Mitch Kearns Combat Tracker Series Boxed Set, Volumes 1-3: Dead in Their Tracks, Counter-Strike, The Kill List Read online

  A Mitch Kearns Combat Tracker Series

  Volumes 1-3

  Dead in Their Tracks

  Counter-Strike

  The Kill List

  By JT Sawyer

  Copyright

  Dead in Their Tracks, Copyright February 2016 by JT Sawyer

  Boxed Set, Volumes 1-3, Copyright April 2017 by JT Sawyer

  Edited by Emily Nemchick

  No part of this book may be transmitted in any form whether electronic, recording, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction and the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, incidents, or events is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Join JT Sawyer’s Facebook page to follow his book research and to get updates on future releases. You can also receive information on survival tips by signing up for my email notices at http://www.jtsawyer.com

  Preface

  Turkmenistan

  Black clouds moved across the moon overlooking the seaside estate on the leeward side of Turkmenistan off the Caspian Sea, providing cover for the woman darting along the knee-high stone wall lining the courtyard of the three-story mansion. Thick leaves accumulated on the cobblestones indicated that there had been little upkeep of the grounds, giving the outward appearance that the place was unoccupied.

  Devorah Leitner’s sleek figure floated across the narrow walkway that led to a side door, her MP-5 submachine gun kept at low-ready. Her handler, an older man named Anatoly, was behind her with his rifle covering the high ground on the left. A four-man team nestled in the shrubs twenty yards to the rear covered her approach and had already silently sniped the two rooftop sentries. Dev’s fingers were still sore from the one-hundred-foot climb up the cliff face they had to perform to breach the estate grounds. Their Zodiac boats were tethered below and would provide their exodus back to an island seven miles away.

  Dev knelt down before an oaken door and removed a set of lockpicking tools from her vest pocket, working the mechanism. She whispered over her shoulder, speaking in Hebrew. “Ten seconds.”

  “Once we’re inside, I’ll take the corridor to the right and prepare to let our men in from the other side while you head to the utility room and shut down the power,” said the older man in a stern voice.

  She tried to hide her irritated smirk. Dev knew the plan intimately and didn’t need any reminders. She finished manipulating the lock and then slowly opened the vault-like door, its rusty hinges groaning as it moved inward. Dev flipped on her small flashlight and the two warriors proceeded inside, stepping silently on the hand-hewn stone flooring that led into the safe house.

  It had been four years since she began working for Anatoly’s company, Gideon, which specialized in rescuing kidnap and ransom victims. The K & R industry had burgeoned in recent years and Anatoly’s former occupation as a high-level Mossad agent working for Israeli Intelligence and Special Operations had provided him with an endless list of employment opportunities from families who had exhausted the usual diplomatic routes to freeing their loved ones. In this case, they were after an American businessman who had been abducted three weeks earlier while working on negotiations between the Turkmenistan government and a U.S. corporation. At least that’s what the man’s family had told them. While Gideon had done its best to uncover the entire abduction story, Dev knew that hostages were often kidnapped for reasons other than mere dollars.

  This was her first long-range assignment with Anatoly and she sought only to perform her job efficiently and rescue the victim. Any thoughts of winning her handler’s approval were secondary. At least that’s what she tried to tell herself. Anatoly was a three-decade veteran of such high-risk black ops and she held him in utter reverence. She had perfected her skills through constant application on missions abroad but now she felt like a gymnast atop a balance beam before an immense crowd.

  Dev secreted herself against the wood-paneled walls until she came to the first intersection. Peering around the left side, she saw a door twenty feet ahead. According to the crude intel they’d gathered on the estate, the circuit breaker was in a utility room across from the kitchen. The plan was to eliminate the power grid while Anatoly and his other shooters swept into the back room and secured the hostage. This scheme sounded good on paper back in the briefing room two days ago but Murphy’s Law always seems to rear its ugly head when it wants. I hope this is a hasty snatch-and-grab.

  He tapped her on the shoulder and indicated his departure down the pathway to the right. She saw him trot into the shadows and disappear. The dim passageway felt more claustrophobic now that she was alone. Clutching her weapon, Dev took a deep breath while sliding along the wall towards her objective.

  Nearing the utility room door, she squelched her ear-mic once to indicate her forthcoming actions. She huffed out a sigh, irritated that there was a heavy padlock securing the entrance. Dev slung her rifle and inspected the bulky contraption. She reached into her vest for her lockpicking tools again. As she hunched over, Dev felt the cold sensation of a pistol barrel pressing into the back of her neck.

  “Back up and show me your hands,” said a voice in Arabic.

