His blood pulsed with a surge of adrenaline in a prepared-to-fight mode, but he wanted the team to be on the same sheet of music. “How many tangos behind us and how large were the gaps?” he asked in a take-charge voice. “Enough for us to slip through?”
Doc answered first. “Roger.”
“Negative,” Stone said in a clipped voice.
“Doc?” he prompted.
“Twenty. Ten each side. Either leaving the exit open for us to walk into their trap or closing in on us.”
Definite setup. He hated making the hard decision, but he had to so they could run a successful op. “Well, boys and girls—” Danny started.
“There ain’t no fucking girls on our team anymore,” Cowboy corrected him.
“I don’t know, Cowboy,” Stone taunted, “you seem to get your panties in a wad quite often.”
Too worried about them getting out of here to their extraction point, their friendly banter slid over him, but having it was normal until go-time. “Okay, boys—and I use that word lightly—I’m not saying anything you’re not thinking. This reeks setup. First, our ride isn’t on time, and the enemy provides a perfect path back to them? Only an idiot wouldn’t catch that. Standby.”
Slipping his backpack to the ground, he slid the zipper, greased, so it wouldn’t make a sound, opened, pulled out the sat phone, and dialed the op line. As expected, the answer came before the first ring ended.
“Go,” AJ Hamilton—youngest Hamilton brother—clipped.
“We don’t have a bird or much time,” Danny stated briskly.
“What do you mean?”
AJ’s muffled voice called for Devon to the phone while using another to call about the transport. When would AJ learn to completely cover the mouthpiece when expecting it to mute? Danny shook his head at that.
A second click on the phone line told him Devon—who a few sometimes referred to as Big Voice—had joined the call. Good. He wouldn’t have to repeat anything and Devon would be working that computer of his.
“We’re boxed in.” The rapidly coiling tension in his gut nearly paralyzed him. He’d led his men into a death, capture, or torture situation unless they got the bird where they had a smaller gunfight to make their exit.
When they’d seen two guards roaming the area, they were too far away to waste ammo. On their planned route, they found a location to dig in and wait. He didn’t like being so close to a drop-off on the one side because they could get pinned down if things didn’t go as planned.
“We’ve got the package but no ride.”
“Shit.”
“Get us a ride. I can get us somewhere for a while, then I’ll have to walk our asses back home.” The low growl in his voice came from deep within and controlled the depth of his surging anger.
“They’re not there?” AJ snapped.
To the team, he ordered, “Close recon. No heroes. Watch your six.”
Doc moved beside him and attached a harness to the little five-year-old sleeping boy and attached that to his chest. With Doc being the largest and the kid’s legs the shortest, it made sense to connect him for a safer carry.
“No, we’d hear the bird if it was close, AJ,” Danny belatedly answered his question. “And it’s pretty quiet. Except for the stink of a setup.”
“Why do you think setup?” AJ said.
Danny snorted. Thank goodness Devon was on the ball with getting their ride. “They showed up after we collected the boy and went straight for us, not the house.”
“Fuck.”
“I second that.” Danny wondered why Devon hadn’t already had something for them. He always did.
Speak of the devil. Devon always came through for them. “Your backup is there.”
“The fuck you say. It’s quiet. No extra bodies around unless they’re ghosts.” Then it hit him. Spooks. They were pretty much ghosts. “Got it.”
“They’re in a bird hovering near your location,” Devon informed him.
He wished the two brothers were here to realize what they said wasn’t true. “Impossible. It’s too quiet not to hear a bird.” They rode in on one near their current spot. There wasn’t one near.
He could hear the smile in Devon’s voice. “Trust me.”
A shiver of fear slid up his spine resting on his shoulders where he kept the lives of his men, but he did extend that trust.
To the team, he ordered, “On me.”
Always the ‘you can’t bring me too much intel’ guy, Devon instructed, “Get me all the intel you can. Nothing is too small.”
Like they hadn’t heard that before. Gunfire ripped his attention away. “Sitrep.” His heart pounded. He needed the situation reports from his returning team members. Maybe they could fight their way out, but probably not.
“These fuckers are closing in,” Cowboy whispered in his mic.
“Our bird’s nearby.”
Danny’s mind whirled for a long moment. If they could— “Are any holes still open?”
“Negative,” Doc said.
“Negative,” Stone added.
“Who took the gunfire?”
Each man denied it, which made things more Charlie Foxtrot—clusterfuck.
Fuck! His trust was wavering. He had to get his team and their package out of here, and it was too late to turn back.
Devon came back on the phone when Danny was about to hang up. “They’re on the cliff. Just north of where you arrived.”
“Hell no!” he almost screamed into the phone. “We’ll get pinned down.”
“Your bird will be there before you make it. Trust me, Danny,” Devon requested once again.
With a sigh that couldn’t wash away the cold sweat covering his body, he remembered Devon had never steered them wrong. “Okay, we’re moving.” He disconnected, tossed the sat phone in his backpack, and hurriedly slipped it over his shoulders. Gut deep worry that he would bring them to their death, stuck at the cliff.
“We gotta blow this joint and fast,” Cowboy stated, breathing a little heavy.
“Together, we head to the cliff.”
A frustrated quiet filled the air, so Danny explained, “Devon says they’re there.”
They headed
