Killing Dragons

Chapter 6

Six

Eighteen Years Earlier

Mosquito Coast

Mainland Honduras

“Don’t shoot until shot upon.”

That was the order Thomas had given his SEAL team in an attempt to follow rules of engagement. They were going in silent. He was a young officer, and this was his chance to prove his mettle.

Fighting the War on Drugs, his team had tracked a small submarine, thought to harbor a cartel leader, to this forsaken swampy backwater where the mangroves were thick, and the humid air was heavy with the smell of seawater and something fetid. As they spread out and approached the wooden shack in the distance, he heard dogs barking and children crying. His ears sharpened, and he picked up a rustling under the thick cover—then a muffled cry and a sickening laugh.

His Heckler & Koch submachine gun held at the ready, Thomas followed the sounds. When his night-vision goggles illuminated two forms struggling beneath a tree between him and the house—a man and a woman—he broke into a sprint. He hit the stocky man hard with the butt of his gun, then grabbed him by his collar and flung him aside. The wide-eyed woman on the ground proved to be no more than a girl.

Thomas’s gut clenched. What was he going to do with her?

In this moment of indecision, the man fled into the palms, and the girl sprang to her feet and ran toward the house. Then Thomas had to set aside his regret at letting the man get away, as gunfire suddenly poured through the trees from all sides. Someone fled from the house, chased by a woman’s shrill scream, and Thomas raised his gun and aimed at the fleeing figure.

It was just a boy.

A boy who fell, dead of a gunshot wound. Thomas saw the whole thing up close and personal, through his scope.

Later he would find that his magazine was full. He’d never fired a shot. But he could have. He very nearly did. And the guilt of that plagued him. Even worse, his regret stung—he should have shot that drug lord when he had the chance.