The Colonel the Cove and the Dog that Didn't Bark (The Jackson Blackhawk Series Book 6)

There were ten members of the Black Mamba covert team. Nine men, one woman. Alphabetically their code names were Adam, Blackhawk, Charlie, Dakota, Echo, Fabian, Gumbo, Hero, Indigo and Jackson.They didn’t get to choose their names, the Colonel did.Once their code name was chosen and the team formed, their old names and their old history disappeared from government records. They no longer existed. County courthouse records just disappeared. No birth records, no census records, no school records. Gone.They all had similar experiences. They were all orphans. All young. All joined the Navy voluntarily. All excelled in boot camp. All excelled in special exercises. All were selected to the Navy Seals program. All exceeded. That’s when the strange things started to happen.After Seals, all were sent for specialized Ranger training. This wasn’t normal. They were sent to special camps that taught intense problem solving. And the really strange things. They were taught covert ways to kill. And they were good at it. Use a pencil. Use a bottle cap. Use your fingernails. Everyone on the team had a singular purpose; to be the best at whatever they were being taught.Indigo was the only woman. Adam was the only one stupid enough to make a comment about it. She took him down so fast that no one knew what had happened until it was over. Is he dead? someone said. She spat to the side and said If I had wanted him dead, he would be. Adam was very quiet after that. Fabian was the only ethnic. A black man from Jamaica. He hated his code name. He said it sounded like a pussy-boy doo wop singer with bad hair from Philadelphia. He mentioned it once to the Colonel. Later he told us that this was met with a look that froze his pod. End of subject.The Colonel was very good at what he did. If he worked for the government, you couldn’t find it. No one knew how many teams there were, no one knew if there was another team at all. The Colonel ran your team, and it ran like a Shelby Cobra. He always had all the right intel and Black Mamba always got the job done. There were some code words that were unique to the team. Red 22 meant abort and get the hell out of there. J-Okay mission accomplished, now get the hell out of there. Then there was the one we never wanted to hear. Deep Purple. This one sent shivers down the spine. One of the team had been captured. Each one was indispensable, having been taught specific skills that none of the others could duplicate. To lose a member was equal to losing an intricate part of the well-tuned engine.Jackson had only heard it used once, but with Blackhawk’s leadership all had turned out well. But now when Jackson’s phone rang and he heard Martha, the Colonel’s wife, on the other end. He heard it again."Jackson?""Yes Ma'am.""Deep Purple," she said.The Colonel had been taken. Read more