Page 3 of SEAL by Fate

2

MAKING SURE HE didn’t let off the gas pedal of the Jeep, Grayson “Gray” Carlisle kept it straight as the large tires rolled at a steady speed through six inches of unplowed snow in the Wyoming mountains. He’d been on the road for almost an hour and his knuckles ached from squeezing the steering wheel. Where the hell was it all coming from? It was as if Mother Nature was having one last hoorah before she blessed earth with spring.

It was coming down fast. Unlike anything he’d seen in a few years.

Twenty miles ago he’d heard the weather report warning motorists of the hazardous driving conditions and some areas would be impassable, but no way in hell would he turn around now. Not when he was so damn close that he could taste triumph. He’d done crazier things than being out in a blizzard. Some things he wanted to forget. This wasn’t where he expected to be today, but when duty called, he had to follow the clues.

He’d returned from working an undercover assignment with plans to take a few days off at the family ranch, but plans were thwarted by another criminal. When Gray told his dad he’d complained, but in the end, he understood. Gray lived and breathed his career. His father had been after him a lot lately to take over the ranch, Silver Carlisle, but the time wasn’t right.

In his twenties, Gray was enlisted in the Navy, the last seven in the SEALs then he retired and right after joined the elite force Ghost Hawks and that’s where he’d been since. There wasn’t much difference in serving on domesticated soil than foreign soil except he no longer had to carry a seventy-pound pack on his back while navigating abandoned towns and war-stricken danger zones while searching for and disabling bombs. Now he was fighting war criminals in his backyard, but still finding and disabling bombs, although they were a lot easier to find without enemy fire buzzing overhead.

Some things would never change though. One, he’d always have the desire to serve his country in one way or another. Two, he would always pack heat. He never went anywhere without his Glock 19 9mm. Serving in the military had embedded a wariness in Gray that he’d never been able to shake. There were times he’d wake up from a dream or because he’d heard a sound, reach for his gun and then realize where he was. He couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t slept with one eye, and ear, open. Because of this, he never invited a woman to sleep over. Not just anyone would understand his poor sleeping habits.

Gray thought back to the day he came home, barely had a foot in the US, when he was met by war hero Gage Carson. Gray knew of him. After all, who didn’t? The four-star admiral was a hero who’d saved the lives of dozens of men while in Iraq. There were no words to describe meeting someone like Carson so when he came to see Gray to discuss the Hawks, he’d been all ears.

It hadn’t taken much for Carson to convince Gray to join the elite force that specialized in counter-terrorism, and intelligence, human and drug trafficking and any cases the government sent their way. There was a very careful line between the Ghost Hawks and local law enforcement and the FBI, but they worked to have a good relationship.

The Ghost Hawk team was more like family and comprised of eight highly-skilled men that were all revered for their time in combat across the pond. Gray, Jamison, Riddle, Briggs, Cowboy, Abel, Crow, and Cade. All ex-Navy SEALs and each the best of the best.

Several months ago, they’d had a farewell party for their chief, Carson. Although the Hawks hated to see the man who’d formed the team leave, Carson had wanted to go while he was still strong, before the cancer had time to wreak havoc on his body. A man knew when it was time to hang up his hat. Jamison had taken over the leadership role and crime-fighting was as usual.

Gray switched the headlights to high, which didn’t help much when visibility was less than thirty feet, but he wanted to inspect the road. At first, he thought he must have imagined the tracks ahead, but sure enough, someone else was just as foolish as he was out in this snow storm at nightfall. He sure hoped the other driver had a vehicle capable of staying on the road in these conditions, but from the narrow tire tracks and the way they veered erratically, he guessed it was a small vehicle and an unsteady driver at the wheel. A combination of the wind, drifting snow, and how fast it was falling made conditions dangerous. If a driver didn’t know the curvy road, they could easily drive off into the ravine. It happened a handful of times each year when the elements were bad.

Thankfully, he knew the road like the back of his hand because he’d been surveilling here more times than he could count. So, he prepared for the sharp curve ahead by lifting his foot off the gas pedal and steering the Jeep into the center of the road. Too far on one side or the other could be treacherous. To his left was a jagged rock wall and to the other was a flimsy guardrail separating the road from a drop into the gorge. Whispering Mountain was known for its isolated cabins placed along the upper ridge with magnificent views and privacy. However, as beautiful as the landscape was, it could be dangerous in weather like tonight. Getting stuck meant being at the mercy of the weather until it let up enough for cars to pass. Most visitors either hunkered down in their cabins or stayed off the mountain until the snow lifted. It was odd that another vehicle was taking the risk. Could it be the very person he came up here to find?