  Dev turned and stared up at the tall figure towering over her. His thick beard obscured his face, giving him an otherworldly appearance. He waved the HK pistol at her, yelling while reaching up for the two-way radio attached to his breast pocket. Dev swiftly drove her right hand up over the top of his pistol while she sidestepped, wrenching his weapon hand back until she heard his wrist ligaments pop. He winced, releasing the pistol, but then struck her with a left cross along her cheek. Dev recoiled into the wall, dropping the HK and ducking from another incoming blow from the man’s gargantuan fist. There wasn’t time to grab her own weapons and she slammed him in the upper quad with her instep then backhanded him across the side of his neck. This slowed him for a second but only enraged him further. He rushed forward in a linebacker tackle, shoving her into the wall with such force that she felt her ribs compress. Dev drove her fingers into the soft cartilage beside his trachea and then grabbed him by the hair, slamming his head down into her upcoming knee. He shuffled back and reached into his cargo pocket for a collapsible baton then flailed it wildly at her head. His first strike connected with the side of her arm which she’d raised up to protect her ribs. As he repositioned for another swing, she rushed in before he could deliver and drove her fingers into his left eye. He shrieked and backpedaled while Dev slammed her boot into his groin followed by an elbow strike across his face. She knocked the baton from his hand with a downward hammerstrike then retrieved it and slammed the brute across his forehead with all her might. He went limp against the wall, sliding to the stone floor. Damn, he was a beast. That should take the fight out of him for a few hours. Though the reality of deadly combat was present in each mission, she tried to avoid it if possible and knew he no longer posed a threat.

  Dev was trembling, the adrenaline pulsing through her veins as she tried to catch her breath. She rubbed her sore arm, making sure nothing was broken but feeling the dull throb where a severe contusion was forming. She took a hard swallow and scanned the hallway in either direction. Dev retrieved her lockpicking tools from the ground and then paused, glancing down at the unconscious guard. She leaned over and went through his pockets, finding a set of keys. Dev removed the suppressed Glock from her leg hol
ster and walked back to the utility room door.

  “What’s happening—what is your status?” She could hear the edge in Anatoly’s voice in her ear.

  “Just met with some resistance. The power will be disabled shortly. Wait for my squelch.”

  She slowly opened the padlock and swung the door inward. The cinder-block room was lined with slate-gray metal cabinets that housed the central fuses for the building. Dev scanned the panel to locate the main terminal. After squelching her walkie-talkie three times, she flipped the red control switch. The humming of the circuit breaker box ceased and the room went dark. Moments later, the sound of flash-bang grenades and the cadence of rifle double-taps emitted from the corridor behind her. She retreated from the room, stepping over the inanimate figure on the ground, and made her way to the back room where the captive was supposed to be located.

  Rounding the corner, she paused to make sure no bullets were flying in her direction. The staccato of gunfire ceased and she heard the comforting sounds of her colleagues shouting in Hebrew that the room was secure. Dev sprinted down the hallway and entered the haze of gunsmoke. The overwhelming odor of sweat and urine permeated the stagnant air and she held her sleeve up over her nose. Anatoly’s men were fanned out along the room, inspecting the four dead abductors who were clad in black fatigues and bore Middle Eastern complexions.

  Dev pushed through the fog of smoke, moving past a wheelchair whose leather restraints were saturated with dried blood. Her boots crunched over some broken teeth on the ground and she kicked aside a pair of tarnished pliers. As the haze dissipated through the open door, the flashlights revealed the outline of the cavernous room.

  God, I hope he’s still alive, Dev thought. Though being in here with these disgusting pigs for three weeks, there may not be much of a human being remaining in him.

  With the horrific images of past victims running like a reel though her head, she knew that many hostages remained hidden from their rescuers, thinking they were another hallucination from their drug-induced stupor, or they were in such a catatonic state that any sense of hope had been purged from their traumatized psyche.

  “Mr. Janson—Neal Janson—we are here to rescue you,” she whispered tenderly, trying to sound non-threatening. Her flashlight scanned the furthest recesses of the chamber, past a soiled mattress to where the silhouette of a stooped figure sat.

  The frail man was scrunched in a ball in the corner like part of him had melted into the fissures of the damp bricks. Dev moved up to him slowly, knowing he would either remain paralyzed from shock or he would lash out at her, thinking she was another abductor. The sounds of the other men in the room went silent in her head as she focused on the despondent figure before her. Part of his left ear was missing, the edges jagged in appearance like it had been sawed off rather than cleanly severed. Cigar burn marks dotted his neck and forearms and his anemic skin color made him stand out even in the dark recess.

  She reholstered her pistol and placed her outstretched hands in front of her as she knelt a few feet before him.

  “Mr. Janson, we are here to get you out. My name is Devorah. Your family sent us.”

  The man slightly twisted his head, his one good eye staring at her while the other remained closed from the heavy bruising which encircled his right socket. His cracked lips parted, revealing his blackened gums.

  “They can’t hurt you anymore,” she said, pointing to the scene behind her. “We are going to get you back home. Can you walk?”

  Janson nodded while tears streamed down his cheeks. He shuffled forward, resting his grimy fingers upon her knee and weeping. She held his hand and nodded back towards one of the men near the entrance.

  Petra, a wiry operator, came up beside her and the two of them helped the feeble man to his feet. “We need to get some distance from this place while we can,” said Petra.

