SEAL Team Six: Hunt the Fox Read Online Free Page A

feel responsible in any way?”
    “Yes. Absolutely. Like I said…I should have considered it. I should have known it was a possibility that the cartel leader would go after our families. I was so focused on what I was doing, it didn’t cross my mind.”
    It hadn’t crossed the minds of his superiors at HQ, either. But he didn’t mention that.
      
    He parked the bike outside the hotel, waited a minute to see if anyone was following, then passed through the carpeted lobby, trying not to drip blood on the white marble patches. Sundry quick impressions registered in his head—stately, old world, regal, sophisticated, a faint smell of jasmine. White filigreed ceilings, blown-glass chandeliers.
    He stood at the rear of the elevator, trying not to draw attention. A man in his condition didn’t belong here.
    He waited another thirty seconds for anyone to enter the lobby, then pushed the button for the sixth floor. A young European couple hurried from inside the hotel and entered just as the doors were closing. He looked them over carefully and relaxed when he realized they were too soft and distracted to be agents or operatives.
    As the elevator ascended they spoke to each another in French, complaining about the size of their bed.
    Enjoy your life while you have it. Forget the size of the bed, and make love on the floor.
    He smiled at them briefly, exited at the sixth floor, found the stairway, and climbed to seven. Waited at the stairway door to see whether the elevator stopped there. It didn’t.
    Stood for several seconds listening outside room 732, wondering if it was unwise to even be here. Maybe he was still in shock. He punched the buzzer.
    Jim Anders answered, wearing a blue oxford shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows, looking fit and rested. Early forties, medium height, clean-cut with a bodybuilder’s physique. A shorter, younger, brown-haired woman in a blue business suit stood behind him.
    “Welcome, Crocker. This is Janice Bloom. Janice is a targeter and analyst working on the Syrian account.…Jesus—you okay?” he asked, seeing the blood on Crocker’s white shirt. “What happened?”
    “Hi, Janice,” Crocker said. He turned to Anders. “We need to talk in private.”
    Anders shut the door and flipped the lock behind him. “Talk? Are you aware that you’re bleeding?”
    “Yes.”
    They were in a suite with a big living room containing a table and four chairs set in front of the window. Dark hardwood floors, maroon brocade curtains. A big bed was visible through a door to the right. Classy in an old-world way.
    “Point me toward the bathroom and I’ll clean up,” Crocker said.
    “Here?”
    “Yeah.” He grabbed Anders by the elbow. “Come with me.”
    “Okay. Janice, wait here. Call a doctor.”
    “No,” Crocker said. “No need.”
    Anders pulled his cell out of his pocket. “You’re bleeding, Crocker. For Christ’s sake.”
    “It’s a flesh wound,” countered Crocker. “Janice, please call downstairs for some towels, hydrogen peroxide, bandages, and tape, and I’ll do this myself.”
    Anders pointed to the bathroom by the front door. “Jesus, Crocker, what happened?”
    Crocker closed the door behind him.
    “Two punks on a Kawasaki,” he said in a low voice. “I was with Jared.” Then he remembered. “Fuck….”
    They stood in the white marble bathroom. Anders’s face reflected in the mirror looked alarmed. “What? Is he injured, too? Where is he? He’s supposed to be here.”
    “Jared’s dead.”
    Crocker pulled two shards of glass out of his right forearm as the news sunk in. When he looked up into the mirror he saw Anders hold his chest as though he’d been shot.
    “What?”
    “Jared’s dead. I left him lying on the street with his brains spilled out.”
    “What the hell are you—Jared, the young case officer?”
    Crocker held his forearm under warm water, wrapped it tightly in a towel, and waited for the bleeding to stop.
    “They were attempting to