The back tires swerved, but he managed to keep the Jeep on the road, hoping conditions didn’t get worse before he made it to his destination—wherever that was. He knew the vicinity of where he headed but didn’t have a specific location.

After receiving a tip from an anonymous informant that morning, he’d had no choice but to brave the blizzard. Although he’d been led on a wild goose-chase by tips in the past, Gray had a hunch this one held water. Usually there would be at least two team members with him, but the roads were shut down around the perimeter and Jamison and Cowboy were stuck off Whispering Mountain. Fortunately, Gray had been heading to Silver Carlisle when he’d received the information. Jamison had warned him not to place himself in danger, to wait for his team, but Gray couldn’t risk losing the trail of the bastard they called “Phantom.”

From the last mile marker Gray could make out, and calculating about how many miles he’d gone since, he was within ten miles of the location where the informant said the target would be. This was the closest the Hawks had been to Phantom in months. All Gray needed was one chance to get close to the terrorist and he’d nail him.

About two years ago, Phantom had gone completely off the radar after Gray had shot him, but six months ago he’d come out of retirement when he’d set off a bomb at a church, killing five innocent people. A nearby business camera caught a blurred glimpse of Phantom, but it was like the other few blurry pictures the Hawks had of the terrorist. He seemed to cover his every step and had the ability to vanish without a trace—and why the name Phantom was fitting.

Right after that church explosion, the team started receiving anonymous informant tips on Phantom’s whereabouts from a woman who didn’t give her name and used an untraceable phone. In his line of business Gray had to weed out the fake tips from valuable information and a hunch after the last tip led Gray on a wild goose chase.

The interesting thing about Phantom was he didn’t belong to any terrorist groups, instead called himself a lone wolf which told Gray that the man was above average in intelligence, and skilled in explosives and evading capture when he committed violent acts without the support of an organized structure. Lone wolves were on the increase in number, but sometimes it was questionable if the terrorists were actually working alone or were affiliated with a group that was orchestrating the acts from the outside.

Once they caught Phantom, he could help identify terrorist wings, so his capture would be like winning the lottery. The sticky part, the team had to bring Phantom in alive.

Until then, the Hawks would stay on the tail of the terrorist. After recently taking down a cell that had been the culprit of a murderous path through Cheyenne, the Hawks were sending a loud message and terrorists were on the run. Men like Phantom though believed they were untouchable and enjoyed playing the master of a puppet show. Hell, Gray knew there was a chance this pursuit would be just another empty chase, but he had to rely on is gut, and his instincts told him the bad guy was here on Whispering Mountain.

Now if the damn weather would cooperate.

Gray was a Hawk and they never let anything, not even a blizzard, dictate where they went.

The reconnaissance operations team put their lives on the line each day to bring down criminals like Phantom who were ranked among the most dangerous in the country. They had linked him to bombs not only in Wyoming, but previously throughout the country, targeting mostly churches, but not always, of all different faiths.

Gray wanted to catch the terrorist now more than ever. The man had been in the Ghost Hawk’s crosshairs for too long and it seemed like just when they had him on their radar, they would lose him at the eleventh hour. They had been so close to nailing him that particular day a few years back. He had set off a series of bombs that exploded inside numerous trash cans throughout the city, killing several and wreaking havoc. The entire city had been in an upheaval.

Being at the right place at the right time, Gray had spotted a suspicious man standing near one of the bomb locations when everyone else had taken cover. Even now, Gray wasn’t sure what led him to that spot, maybe pure instinct, but when the suspect took off running, Gray knew he had his man.

He chased Phantom for almost two miles, even managed to get a shot off, hitting him in the leg, but the pursuit ended when a car came out of nowhere. Gray had managed a glimpse of the driver, a red-headed woman wearing sunglasses, before the car sped off, leaving him sprawled on the pavement. He lived to tell about it, but his knee now gave him fits, especially in weather like this. Docs told him they couldn’t guarantee what the long-term damage would be, but recently he was told he needed to have surgery. He didn’t have the time to take off work. It took a lot more than an aching knee to keep him down.

This only made Gray that much more dead set on catching Phantom. Too bad the bullet didn’t stop the bastard—too bad they wanted to take him alive to debrief, otherwise Gray would have blown his head off.

Why the terrorist had disappeared for a while couldn’t be figured out, but he was back with a vengeance.

Phantom had left a trail of bodies in his wake, and although what seemed like random hits were really thought out targets and carefully planned bombings. The team had the blurry camera shots and not one damn fingerprint. Over the course of his career, Gray had seen criminals shave off the skin of their fingers to prevent leaving any prints. Terrorists who weren’t on suicide missions went to major extremes to keep from being caught, even self-mutilation.

---