there.”
“Holy sh-We’ve got to get out of here!”
“We go get my folks and my brother, right?”
“No. We head for the woods and take cover from your apocalyptic brew.”
“John, I’m not leaving-”
“You are leaving.
He made a grab for her legs and she danced back from him. She glanced over at the cauldron, which was definitely beginning to smoke. The smell of ether was strong in the air, too.
“Honey, there are fifteen commandos out there, waiting for me to get you out of here. They can’t do anything until you’re secured.”
“Commandos? I thought you said they were your buddies…”
“They are. I’ll explain outside.” He grabbed her upper arm in his powerful grasp, and all but lifted her off the ground as he propelled her from the building. Once outside, her instinct to get away from the lab took over, and she sprinted beside John for the trees.
The flash came first. She and John leaped simultaneously for a huge, downed tree, landing across it and rolling behind it as a deafening concussion of sound slammed into her. She clapped her hands over her ears as the explosion rocked through the forest. John rolled on top of her, shielding her as debris and tree branches rained down from above for several seconds.
“You okay?” he bit out.
She nodded beneath him, too crushed to make a sound.
He rolled off of her and she popped up beside him to peer at her handiwork. Another explosion sent a fireball up into the night just then, and they ducked behind the log once more.
John shook his head at her in amazement.
She grinned back. “Can I cook, or can I cook?”
Static crackled in John’s ear and then Hathaway’s voice materialized from the chaotic noise. “Report, Cowboy! What the hell was that?”
He keyed his microphone. “Mel thought we could use a diversion.”
“Remind me never to piss her off,” Hathaway bit out. “All teams report.”
A quick checkoff revealed that everyone had survived the blast, including the team trapped in the bunker, although a couple of their guys had busted eardrums. A moment of silence ensued, and then shouting voices erupted over the radios.
“…incoming fire!”
“Say location!”
“…coming out of the woods…”
“…surrounded…”
John whirled to face the slope behind them, his back against the log. “Get on the other side of the log. Now,” he ordered Melina tersely.
She rolled across the broad surface, and as John plunked down beside her, asked him, “What’s happening?”
“Ambush. Huayar’s got more men out there.”
She cast her mind back frantically to the briefing she’d overheard earlier. “Does it mean anything when Huayar said, ‘Deploy fire teams one through four on the ridges. On my signal close the net’?”
John stared at her. “Where did you hear that?”
“It’s what Huayar told his men earlier.”
“How many men does he have?”
“He had about six men around the table with him. I think they each had about twenty-five men.”
Crap. He keyed his mike. “Mel says total troop strength is around 150. With the fifty in the camp, we’re looking at about a hundred men closing from the ridges in four fire teams.”
He didn’t need to be standing beside Hathaway to hear the guy swearing under his breath and thinking fast. How in the hell were they supposed to get out of here with a force that size closing on them if they couldn’t shoot back?
“What’s going on?” Mel whispered insistently beside him.
“About a hundred of Huayar’s men are coming down the hills and shooting at us.”
“So shoot back!”
“Can’t. We’re here strictly on a search-and-rescue. No authorization to engage in a firefight.”
She looked appalled. “Do you people need me to run down into the middle of camp so you’ll technically be rescuing me?”
“It would help.” The comment slipped out before he thought about it. And he knew it was a mistake the second the words left his mouth.
Melina was up and on her feet, darting down the hill before he could make a swipe at her and grab her. Dammit! He jumped up and took off running after her, calling into his mike as he went, “Melina is entering camp from the south end. Bring all resources to bear on her and keep any hostiles from approaching her!”
Hathaway shot back, “What’s she doing?”
“Turning this fiasco into a search-and-rescue so we can open fire, dammit!”
A short pause, then Hathaway replied, “You heard the man. All hands are greenlighted to fire to protect the lady.”
John’s eyes went wide as he realized what Hathaway had in mind. All of his men would fire into the camp- aiming nearly at Melina-and knock out any person who approached her. They would lay down a veritable wall of covering fire around her. It was incredibly dangerous. A single bullet off target would kill her. One unlucky ricochet, one round passing through a hostile and striking her, and she’d die. Hathaway expected her to stand out in the middle of the fish barrel while all of Bravo Squad fired around her.
Sure, it was an exercise they practiced in their hostage rescue training, to shoot around the innocent, missing the victim by a whisker while they took out the hostiles. But that innocent was Melina! And there was nothing to stop Huayar from turning his weapon on her and taking her out except his lust for a drug recipe, and the wealth and power it represented.
Melina screeched to a halt in the dead center of the camp, where the bonfire had been until the flood of water extinguished it. She shouted up into the night, “Here I am! Come and get me, Huayar!”
A dozen hostiles rushed her…and dropped in a neat ring around her.
John’s earpiece erupted once more. “…more incoming fire from our flanks…hostiles in sight on the ridge… request instructions…” And then shots rang out behind John. He ducked as a chip of wood flew up from the log above his head. He ducked and took cover from the advancing wave of hostiles from above.
He desperately wanted to join Melina, but these guys would shoot him in the back long before he reached her. He had to take them out first.
Hathaway’s disgusted voice came across the radios. “Screw this. Fire at will, men. Take these assholes down. All of them.”
John’s sigh of relief was heartfelt. Hathaway had probably just thrown away his career, but he’d also given Bravo Squad and the Montez family a fighting chance at getting out of here. It was a ballsy call, but ultimately the right thing to do. God bless Brady Hathaway.
A barrage of lead from above drew his attention. The Peruvians might be good, but he and his gear were better. He flipped on the heat-painting feature of his night-vision goggles, and the hidden forms of Huayar’s men leaped out in bright, white relief. He picked them off like ducks in a shooting gallery. It probably took less than a minute to wipe out every form on the hill, but it felt like much longer to him.
Every blob that tumbled down the hillside was therapeutic. How many times he’d played this scenario in his head, of being healthy and armed and able to shoot back at his ambushers, he couldn’t count. But dammit, this time he wasn’t going down without a fight.
A second wave of hostiles came into sight on the hillside. This bunch had figured out his location, and he was forced to move. He made a shooting retreat down into the camp, using the nearest shack for cover as he made his way toward Melina.
Somewhere in the midst of carnage, an odd thing happened. Peace came over him. An inner quiet he hadn’t
