Ricks road, p.20
Rick's Road,
p.20
This concludes Book 5 of Terkel’s Team: Rick’s Road.
Read about Scott’s Summit: Terkel’s Team, Book 6
Terkel’s Team: Scott’s Summit (Book #6)
Welcome to a brand-new series from USA Today best-selling author Dale Mayer, where dark-ops SEALs have special senses and skills, needed to solve intrigue, betrayal, and … murder. A series with all the elements you’ve come to love, plus so much more, … including psychics!
Everyone has the right to make a mistake, … but the one Naira made isn’t one Scott can forgive. He wakes from a coma, sure that the ex-love of his life had been at his side, but finds no sign of her. When he does see her, he can’t get past a long-ago decision she’d made that tore them apart.
Naira had hoped that Scott would protest her decision way back when, but he didn’t say anything to stop her. Heartbroken, she went ahead with the business marriage to appease her father, which ends in divorce. When Terk called, she came running to Scott’s bedside, even knowing he’d hate to see her when he woke up. But she has always loved him and can only hope he might find his way back to her.
But finding his way back to the team is on his mind, with Naira second. Except that the operatives who took down his team initially are coming around and trying to pick off everyone left alive—and all the people they hold dear, … like Naira.
Find Book 6 here!
To find out more visit Dale Mayer’s website.
Magnus: Shadow Recon (Book #1)
Deep in the permafrost of the Arctic, a joint task force, comprised of over one dozen countries, comes together to level up their winter skills. A mix of personalities, nationalities, and egos bring out the best—and the worst—as these globally elite men and women work and play together. They rub elbows with hardy locals and a group of scientists gathered close by …
One fatality is almost expected with this training. A second is tough but not a surprise. However, when a third goes missing? It’s hard to not be suspicious. When the missing man is connected to one of the elite Maverick team members and is a special friend of Lieutenant Commander Mason Callister? All hell breaks loose …
Lieutenant Commander Mason Callister walked into the private office and stood in front of retired Navy Commander Doran Magellan.
“Mason, good to see you.”
Yet the dry tone of voice, and the scowl pinching the silver-haired man, all belied his words. Mason had known Doran for over a decade, and their friendship had only grown over time.
Mason waited, as he watched the other man try to work the new tech phone system on his desk. With his hand circling the air above the black box, he appeared to hit buttons randomly.
Mason held back his amusement but to no avail.
“Why can’t a phone be a phone anymore?” the commander snapped, as his glare shifted from Mason to the box and back.
Asking the commander if he needed help wouldn’t make the older man feel any better, but sitting here and watching as he indiscriminately punched buttons was a struggle. “Is Helen away?” Mason asked.
“Yes, damn it. She’s at lunch, and I need her to be at lunch.” The commander’s piercing gaze pinned Mason in place. “No one is to know you’re here.”
Solemn, Mason nodded. “Understood.”
“Doran? Is that you?” A crotchety voice slammed into the room through the phone’s speakers. “Get away from that damn phone. You keep clicking buttons in my ear. Get Helen in there to do this.”
“No, she can’t be here for this.”
Silence came first, then a huge groan. “Damn it. Then you should have connected me last, so I don’t have to sit here and listen to you fumbling around.”
“Go pour yourself a damn drink then,” Doran barked. “I’m working on the others.”
A snort was his only response.
Mason bit the inside of his lip, as he really tried to hold back his grin. The retired commander had been hell on wheels while on active duty, and, even now, the retired part of his life seemed to be more of a euphemism than anything.
“Damn things …”
Mason looked around the dark mahogany office and the walls filled with photos, awards, medals. A life of purpose, accomplishment. And all of that had only piqued his interest during the initial call he’d received, telling him to be here at this time.
“Ah, got it.”
Mason’s eyebrows barely twitched, as the commander gave him a feral grin. “I’d rather lead a warship into battle than deal with some of today’s technology.”
As he was one of only a few commanders who’d been in a position to do such a thing, it said much about his capabilities.
And much about current technology.
The commander leaned back in his massive chair and motioned to the cart beside Mason. “Pour three cups.”
