SEALs of Honor: Chase Read online

  CHASE

  SEALs of Honor, Book 10

  Dale Mayer

  Books in This Series:

  Mason: SEALs of Honor, Book 1

  Hawk: SEALs of Honor, Book 2

  Dane: SEALs of Honor, Book 3

  Swede: SEALs of Honor, Book 4

  Shadow: SEALs of Honor, Book 5

  Cooper: SEALs of Honor, Book 6

  Markus: SEALs of Honor, Book 7

  Evan: SEALs of Honor, Book 8

  Mason’s Wish: SEALs of Honor, Book 9

  Chase: SEALs of Honor, Book 10

  Brett: SEALs of Honor, Book 11

  SEALs of Honor, Books 1–3

  SEALs of Honor, Books 4–6

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  About the Book

  Complimentary Download

  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

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Author’s Note

  Complimentary Download

  About the Author

  Also by Dale Mayer

  Copyright Page

  Back Cover

  Everyone has something in their history they’d like to keep buried in the past…

  Chase has more than most. And his secrets are about to blow wide open as one really bad part of his past has come looking for him.

  Vanessa is all about moving forward in her life and not looking back. There are enough painful memories in her history for a lifetime.

  But when she gets embroiled in Chase’s problems, they become her problems too.

  Both need to deal with their pasts, because if they don’t, they might no longer have a future.

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  Chapter 1

  Chase Buchanan pulled the scarf higher up his nose in a vague effort to keep the sand out of his face. Since they hit the Middle East he knew he’d eaten at least ten pounds of dust. His eyes were so dry, they just wanted to cry so they’d be moist again.

  He’d been here before, but this time it seemed the dust was way worse. Then there’d been a drought for the last several weeks just to exacerbate the problem. The heavy winds made it all that much more miserable.

  With a look over at Swede and Brett, two of his unit out searching with him, Chase continued in the same direction as before. Evan and Markus stood behind keeping watch. Two boys were missing. They were regulars around the base and should have been there doing odd jobs for some of the men as they always did. Hell, they’d learned to speak very good English because of it. But rumors had risen of the boys having gotten into trouble. Some men were searching in the camp, he and his friends chose to look around outside. The boys didn’t live on the base but came and went at all hours. Anything could have happened. Soldiers walked the perimeter around the camp. So far they’d seen nothing. But if the boys were in trouble, he wanted to make sure they had a fighting chance.

  Then again this could to be a trap. There were unfriendlies everywhere.

  He knew that as well as anyone. His unit had completed a mission and were shipping out in the morning. In the meantime they’d spent a couple of days debriefing, and in their spare time they’d enjoyed kicking around a soccer ball with a group of kids. They were great kids in a tough situation.

  Of course these two were part of that group.

  He had a few hours free, and if he could help find the boys, then he was all for it.

  More wind blasted into his face. They walked out another twenty feet. The soldiers had said there’d been no sign of anyone for the last hour. Could the boys be hiding out here? If so, why? At twelve and ten the kids had seen so much in their young lives.

  Then he had too.

  Different landscapes, same shit.

  “Help.”

  He spun at the barely audible cry.

  And caught a whisper of movement out of the corner of his eye. Small fingers almost the color of the sand rippled at the crest of a small dirt mound barely large enough to hide behind. With a sharp hand motion toward the others, Chase picked up the pace and ran closer.

  Sure enough it was Amrit, the youngest and bubbliest of the brothers.

  “Take it easy, little guy.” Wincing at the sight of the kid’s face, Chase quickly checked him over. It looked like he’d been beaten to a pulp. “Who did this to you?”

  Amrit’s lips moved but no sound came out. Chase unhooked his water bottle and gently poured water into Amrit’s mouth.

  Brett continued to search to the left. Swede kept right. He soon let out a low cry and ran toward a second small dusty body on the ground.

  “It’s Paprit,” Swede called back. “He’s in bad shape.”

  Thank God they’d found both boys. Chase heard the words with relief. What the hell happened? Who would hurt them like this? It appeared Amrit’s one arm might be broken and possibly a couple of ribs. Chase wasn’t sure about the ankle. Every time he tried to check it Amrit cried out. Hopefully only a bad sprain. He gave the boy some more water then looked around. His gaze landed on four men carrying two stretchers racing toward the injured boys. At least the base had a great medical hospital. The boys would get the help they needed.

  Had the boys made it this far on their own? Or had they been dumped to crawl the rest of the way?

  It wasn’t until four hours later that he was allowed to see them to ask. Thankfully, Amrit was awake. His brother was not.

  “Amrit, what happened to you?” Chase asked, sitting down on the side of the bed too large for such a small boy.

  Amrit’s eyes filled with tears. “The soldiers came to the village,” he whispered. “They took my father. And beat him up.” He fell silent then added in a broken voice. “They shot him. My mother tried to hide me but they beat her too.”

