Page 129 of Don't Look Back

Now he was dead.

And then there were three.

Teague was pumped. It didn’t matter that he’d barely slept since Sunday. This was what they trained for. They were close and getting closer.

Especially now that the base housing agency finally gave NSWC a list of all the empty housing units on Little Creek and Dam Neck. Hours late, but better than never. They couldn’t exactly search occupied homes on both bases. There were far too many.

Compiling the list had been delayed because the contractor was short-staffed over the holiday weekend—two employees hadn’t been to work since Thursday.

Teague and everyone else knew exactly who the missing employees were.

There were four empty units in one of the on-base housing developments. Teague parked his truck in front of one of them. He and Burns would search two units. Kramer and Meyers were searching the other two units in this development. Twenty miles away, other SEALs were searching the three empty units at Dam Neck.

Burns punched in the code on the lockbox and retrieved the key. Then they were in. The two-bedroom house had just been painted, and the rooms were bare except for sheets of plastic and blue tape, along with other painting debris.

There was no sign anyone had been inside the unit since the painters left on Friday. They quickly moved on to the second unit, walking the short distance to a house Teague had been inside three months ago, when a friend who was transferring to Little Creek asked him to scout housing for his family.

At the time, the house had been slated for a kitchen remodel and wouldn’t be ready for a month, which would have worked well for the friend, but then his orders changed, and the lucky bastard was sent to Pearl Harbor instead.

“Odd that this place is still on the remodel list,” he said to Burns. “It was supposed to be done two months ago.”

Burns frowned. “I don’t like the sound of that. Could be just lazy, but, given what we’re looking for…”

They went in as if they were expecting an ambush. It never hurt to practice, but also, better safe than sorry.

The place was a wreck—the same mess it had been when Teague walked through months ago. The kitchen was gutted of appliances, same as before. The one difference was now there were new appliances staged in the living room, waiting for installation. The dishwasher and range had been unwrapped. Debris on the floor indicated the unwrapping had been recent.

“I don’t like this,” Burns said.

“Me neither.”

Their instinct proved accurate when they entered the hall bathroom. On the plus side, they’d found one of the guys they were looking for. The problem: he too was dead.

Very recently dead.

And then there were two.

They radioed NSWC and informed them of their find. A bomb-sniffing canine and handler were sent to the house. The Belgian Malinois and his handler—a SEAL from another team—had been busy searching every potential target they were called to today.

In the house, Rikki alerted for explosives when his handler opened the dishwasher in the middle of the living room. He alerted again when the oven door was opened.

The fridge was still sealed with plastic wrap. A team of bomb experts would be tasked with opening it, but it was unlikely explosives had been left behind.

Rikki then followed whatever scent he’d picked up—explosives or the person who retrieved them—and led his handler through the house to the garage, where the dog lost the scent.

One conspirator had taken the explosives and left behind a compatriot. Why were the conspirators being killed, one by one? Were the two remaining men working together, or did one of them know his hours—or minutes—were now numbered?

Max Byrd, the handyman, and Richard Wagner, the leasing agent, were all that remained of the original five—six if Benny Kinder was included.

Investigators arrived to take over the crime scene investigation. Bomb control was called to tackle the fridge. Teague and Burns gave statements, then returned to HQ to share what they’d learned.

With their success at Little Creek, a SEAL with a bomb-sniffing dog was sent to check the empty houses at Dam Neck too. Other bases in the area were doing the same, but they all believed—hoped, really—only Little Creek and Dam Neck were targets.

Teague was driving to HQ when they received word that explosives had been detected in a refrigerator at Dam Neck.

Two bases. How many bombs?

Teague felt the clock ticking. It was four hours to sunset.

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