mavericks: Aiden.
Read about Magnus: Shadow Recon, Book 1
Magnus: Shadow Recon (Book #1)
Deep in the permafrost of the Arctic, a joint task force, comprised of over one dozen countries, comes together to level up their winter skills. A mix of personalities, nationalities, and egos bring out the best—and the worst—as these globally elite men and women work and play together. They rub elbows with hardy locals and a group of scientists gathered close by …
One fatality is almost expected with this training. A second is tough but not a surprise. However, when a third goes missing? It’s hard to not be suspicious. When the missing man is connected to one of the elite Maverick team members and is a special friend of Lieutenant Commander Mason Callister? All hell breaks loose …
Find book 1 here!
To find out more visit Dale Mayer’s website.
Chapter 1 of new
SHADOW RECON Series
Mountain Bear Rode landed on the vast wide polar expanse of the frozen north. A vehicle was supposed to be waiting for him, but one of the big Arctic Cats that operated up here was the best bet. As he exited the plane, he felt the chill already soaking through his parka. He shouldered his duffel bag and headed to the small shed that passed as a hangar. Inside was at least one of the two men Mason had waiting for him. Mason was hoping to stay stateside, and Mountain would do what he could. However, if he needed Mason, Mountain would call, and he knew Mason would come.
In the meantime perfectly capable men would help Mountain. Aiden was one of them, currently stateside too. Not that he had any plans to come to this frozen hellhole if he could help it either. But he was a Maverick and was promised to Mountain as part of his team for the duration of this job. And Mountain was damn glad to have Aiden. Mountain needed someone, multiple someones, on the outside to help sort out this mess and to gather intel, so no one inside would be suspicious. That would come. But Mountain needed to stave it off as long as possible.
He studied the tall bean pole in front of him. Mountain had done research on this man; so far, it all looked okay. There were few enough men Mountain could say that about, and luckily Magnus was one of them. “Hey,” Mountain greeted him, reaching out to shake his hand. However, the grim look on Magnus’s face had Mountain asking, “What have you got?”
“Nothing good. No sign of your brother, and now another man is gone missing too. We’ve got a brand-new team flying in. Should arrive in a few minutes.” He motioned at the hangar around him. “We’re waiting for them to come in and to bring them back with us.”
Mountain nodded.
Magnus didn’t know the expected team was Mountain’s; nobody was allowed to know. Not until they got to the bottom of whatever the hell was going on up here. Nobody could be suspicious.
“These missing men, … anything like that happen here before?”
“A certain number of deaths can always be expected in these severe-weather training missions.” Magnus glared at the white snow-capped mountains around the small airport. “Nothing’s harder than military training in extreme cold temperatures and with extreme exposure,” he explained. “So believe me. Nobody is thinking these missing guys are anything out of the ordinary. They’re just bodies we haven’t found yet.”
And that was just BS as far as Mountain was concerned. Men should be dying for their respective countries; they shouldn’t be dying for the training, but Mountain would find out what was going on as soon as he got to the camp. “How many men are coming in?” he asked.
“Eight,” Magnus replied.
At that, he stared at him. “I expected you to say six,” he replied, trying to cover his gaffe.
“Eight and two are women.”
“Hmm,” he said, frowning.
“Yeah, I don’t know how the women will handle it,” Magnus noted, “but you already know that you can’t talk to the brass at all.”
And that was the damn truth. The brass made decisions that often had nothing to do with reality. Mountain was here now; he’d find his damn brother even if it killed him. And it probably would.
Find book 1 here!
To find out more visit Dale Mayer’s website.
Author’s Note
Thank you for reading Aiden: The Mavericks, Book 18! If you enjoyed the book, please take a moment and leave a short review here.
Dear reader,
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Cheers,
Dale Mayer
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About the Author
Dale Mayer is a USA Today best-selling author, best known for her SEALs military romances, her Psychic Visions series, and her Lovely Lethal Garden cozy series. Her contemporary romances are raw and full of passion and emotion (Broken But … Mending, Hathaway House series). Her thrillers will keep you guessing (Kate Morgan, By Death series), and her romantic comedies will keep you giggling (It’s a Dog’s Life, a stand-alone novella; and the Broken Protocols series, starring Charming Marvin, the cat).
Dale honors the stories that come to her—and some of them are crazy, break all the rules and cross multiple genres!
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AIDEN: THE MAVERICKS, BOOK 18
Beverly Dale Mayer
Valley Publishing Ltd.
Copyright © 2022
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN-13: 978-1-773365-41-1
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Dale Mayer, Aiden
