“Always.”
8
“How bad is this?” Kane leaned over and asked Leo.
Leo could hear the stress in Kane’s voice. Some of it was because the last drone flyover that everybody was anticipating didn’t come back with any good photos because of the sandstorm. But a lot of it had to do with the fucking weather.
Leo looked out the Blackhawk’s gunner door’s window. The dust wind that had subsided two hours ago before they had departed had suddenly come on strong again. If he had to guess it was damn near eighty miles an hour. The only good thing that Leo could see was that there weren’t thick pillars of dust coming at them, but that’s because of their altitude. God knew what it was like on the ground.
The pilot was going to have to determine what the situation on the ground was like before choosing to land. If it was impossible to see because of the sandstorm, then the smartest thing to do would be to abort the mission. Even with the synthetic vision system, there was too much of a chance that the wind could cause the helicopter to bounce around to hell and back, no matter how good the pilot was, and the surroundings had too many hills and big rocks to take the chance of landing without good sight.
“Kane, the only good thing we have going for us is that nobody will hear us coming.”
“I love how this guy can see the bright side of every situation.” Cullen grinned as he looped his arm around Leo’s neck. “Too bad it’s too dark for you to read a book tonight, huh?”
“Dumbass, when have you known me to read a book on the short hop to a mission? On the flight overseas, yes. On the helicopter ride to our target, no.”
He’d brought A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain this mission to read. He’d read that book as a kid, but as an adult, it was ten times better. He was midway through his second reading of it since they’d started the mission. If experience had taught him anything, he knew the pages of the paperback would be falling out by the time he was done, which is why he always started with a rubber band around the book when he brought it with him. Reading had been his passion since he started getting the highest kite on the wall for reading the most books in third grade.
The helicopter dipped hard down and to the right. Even in the dim light, he could see Asher swallowing hard. Put the man in the ocean, and he was golden, but give him a fuckload of turbulence and he had to force back the puke. Asher looked up and saw Leo grinning at him. He put up his middle finger. Leo laughed. Then the helicopter did another swoop. Leo looked at his watch, and did another look out the window. They should be at their landing site in fifteen more minutes.
He’d talked to their pilot Wilma before taking off. She’d been flying Apaches and Blackhawks all over the Middle East for the last twelve years. They couldn’t be in safer hands as far as Leo was concerned. As they got even closer, he was able to see the ground. Then he knew; Wilma would be touching down.
“Hold onto your butt, Asher,” he said through their comm system.
He saw his friend gritting his teeth. It wasn’t nice to laugh at his friend’s suffering, but hell, everyone on the team was laughing. Asher would just have to suck it up. When it came down to it, everyone had their time at bat providing entertainment to the team. Tonight it was Asher Thorne. Bless his heart. The weird thing though—Asher was happy as a lark jumping out of a plane. He’d do that five times a day, just fine. Go figure.
“I’m setting us down, gentlemen,” Wilma’s voice came over the comm system.
“She sounds hot,” Nic’s voice was filled with enthusiasm.
“She is hot,” Leo concurred. Any woman who could fly through this shit was hot in his book. Not as hot as Daisy, but hot, nonetheless.
Just as they were about to touch down, the helicopter did a hop to the left because of a strong gust of wind. Still, it didn’t stop Wilma from nailing the landing.
Kane did one last quick check on everybody’s commlink, then they put on their night vision goggles and headed out.
“I’m proud of you, Bubba,” Leo heard Cullen telling Asher.
“Go fuck yourself.”
“Seriously, you didn’t puke all over Wilma’s Blackhawk. You’re such a big boy.”
Everybody but Nic was able to keep from laughing out loud.
“Can it, Lyons,” Kane whispered after they went over the first big rise. This was pretty much how all their missions started—Cullen being a smart-ass until Kane or Max shut him up and that’s how they knew that they were on radio-silence.
They had five kilometers of hills and rocks to get over before he and Ezio would start looking for the best points for them to set up. They’d agreed ahead of time, it would be good to try to get no more than fifty meters apart and no less than twenty meters for the best sniper coverage.
Wouldn’t you know, the sandstorm had pretty much died down as soon as they’d touched down. Now they were heading to the cave at a steady but quick pace. Asher and Max were taking the lead, scouting out for anyone who might be on watch.
After three kilometers Leo eased closer to Ezio and pointed to a high peak. There was another one a little lower that was forward and to the
