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Sam Hobbs from SEAL Team 3 was his coms guy, but he could second as a sniper. He also was good with throwing hatchets and knives and created his own designs that were wicked-looking, only selling them to Team Guys. Knute Thayer was one medic, and Caesar Goya was the second. Both these men were recruited/recommended from SEAL Team 3. Both were ten-year men and had experienced lots of bloody combat. Kyle had mentioned they were on their way out and looking for a command they could still participate in. They were best friends and had daughters in college they were struggling to pay for. The extra money was a godsend.
Carl Womack was the other sniper from SEAL Team 3 and rounded out the group with Hamish McDougall, also an explosives expert. Carl had come through a nasty divorce and had been considering transferring to Team 4 on the East Coast, until Kyle talked him into working with Silver Team. He had never wanted to leave Coronado anyway. Harper had already joked with him that he’d made a good decision, since, in Harper’s opinion, it was easier to pick up girls in California than Little Creek.
He was looking forward to working with these men, and the fact that they had been prior vetted and made the list, probably by somebody from a West Coast Team, made Harper feel more comfortable.
They were starting already to feel like family. That was important.
Other players might be picked up for the Silver Team project later on. He knew there were a couple of great CIA assets as well as State Department special agents, and there could be a time when these would be important to a team. But for right now, just to keep things simple, he wanted everyone to have been in the same kind of training, the same level of knowledge, and already used to working together as a team over and over and over again, which was the strongest thing about their SEAL community.
Carl Womack arrived with Caesar Goya, introducing themselves and setting their duffel bags down on the floor. Carl brought a large special case for his long gun.
“Welcome, Gentlemen. We’re going to have some fun, aren’t we?”
Caesar had questions. “So it’s Italy? They say it’s Italy, right?”
“Yes. I will have a briefing on the plane, if we can hear. The guy we’re looking for is Jakob Lipori, who also has solid terrorist bona fides. A dangerous dude for sure.”
“So is this a capture or kill?” asked Womack.
“It’s capture. They want to try them in U.S. Military court for atrocities. I’m not sure if I told all of you, but Mr. Lipori is the sniper responsible for the death of my wife. Some of you, I told this to on the phone, while others I didn’t, so there it is. And I’m okay if you tell others. Once we get to Italy, though, we’re going to be on complete silence. Nothing that we do here in the States is going to be spoken about overseas. We always did that when we went to the Middle East and Africa. I see no reason to change that rule just because we’re in a NATO country. It’s just as dangerous, and it could be just as crucial for the success of the team.”
“Oh, I hear you, Boss. I’m in total agreement with that,” said Carl.
Paul Taylor and Hamish arrived next. It was a natural occurrence that all of the men who had been trained on SEAL Teams would semicircle, rearranging the chairs. It was their way of sharing information and discussing things without leaving anybody out. Knute and Caesar compared medic bags and medic packs, discussing a couple of things they might want to pick up when they got to Norfolk. Harper said he’d make sure they had what they needed by the time they landed and sent a text to Patterson to make sure it was going to happen.
Sam Hobbs and Sean Daly were friends, married to twin sisters. Hobbs was on SEAL Team 3, and Daly was on SEAL Team 5. They had told Harper they were looking forward to finally getting to work together after both of them being on the teams over fifteen years. Their experience almost eclipsed that of Harper’s.
They loaded up and quickly took off for Norfolk. The interior of the transport was so rattling and noisy it made the discussion Harper was going to have impossible. The next leg of the trip was in a commercial jet, and they had the entire plane to themselves. These were the jets used to transport migrants from the border to various cities throughout the United States and, in some cases, deport them.
He went over the plan, the assignments as far as who was going to stay where. Harper put three people in the house in Imprunetta, the little village they were staying at outside of Florence, and he put five, including himself, at the villa.
He showed the men all the areas where Lipori had been seen and showed on a map of the town where the market was on Fridays, which would be a good way to informally get information and perhaps speak with the man or parts of his staff. Any extra intel or information they could dig up would help later when they made the extraction.
“I’ve been told we can bring him back by any means necessary, including medical inducement. We are not to cause death. And we want to especially be careful about any of the innocents that he may have in his employment. If there is any resistance, then those individuals will have to be arrested, and we’ll let the Navy sort it out later. We have absolute authority to be able to bring anybody of interest to the United States. This has all been approved in advance by our State Department. You don’t have to concern yourself about international law, as far as we know. That said, things happen, but that’s the plan,” he finished.
There were a few questions, the smattering of jokes, and some casual banter, but Harper liked the way the Team held together. It seemed to have a cohesive jelling quality to it, everyone was cooperative, and he didn’t pick out any red flags or social media misbehavior. He also recommended no one go off and do anything by themselves, which would leave himself and the rest of the team very vulnerable.
“You want to go in pairs everywhere, ideally threes or fours. I think you could pose as tourists, because we are only going to be there for a short period of time. It’s okay to be identified as American.”
“Any suggestions on the pronouns we should use?” asked Sean. Everyone chuckled.
“In your case, Sean, it’s ‘It, Me, and Fuck Off.’ Got it?”
“I’m crystal clear with that, Boss. Just keeping us straight.”
“And we protect all colors, creeds, and shoe sizes. The gender thing I’m having a problem with right now, but I’ll tell you if I’m able to figure it out.”
It was always good when the Team Leader had the group laugh at his jokes. Harper watched as the guys gave him that, and more.
“You can flirt with girls. You just don’t want to flirt with any of the authorities, especially the Italian police.”
They landed in Florence just as the sun was setting. It was a gorgeous approach to the city proper with a pinkish purple sky as a background to the red brick and tile roofed buildings and golden church spires. Florence was a big city with a dynamic but dangerous city center.
After they loaded up in their rental vehicles, which surprisingly took little time, they headed west into the rural farming areas and small villages encircling the Florence area. There were very few huge farms or conglomerates, the largest being wineries with vines extending forever in neat rows trailing up over the gentle sloping hills. It reminded Harper of scenes from Sonoma County where he grew up.
Unlike most U.S. cities, Florence was steeped in over a thousand years of history. The powerful Medici family had made an imprint on the whole region that remained to this day. They had contributed museums, cathedrals, libraries, and large state buildings. All kinds of unique architecture filled the city, full of culture and some of the finest collections of paintings in the world. But once their travels took them outside into the rural area, that’s where Harper’s chest began to relax, and he was able to breathe the fresh country air. Life wasn’t hurried here. Frequently they had to slowly travel behind a tractor or a wooden cart pulled by a donkey that had no room to pull over or go around.
They found people of all ages, including the elderly, used bicycles close to town. The young kids used electric bikes and sometimes skateboards or small scooters. Along the road, they passed clusters of students on scooters, sometimes all girls and sometimes mixed couples. In the little town of Imprunetta, there were several delis downtown they hit up first, since both the house and the apartment came unstocked with anything other than just basic necessities.