  Chase’s heart hardened at the story. One that was not uncommon for this area. It seemed like no matter what they did, nor how much, there were always assholes picking on the innocent.

  “Why did they leave you alive?” That made little sense when soldiers were grabbing the young boys to join their army.

  “To bring you a message.”

  The boy fell silent and Chase waited. He knew the message wouldn’t be good. He hated to think the boys had been chosen for this rough treatment because they’d been seen around the camp. Many locals had business dealings with the base. It was a poor area and everyone was just trying to make a living. The base offered plenty of opportunities to run errands and supply local goods.

  After a moment he prompted Amrit. “What was the message?”

  “Go home if you want to live. They are coming.”

  Bastards. He sat back to stare out the window. Trust them to do this to a child. An innocent who couldn’t fight back. He studied Amrit’s puffy face. “Would you be able to recognize the men who did this?”

  Amrit nodded, wincing at the movement. “Yes. The man who shot my father is Alha Kahib.”

  Chase barely held back a shocked gasp. That was a name they all knew. Kahib was the head of the local resistance terrorist group. He tr
aveled to the villages and forcefully recruited young boys to his army. Then stole them away to his training camps that no one had found yet.

  “Why didn’t they take the two of you?” Chase didn’t understand that part. Anyone could have delivered a message.

  “Because,” Amrit gave a cheeky smile, “I told him I was only seven.” He coughed. “And I said my brother and I were sickly and didn’t grow.”

  Chase accepted that. A healthy ten-year-old would have been snatched in a heartbeat. Mostly because they’d already swept up the older children in earlier raids, returning for the younger ones now. But even then there were ages that were too young to deal with. If the boy wasn’t going to survive the training there was no point in stealing him. Kahib’s group weren’t using kids as suicide bombers yet – at least that Chase knew of. In other parts of the world that had become a common occurrence. And would likely have been Amrit’s future the next time the rebels came through the village as the terrorist group upped their technologies. “Did you make it this far on your own?”

  “They dumped us on the ground and watched us crawl away.” He took a shaky breath. “I didn’t want to call out in case they were watching.” He stared behind Chase’s shoulders. “I kept thinking they’d shoot us at any moment. That they were only joking about us delivering the message.” He shuddered and slid lower in the bed. “I was afraid we’d die out there before we could anyway.”

  Right. “Okay. Anything else you can tell us about these men? Did you overhear anything useful? See anything that would help us track them down?”

  These groups were always on the move, staying ahead of the army, and kept hideouts throughout the land with a few strongholds as their main residences. Personally he’d like to see them all blown to shit. Then sometimes his rough upbringing rose to the forefront. That’s why he couldn’t be a politician. He’d like to line all the assholes in the world up and shoot them dead.

  Make the world a better place.

  Anyone who beat the crap out of two young boys didn’t deserve better.

  Then he realized the boy’s fist clutched at the sheets as if they were a lifeline, and Chase remembered the question he asked Amrit. He leaned forward. “Do you know something?” he asked quietly.

  “They’ll kill me,” he whispered. “After dumping us on the ground they talked. So if I tell you, they’ll know we survived and told on them.”

  Chase mulled that over. The kid had a point. But if they could take this rebel group out, the leader of which had been on their military wanted list for the last several years, then that was worth a lot. But not when compared to the two boys’ lives.

  “Let me talk it over with my commander and see what we can do.”

  “You can’t do anything,” the boy cried. “I have to go home. My mother needs me.”

  “At the same village where these people came and found you?” Chase asked gently. “They will only return again. If not tomorrow, or next month, it will be in a few months. They do the rounds, you know that.”

  The boy’s face fell. “There’s no place for me to run is there?”

  “Not unless we take out Kahib and his group first.”

  Amrit shook his head violently. “No. You don’t understand. You won’t get them all. Someone will know what I’ve done. I’ll never be safe.”

  Chase settled back and studied the young boy with too much maturity and pain-filled eyes. Unfortunately he figured Amrit was right. If anyone knew the boy had helped the military take down this terrorist group, any survivors would hunt the kids down like dogs.

  “Is the information you have that good?”

  Amrit dropped his gaze.

  Chase decided to push. “Amrit?” He leaned over and placed a hand on his shoulder, hating to see the ravages of war on the small frame. The boy barely had enough meat on his bones to keep him alive. “Tell me.”

  The little boy’s eyes filled with tears. “They talked about going to their new stronghold in Asrim. Talking about the route and where it was. They are going to use that to hit all the villages within a day’s travel.”

  “And did they say where the stronghold is within that city?”

  It took a long moment while Chase tugged back his impatience before Amrit finally said in a shaky voice, “Yes.”

  Chapter 2

  Six weeks later…

  Vanessa Roman walked into her office, tired and worn out…and the day had just begun. There were so many people who needed help. That she worked to resettle the newly arrived refugees into the U.S. from the world over just made the job all that much bigger. And smaller.

