Ghostwalker 08 - Street Game

who protect
    against evil forces using
    psychic powers, courage,
    and honor

    13

    The GhostWalker Creed

    We are the GhostWalkers, we live in the shadows
    The sea, the earth, and the air are our domain
    No fallen comrade will be left behind
    We are loyalty and honor bound
    We are invisible to our enemies
    and we destroy them where we find them
    We believe in justice and we protect our country
    and those unable to protect themselves
    What goes unseen, unheard, and unknown
    are GhostWalkers
    There is honor in the shadows and it is us
    We move in complete silence whether
    in jungle or desert
    We walk among our enemy unseen and unheard
    Striking without sound and scatter to the winds
    before they have knowledge of our existence
    We gather information and wait with endless patience for that perfect moment to deliver swift justice
    We are both merciful and merciless
    We are relentless and implacable in our resolve
    We are the GhostWalkers and the night is ours

    14

CHAPTER 1

    Black night. No moon, no stars. Just the way he liked it. Master Gunnery Sergeant Mack McKinley crouched in the alley, close to the tall, dirty building, allowing his senses to become tuned to the familiar sounds. A cat raked through a garbage can, a drunk moaned and shivered in the cold. Waves pounded the beach and sloshed against the pier just behind the building. Three stories up, lights went out, leaving the long row of windows like giant, gaping black mouths. McKinley smiled at the image, smiled up at the windows. His smile was not pleasant.
    This was the all-important tip. Tracking the explosives through Lebanon, Beirut, the South American freighter. And then to San Francisco. Always one step behind. He had moved fast to check out the information, praying it was correct. They had less than twenty-four hours to find the guns and the five-man unit of Doomsday. He sneered at the name of the terrorist unit, but he had to give them kudos for scaring the crap out of every country they had visited. They left behind wreckage and carnage and death. More—they left behind fear.
    Urban warfare was an art any way one looked at it. His team had knowledge of the streets, were the best there was, but it was dangerous work, and required a cool head. Too many civilians, too many potential hostages, too damn many things to go wrong. But his men were good at it, more than good—he counted them among the best, and Sergeant Major Theodore Griffen wanted Doomsday taken out. And when the sergeant major gave an order, it was carried out immediately and to the letter.
    The warehouse was wired. He knew it, could feel it. But something . . . His men were in position, waiting for him. As always, First Sergeant Kane Cannon was at his back.
    They’d started on the streets together, two kids trying to stay alive, eventually pulling in six other boys and two girls, all with different abilities to make up their ragtag family.

    From the streets Kane and Mack and one of the girls—Mack didn’t want to think about her—had gone on to college. The others had gone into the Marine Corps. All had a gift for languages as well as many other things, such as what he was doing now.
    They were recruited right out of school and trained as operatives until the psychic testing. That had been a huge mistake, and all of his family had followed him—as they always did.
    Force Recon—Special Forces. Psychic testing where they’d all come back together, just like on the street. More specialized training. SEAL training. Urban war games. Even more specialized training until they were pretty much killing machines.
    They had stuck together and knew one another’s every move. They trusted one another and no one else, not in the business they were in. Well . . . with the exception 15

    of the new kid, but that was a whole other story. It was no good thinking about that right now, not when he was surrounded with the ones he loved, leading them into a situation that was explosive at the very least.
    Mack signaled for the others to pull down their night goggles, making it easy to see in the blackness of the night. He and Kane didn’t need them. They could both see in the dark as easily as during the day. A result of the experiments they’d lent themselves to. Stupid, but they’d done it for the good of the country and their need for a home. Yeah, he knew the psychological bullshit everyone spouted. It was probably all true too, but he didn’t much care. It was also one hell of an