  Dev nodded in response and she helped walk Janson to another operator near the entrance. After the injured man was escorted out, Dev scanned the room one last time for any items of value then retraced her steps down the hallway. As she came to the intersection near the utility room, Anatoly came up beside her, giving a slight nod of disapproval.

  “What?” she said, her eyebrows raised.

  He moved his pistol towards the unconscious man slumped on the floor. Anatoly fired a round into the large figure’s head, spraying the concrete floor a wine color.

  “I told you before, we don’t leave loose ends—someone that can possibly put a face to our work.”

  “He went down hard—I saw to it. He wouldn’t have come to for a long time.”

  Anatoly shook his head, lowering his pistol. “This is why there is a sliver of doubt in me—doubt that you can take the reins of my company one day.”

  “I’ve passed all of your training, exceeding even some of the former Mossad operatives you have. Just because I won’t execute someone—that man couldn’t have even made out our faces in here, it’s so dark.”

  “There is no margin for error.”

  They turned to walk away and she grabbed his arm. “You don’t treat the others who work for you with nearly the same scrutiny. I asked you long ago to see me as just another one of your staff—without any special treatment.”

  The man placed his weathered hand up to her face, brushing a lock of black hair off her cheek. “You, Devorah—you bring me so much joy and so much worry—my only daughter.”

  Chapter 1

  Seven Months Later

  Casa Grande, Arizona

  FBI Agent Mitch Kearns was finishing teaching the last segment of a three-day fieldcourse in mantracking to law-enforcement personnel in the desert training facility used by the Casa Grande Police Department south of Phoenix. It had been a sweltering weekend of advanced training in reading field signs, deciphering crime scene footprints, and pursuing the instructors over rugged terrain.

  Mitch had learned his trade initially growing up on a ranch in southern Arizona. Later, as a combat tracker in the 1st Special Forces, he refined his tracking skills in Afghanistan and Africa on a daily basis running counter-insurgency operations. Now, he relished time in the field, especially working with other agencies. He always leapt at the opportunity to teach and had an utter disdain for office work. This had kept him from rising up through the ranks during his six years on the FBI’s hostage-rescue team (HRT) and he was content to stay in field operations.

  The crow’s feet around his eyes were pronounced for someone who was only thirty-four, and he looked ten years older, with the heavy stress lines etched into his face. Some of that was caused by a lifetime in the elements, the rest was the residue that came from his scorched soul. He was burnt out, a spent cartridge. The effects of eight years of combat missions had eroded away the sleeve on his humanity. He had joined the FBI on a friend’s referral but he had no love of the job other than when he was tracking fugitives in the field or teaching. Mitch easily passed the qualifications and exams for entry, his background in special operations having allowed him to progress to his present position. However, he clung to a black-and-white moral code that didn’t mesh well with the modern world. He’d accepted the job because the work was familiar but he had a hard time swallowing the civilian justice system which often found the accused embroiled for years in court battles ending in a sentence that hardly reflected the crime, something that, a century earlier, would have been dealt with at the end of a braided rawhide rope swinging from a cottonwood tree in some lonely canyon.

  It seemed like every agency training session was about new safety protocols, fugitives’ rights, Homeland Security regulations, or federal budget constraints. The rules of engagement had changed and he thought he knew what it must have been like for the cowboys of old once cars entered the western landscape. Mitch often got write-ups at work about his appearance, which usually consisted of a five-day scruff and non-regulation cowboy boots. However, his exemplary conduct in the field had caused his supervisors to provide some leniency.

  Tho
ugh his career choices had meant a chaotic lifestyle, often working absurd shifts in all manner of conditions, the last thing he wanted at present was any kind of drastic change. His daily regime in both his personal and professional life was rigidly maintained. He sought to control every aspect of his world down to the tiniest detail, even to the extent of having the timer on his toaster at home calibrated so his morning breakfast of waffles was perfectly browned in one minute, twenty-seven seconds.

  Though he had always been a stickler for detail, his life had been less restrictive prior to a year ago on a dreadful day in November when his wife of eleven years filed for a divorce. Too much time deployed or spent on field assignments had whittled away their fragile relationship. When he had finally committed to spending more time at home, they both found that their lives had become so separate over the years that there was little that they had left in common. Mitch was eager to work things out but Becky needed more stability and fewer broken promises. The dissolution was done without dispute but Mitch felt like the fabric of his world had been permanently torn, his life spiraling out of control. He poured himself into his work, taking on more training assignments and extra shifts or filling in at his friend’s ranch on the city limits where he currently resided.

  Mitch hovered over the three-man tracking team and observed their progress during the final culmination exercise. His eyes narrowed as he examined the faint boot prints in the sand that his co-instructor, Perry Kovac, had laid down earlier.

  “You’ve picked up all the signs during the last mile of tracking but there’s one thing you may have overlooked,” he said, squatting down beside the three police officers whose dusty gear bore testament to the last few days in the backcountry. The men scrutinized the trail through the sand and cacti that they had just spent the morning covering then they discussed the visual evidence they’d catalogued. Each of them looked at Mitch with puzzled expressions.