  “Wow, you must have had a shitty night,” Tom said as she walked past him. “Or else you had a really good night.” He gave her a big leer as she took her seat.

  “Neither.” She shook her head. “Nightmares again.”

  “Jesus, girl. You need to sign up for the shrink program we have available. You know this stuff is going to kill you eventually.”

  “I know.” She opened her bottom drawer and dumped her purse. Then looked up at him. “I just don’t like the shrinks much either.”

  “That’s a given. But you have to talk to someone. We see and hear too much shit. It makes us hurt inside all day long.”

  “I agree, but there are good times too. The last time I spoke to a shrink he made me feel guilty because I wasn’t doing better. I can handle the stress on a regular basis but sometimes…”

  “Then you need to look for a new career.”

  She smiled. “I’m fine. There are a lot of people in need of help and I can do that. It’s just sometimes I wish I could do more.”

  “Remember these kids, their families come from difficult backgrounds, and all we can do is help them transition through this stage of their lives. It will get better but this is traumatizing for them. There’s no solution here. We know they don’t really want to be here, and they want their lives back the way it was, but…we’re doing the best we can in a system that was never intended to handle these kinds of numbers.”

  She stared, knowing her heart was in her eyes but unable to hide her feelings. “I know,” she whispered. “It doesn’t stop me from wanting to find a better way.”

  “There is no other way. You know that.”

  Thankfully Tom walked away, leaving her to sit in her sadness a little while longer. She still wasn’t sure she was cut out for this career. But having been in their position, she had a passion to help them. There were so many refugees looking for a better life, and it never happened fast enough for anyone. In fact, the process took a long time. Too long. Her heart bled for so many of the cases. Some of the trauma and losses these people had sustained were horrific. But like Tom had said, there was only so much she could do.

  But they weren’t the source of her nightmares. She could blame her ex-fiancé for those.

  “Vanessa?” The call came from behind her. Vanessa turned to see her supervisor standing in her office doorway. “I need to see you. Grab a coffee then come to my office please,” Sandy said.

  Instead, Vanessa got up, grabbed a notebook and pen and walked into her office. Sandy motioned at the empty chair and Vanessa sat down. “What’s up?”

  “We have a situation. And a special boy who needs a little more attention than usual.”

  “How special?”

  “He provided some Intel that allowed our military to hunt down one of the terrorists groups that have been destroying villages in Afghanistan. Although the group was wiped out, they can’t be sure Amrit is out of danger, so Amrit, his mother and brother have been brought over here.”

  “That brave poor boy. He must be terrified.”

  “Or he’s enjoying all the attention.” Sandy shrugged. “Who’s to say at this point? The thing is, they are here in San Diego and will be processed through our center in an effort to have them blend into the rest of the refugees.”

  “Are they going through the regular processing or are they getting special treatment?” Vanessa asked.
/>   “Yes.” Sandy smiled at her. Vanessa rolled her eyes.

  With a laugh, Sandy added, “They need to be handled slightly different but will be processed in a regular manner. The chances of anyone finding out who this one boy is and where he is, is slim, but we can’t discount he might be a target.” Sandy nodded at the file on her desk. “So we’ll do everything we can to keep him safe as we integrate him and his family into our country.”

  “Got it.” Vanessa stood up and reached for the file Sandy handed her. “Timeline?”

  In a cheerful voice, Sandy said, “Yesterday.”

  *

  Chase walked inside his front door and dropped his kit. It was going to take six showers this way to Sunday to get rid of the dust. It was in his underwear, inside his mouth and he swore it was clogging up his brain.

  He was too tired to laugh at the cloud of dust that rose from his bag. After all the traveling to get home, he’d have thought it would be clean by now. The gear had been dropped and tossed to the point there shouldn’t be any dust left. He hadn’t expected to be stateside today after an unexpected operation went better than planned, but when the opportunity came, the team had been all over it.

  He stared around the small apartment, loving the feeling of knowing it was his and his alone. Growing up dirt poor with a lot of friendly men, he coveted his personal space now. He’d been a small kid with big dreams – some he’d managed to realize.

  His mom died a good ten years back, and if he had siblings, who knew where they were. They’d have to be older and could be flung far and wide across the country. He’d loved his mother growing up, though he hadn’t had any illusions. When she needed a fix she’d gone to the streets to get it.

  He was never sure if it was the drugs that killed her or the lifestyle. He was happy to know she was at peace now. He didn’t know what set her on that downward path because she’d never talked about it. Then again she refused to talk about anything important.

  Of his father – who knew? He’d never met him. And couldn’t be sure the man knew he had a son. So not the life he wanted for his future sons if he had any. Because of growing up as he had, he’d made sure he hadn’t left any unwanted children behind. When it came time to have kids he wanted to be an active father. He wanted his kids to know they were loved.