Interesting. Mason walked a couple steps across the rich tapestry-style carpet and lifted the silver service to pour coffee into three very down-to-earth-looking mugs.
“Black for me.”
Mason picked up two cups and walked one over to Doran.
“Thanks.” He leaned forward and snapped into the phone, “Everyone here?”
Multiple voices responded.
Curiouser and curiouser. Mason recognized several of the voices. Other relics of an era gone by. Although not a one would like to hear that, and, in good faith, it wasn’t fair. Mason had thought each of these men were retired, had relinquished power. Yet, as he studied Doran in front of him, Mason had to wonder if any of them actually had passed the baton or if they’d only slid into the shadows. Was this planned with the government’s authority? Or were these retirees a shadow group to the government?
The tangible sense of power and control oozed from Doran’s words, tone, stature—his very pores. This man might be heading into his sunset years—based on a simple calculation of chronological years spent on the planet—but he was a long way from being out of the action.
“Mason …” Doran began.
“Sir?”
“We’ve got a problem.”
Mason narrowed his gaze and waited.
Doran’s glare was hard, steely hard, with an icy glint. “Do you know the Mavericks?”
Mason’s eyebrows shot up. The black ops division was one of those well-kept secrets, so, therefore, everyone knew about it. He gave a decisive nod. “I do.”
“And you’re involved in the logistics behind the ICE training program in the Arctic, are you not?”
“I am.” Now where was the commander going with this?
“Do you know another SEAL by the name of Mountain Rode? He’s been working for the black ops Mavericks.” At his own words, the commander shook his head. “What the hell was his mother thinking when she gave him that moniker?”
“She wasn’t thinking anything,” said the man with a hard voice from behind Mason.
He stiffened slightly, then relaxed as he recognized that voice too.
“She died giving birth to me. And my full legal name is Mountain Bear Rode. It was my father’s doing.”
The commander glared at the new arrival. “Did I say you could come in?”
“Yes.” Mountain’s voice was firm, yet a definitive note of affection filled his tone.
That emotion told Mason so much.
The commander harrumphed, then cleared his throat. “Mason, we’re picking up a significant amount of chatter over that ICE training. Most of it good. Some of it the usual caterwauling we’ve come to expect every time we participate in a joint training mission. This one is set to run for six months, then to reassess.”
Mason already knew this. But he waited for the commander to get around to why Mason was here, and, more important, what any of this had to do with the mountain of a man who now towered beside him.
The commander shifted his gaze to Mountain, but he remained silent.
Mason noted Mountain was not only physically big but damn imposing and severely pissed, seemingly barely holding back the forces within. His body language seemed to yell, And the world will fix this, or I’ll find the reason why.
For a moment Mason felt sorry for the world.
Finally a voice spoke through the phone. “Mason, this is Alpha here. I run the Mavericks. We’ve got a problem with that ICE training center. Mountain, tell him.”
Mason shifted to include Mountain in his field of vision. Mason wished the other men on the conference call were in the room too. It was one thing to deal with men you knew and could take the measure of; it was another when they were silent shadows in the background.
“My brother is one of the men who reported for the Artic training three weeks ago.”
“Tergan Rode?” Mason confirmed. “I’m the one who arranged for him to go up there. He’s a great kid.”
A glimmer of a smile cracked Mountain’s stony features. He nodded. “Indeed. A bright light in my often dark world. He’s a dozen years younger than me, just passed his BUD/s training this spring, and raring to go. Until his raring to go then got up and went.”
Oh, shit. Mason’s gaze zinged to the commander, who had kicked up his feet to rest atop the big desk. Stocking feet. With Mickey Mouse images dancing on them. Sidetracked, Mason struggled to pull his attention back to Mountain. “Meaning?”
“He’s disappeared.” Mountain let out a harsh breath, as if just saying that out loud, and maybe to the right people, could allow him to relax—at least a little.
The commander spoke up. “We need your help, Mason. You’re uniquely qualified for this problem.”
It didn’t sound like he was qualified in any way for anything he’d heard so far. “Clarify.” His spoken word was simplicity itself, but the tone behind it said he wanted the cards on the table … now.
