I cursed, clenching my fist around the phone. My gut crawled. There was nothing I could do about it, committed to this island raid. We would have to move fast and help Haruto after. I took the radio from my belt and turned it on, wincing at the crackle of static.
“West Squad, ready. Over,” I whispered into the mic.
“North Squad, ready. Over,” came the first reply.
“We need a couple of minutes,” Reid said. “Sorry. Over.”
I grimaced but fought down my frustration. “Radio when in position. Over and out.”
I could barely see Fletcher in the dark as we crouched beside our boat and waited for the action to begin. My knees stiffened in the cold, my wet trousers and boots leaching warmth and dexterity from my legs which I would need as soon as things inevitably went south. I tried to rub some feeling back into my calves, but my gloves were just as wet, and I only succeeded in giving myself a hand cramp.
“Callum.” Fletcher grabbed my shoulder to get my attention, but I didn’t need her to point out what she’d seen as I raised my head. Two white lights were bobbing towards us from the left, accompanied by the drum of feet over stone. We might get away undetected behind our rock shelf, but I didn’t like our odds. One wrong sweep of a torch and it would be all over.
I glanced at Fletcher. We didn’t have much time. She nodded and scooted away from the boat, disappearing into the darkness to flank the pair of sentries. I waited where I was. It looked like they would pass right over the ledge above me. I flattened myself against the rock and turned my face into the stone to hide its white glow, listening as the footsteps grew closer and closer. The shelf was only about five feet tall, but it was slightly concave, hiding the boat from sight.
Well, most of it, anyway.
“Hey, is that--?” one of the sentries began when their light strayed just a little bit too far to the right, but I leapt out of hiding before they could finish, seizing an ankle and yanking it hard. Its owner spilt to the ground where they dropped their torch and let out a sharp cry of pain.
I leapt onto the top of the rock shelf as Fletcher materialized behind the still-standing sentry, wrapping one arm around the man’s neck and bearing him to the ground to keep him from struggling as she squeezed. The sentry I grabbed, a man with a shock of orange hair beneath his hat, managed to flip over onto his back, but he couldn’t decide if he wanted to go for his gun or his radio, and I was able to jump on top of him. I cracked his head against the rock and knocked him out.
We heaved them into our boat to keep them out of the worst of the wind and rain and bound their wrists together with Fletcher’s handcuffs, securing them to the boat with a couple of zip ties tightened around the loop that held the oar in place I scooped up the fallen radio, and we confiscated their guns as well, patting them down to see if there was anything else of interest, but other than a half-eaten bag of Haribo gummies, there wasn’t much.
“South Squad, are you in position?” I said into my own radio. “We already encountered some locals. It’s time to move. Over.”
“We’re in position, over.” Reid’s voice was mostly static but still understandable.
“Then let’s do this. Over and out.”
I glanced around and took in our surroundings before we started to move. There were maybe two hundred metres of open space between us and the back of the building, but there was a chain-link fence right where the stony shore gave way to grass. It was about three metres tall, but it didn’t look like barbed wire topped it.
Fletcher and I ran for the fence. She picked a stick up and carefully poked the chain, checking to see if it was electrified, and when it didn’t spark, we scaled it as quickly and quietly as we could. I struggled to wrap my cold fingers around the wire, and my hips fought me every inch of the way as I swung them over the top, but I was eventually able to drop to the ground, the landing only slightly softened by the layer of grass. I was starting to understand what old age felt like.
The sentry’s radio crackled on my belt. “Ryan, you there? Over.”
I shot Fletcher a slightly panicked look, and she mouthed, “Answer it.”
“I’m here, over.” I could only hope that the radio’s static would distort the differences between my voice and Ryan’s.
“You almost here? I’m freezing my balls off out here, over.”
I cursed. Of course, the patrol we took out was on its way to replace a lookout. “Yeah, almost there. I slipped on a rock, slowed me down. Sorry. Over.”
“What did I tell you about trying to fake the accent, man? It just doesn’t work. Over.” I had no idea what the man’s actual accent was, but the man continued before I had to reply. “Hang on. I think I see movement. S--” Whatever he was going to say cut off as something hit the ground with a thud, and the line went dead, filling my ear with static.
I grinned. That had to be one of my teams, arriving just at the right time.
We were in the clear for the moment, so Fletcher and I ran for the large building, bent almost double. The glow from the windows lit up the grounds around the estate, casting shadows on the two people lounging by the back entrance. We paused behind a bush and watched them, hoping they might just get up and move. I didn’t want to shoot unless we had to, gunfire would only bring every person on the island down on our heads, but
