“Lever up is safe, middle is auto, all the way down is semi—that means one shot per trigger pull. Don’t use auto, you’ll spray rounds all over the place, won’t hit much, and might just accidentally shoot one of us in the back. Front sight’s here, rear sight’s here. Put that post into this slot, and put the post on the target. You can’t see that well in the dark, so there’s going to be some dumb luck involved. Never point it at anyone you don’t want to shoot. So, watch that you don’t sweep any of us with the muzzle. You’ve got a limited amount of ammo, so only shoot when you have to. Make sure you pull the buttstock—that’s this part—all the way back into your shoulder pocket, here.” He jabbed his fingers into Lara’s shoulder. The older man flinched a little, but he nodded his understanding. “That’s going to help mitigate the recoil and let you keep control of the rifle. Lean into it.” He thought for a second. “The AK doesn’t have a bolt hold-open.” When he got a blank look, he elaborated. “Some rifles will lock the bolt to the rear when the magazine is empty. The AK doesn’t do that—it’ll just go ‘click.’ Then you have to reload.” He tapped the lever at the back of the magazine well. “Push this lever, rock the mag out like this.” He demonstrated. “Then put the new one in in the opposite direction.” He pulled the magazine back until it clicked into place. Then he handed the rifle back. “Remember. Be careful where you point it, keep your finger off the trigger unless you’re trying to kill somebody, and let us do most of the fighting. You’re too important to get smoked playing hero.”
Lara nodded as he struggled to get the chest rig on. “I cannot just sit by. We have all done that too much lately.”
“Yeah, well.” Wade didn’t feel like having that conversation. He couldn’t disagree, but what small part of him did understand the need for diplomacy was telling him to keep his opinion behind his teeth. If more people stood up to the tyrants, terrorists, and criminals who terrorized them, there might be less need for people like the Blackhearts.
Of course, that meant less work and less money, so it was kind of a tossup to him.
A glance down the hill confirmed that the headlights were getting closer. “Woodsrunner, Angry Ragnar. You might want to get those civvies moving with a quickness. We’re going to have company really soon.”
“They’re in a hurry; the last ones are almost down to the trucks. We’re moving up to join you.” Flanagan clearly didn’t want to be stuck back in the woods on babysitting duty when the balloon went up. Wade grinned fiercely. Flanagan was a quiet one, but he was a killer, and Wade truly appreciated that.
He moved up to the edge of the terrace and got down in the prone, aiming his weapon in toward the road. The terrace would provide him some cover when the bad guys showed up. He flipped his selector to “R” and waited as the lights got closer.
***
The phone woke Santelli out of a disturbingly light doze. He squinted at the clock and realized that he was getting to the age where he really probably should get glasses. Then, as the fact that it was just past 0200 registered through the fog in his brain, he snatched at the phone. Melissa turned over, her eyes opening in the dark, and murmured, “What is it?”
“Nothing, baby.” He hit the “answer” button as he swung out of bed, hoping and praying that he was right, but without holding out a whole lot of hope. A call at that hour probably wasn’t good news, not when the team was in the field. He hadn’t even really registered the number on the screen, he’d been so desperate to get a handle on the situation, even though there was nothing he could really do from five thousand miles away.
“What is it?” He stepped out of the bedroom and shut the door, even as Melissa sat up in bed. He caught a glimpse of the worried look on her face in the moonlight filtering through the window.
“Carlo, sorry to wake you up, but we might have to move on this quick.” It was Mark Van Zandt.
Santelli’s blood ran cold. “What happened? Is anybody hit?”
It took Van Zandt a second to answer, and when he did, it was with a tone of some chagrin. “Oh, no. Nothing like that. As far as I know, everybody’s still in one piece.” He blew out a breath, the sound rasping in Santelli’s phone speaker. “Sorry. Didn’t even think about that.”
Santelli bit back a curse. The fact that Van Zandt hadn’t thought of that possibility spoke volumes about the man and how separated he’d long been from real operations, even as the Blackhearts’ main facilitator.
“Anyway, the client himself just called me, screaming about the team going off the reservation and off-mission. Said that they’ve violated the ROE—not that I ever got any formal ROE, even if there could be any such thing for a deniable op like this—and that they’ve disrupted the whole plan.
“Carlo, I think we’ve got him. He gave a couple things away in