Mountain spoke up. “He’s the third incident.”
Mason’s gaze narrowed, as the reports from the training camp rolled through his mind. “One was Russian. One was from the German SEAL team. Both were deemed accidental deaths.”
“No, they weren’t.”
There it was. The root of the problem in black-and-white. He studied Mountain, aiming for neutrality. “Do you have evidence?”
“My brother did.”
“Ah, hell.”
Mountain gave a clipped nod. “I’m going to find him.”
“Of that I have no doubt,” Mason said quietly. “Do you have a copy of the evidence he collected?”
“I have some of it.” Mountain held out a USB key. “This is your copy. Top secret.”
“We don’t have to remind you, Mason, that lives are at stake,” Doran added. “Nor do we need another international incident. Consider also that a group of scientists, studying global warming, is close by, and not too far away is a village home to a few hardy locals.”
Mason accepted the key, turned to the commander, and asked, “Do we know if this is internal or enemy warfare?”
“We don’t know at this point,” Alpha replied through the phone. “Mountain will lead Shadow Recon. His mission is twofold. One, find out what’s behind these so-called accidents and put a stop to it by any means necessary. Two, locate his brother, hopefully alive.”
“And where do I come in?” Mason asked.
“We want you to pull together a special team. The members of Shadow Recon will report to both you and Mountain, just in case.”
That was clear enough.
“You’ll stay stateside but in constant communication with Mountain—with the caveat that, if necessary, you’re on the next flight out.”
“What about bringing in other members from the Mavericks?” Mason suggested.
Alpha took this question too, his response coming through via Speakerphone. “We don’t have the numbers. The budget for our division has been cut. So we called the commander to pull some strings.”
That was Doran’s cue to explain further. “Mountain has fought hard to get me on board with this plan, and I’m here now. The navy has a special budget for Shadow Recon and will take care of Mountain and you, Mason, and the team you provide.”
“Skills needed?”
“Everything,” Mountain said, his voice harsh. “But the biggest is these men need to operate in the shadows, mostly alone, without a team beside them. Too many new arrivals will alert the enemy. If we make any changes to the training program, it will raise alarms. We’ll move the men in one or two at a time on the same rotation that the trainees are running right now.”
“And when we get to the bottom of this?” Mason looked from the commander back to Mountain.
“Then the training can resume as usual,” Doran stated.
Mason immediately churned through the names already popping up in his mind. How much could he tell his men? Obviously not much. Hell, he didn’t know much himself. How much time did he have? “Timeline?”
The commander’s final word told him of the urgency.
“Yesterday.”
Find Magnus here!
To find out more visit Dale Mayer’s website.
Author’s Note
Thank you for reading Rick’s Road: Terkel’s Team, Book 5! If you enjoyed the book, please take a moment and leave a short review here.
Dear reader,
I love to hear from readers, and you can contact me at my website: www.dalemayer.com or at my Facebook author page. To be informed of new releases and special offers, sign up for my newsletter or follow me on BookBub. And if you are interested in joining Dale Mayer’s Reader Group, here is the Facebook sign up page.
Cheers,
Dale Mayer
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About the Author
Dale Mayer is a USA Today best-selling author, best known for her SEALs military romances, her Psychic Visions series, and her Lovely Lethal Garden cozy series. Her contemporary romances are raw and full of passion and emotion (Broken But … Mending, Hathaway House series). Her thrillers will keep you guessing (Kate Morgan, By Death series), and her romantic comedies will keep you giggling (It’s a Dog’s Life, a stand-alone novella; and the Broken Protocols series, starring Charming Marvin, the cat).
Dale honors the stories that come to her—and some of them are crazy, break all the rules and cross multiple genres!
To go with her fiction, she also writes nonfiction in many different fields, with books available on résumé writing, companion gardening, and the US mortgage system. All her books are available in print and ebook format.
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RICK’S ROAD: TERKEL’S TEAM, BOOK 5
Dale Mayer
Valley Publishing Ltd.
Copyright © 2022
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN-13: 978-1773365-20-6
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Dale Mayer, Rick's Road
