by Dalton Fury
There was an ear-splitting roar of static from the phone’s speaker, and then a second later, a loud crack as something punched through the thin aluminum walls of the trailer.
TWENTY-THREE
As he threw himself flat on the floor, Raynor swiped the shotgun off the coffee table. It wouldn’t be much help as a defensive weapon, especially not while he was still inside the trailer, but he had no intention of staying there, or remaining in a defensive posture, one second longer than necessary.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Webber hitting the floor.
“You hit?” he shouted to the colonel.
Another round slammed into the trailer, masking Webber’s answer if he gave one. It sounded and felt like someone was taking a hammer to the exterior. This time, he heard the report of the weapon as well, echoing in the darkness outside.
Raynor looked up and saw the splintered paneling and tufts of insulation where the two bullets had perforated the west wall about six inches below the ceiling. Without knowing where the rounds had ended up, it was impossible to judge the exact angle of the shots, but he knew the surrounding property well enough to make an educated guess about where the shots were coming from.
“He’s gotta be up in the trees!” Raynor shouted. “Best guess about two hundred meters west. If we can get outside—”
There was another loud crack, and a third hole appeared in the wall, eighteen inches from the last.
“What the fuck’s he doing?” The sniper’s attack made no sense. Shiner was shooting at nothing. Wasting rounds, risking exposure, and why? To taunt them?
The answer came to Raynor even as another bullet slammed into the trailer. This time, it was accompanied by the noise of shattering glass as the round struck the window on the opposite wall, behind the sofa.
“He’s trying to keep us pinned down here,” Kolt shouted. He didn’t think he needed to elaborate on all the possible reasons why. Maybe Shiner had wired the trailer with explosives on a timed detonator, or maybe this was suppressive fire to cover the approach of an assault team. Either way … “We need to move!”
Webber did not reply, and Raynor realized he had not heard a single word of acknowledgment from the man.
“Colonel Webber! We need to move.”
No answer.
He high-crawled backward until he could see his commander on the floor in the narrow gap between the sofa and the coffee table. Webber wasn’t moving.
“No. No!” Raynor started toward the fallen man, but another round punched through the wall, lower this time, and slammed into the coffee table. The impact jostled the small table into Raynor. “Shit!”
The blow was not enough to hurt, but it was tangible proof that Shiner wasn’t just firing blind. Somehow, the sniper could see them.
“Sir!”
Nothing. Not even a twitch.
“Damn it.”
Webber was either dead or dying, but as long as they were under fire, there was only one thing Raynor could do for him.
React to contact. Return fire. Destroy the enemy.
He backed away on his ass until he was clear of the coffee table, then sprang to his feet and bolted in the opposite direction, heading for the kitchen. He had to get outside, but trying to exit through the front door would put him right in Shiner’s sights. His best option was the back door.
There was a strident shriek as a bullet blasted through the kitchen wall and struck something metallic. The microwave oven, Raynor guessed. Shiner knew he was moving, probably knew where he was going, but it didn’t matter. There wasn’t anything in the trailer that would stop a high-velocity rifle round, and even if there was, it wouldn’t solve the problem or help Webber.
He kept running, weaving around the table and into the hall that led to the bedroom at the north end of the trailer. The back door was on his right, but he bypassed it and headed straight for the bedroom.
The room where he slept was no less Spartan than the rest of Raynor’s home. He didn’t even own a bed, just a mattress on the floor. The room also contained a chest of drawers that doubled as a table or desk as needed. Lying atop the dresser was his holstered Glock 23 and a spare mag. He had more guns in the safe in the closet, but time was a more critical variable than firepower. He grabbed the pistol and was just turning for the back door when another bullet punched through the bedroom wall, sizzling through the air above his mattress before burrowing into the far wall. He was out the door and on his way down the wooden steps before the report reached his ears.
Although he still had not worked out how the sniper was tracking him through the house, the continuous shooting told him that Shiner wasn’t moving.
He ducked down at the corner of the trailer, stopping only long enough to stuff the holster into his belt, then was up and moving again. He didn’t hug the end of the trailer, but headed out away from it a few steps before cutting back toward it, angling toward the more substantial cover afforded by his pickup and Webber’s Jeep. He reached it, dropped flat behind the right front wheel, but he didn’t stay there long either. He rolled back toward the front bumper and bounded up again, sprinting for the woods.
I’m up. He sees me. I’m down.
He hit the dirt, keeping the shotgun out in front of him so he didn’t clobber himself with it, and rolled to the right. He was nearly out of the cone of illumination cast by the porch light, and almost at the tree line. It occurred to him that he had not heard a report since leaving the trailer. If he was right about where Shiner was positioned, he was probably already out of the sniper’s line of sight, but he wasn’t going to bet his life on it. The most likely explanation was that Shiner was trying to break contact.
Raynor bolted up again, bringing the shotgun to a ready position, and headed for the nearest pecan tree. The narrow bough wasn’t perfect cover, but it allowed him to remain standing. Then he was moving again.
The trees were evenly spaced and easy to find even as he plunged deeper into the darkness of the grove, but as he put more distance between himself and his home, he slowed to a deliberate walk, stopping frequently to listen for any sounds that might indicate where Shiner was; if he was moving or waiting to spring an ambush. He knew he was close to the spot where the shots must have come from—he had a clear line of sight between the tree rows all the way back to his trailer.
There was a faint glow in the darkness. With the shotgun at the high ready, he started toward it, finger ready to pull the trigger at the first hint of movement. The light was coming from something lying on the ground. Another step and he could see that it was a mobile phone, the screen illuminated and displaying the phone number of a call in progress.
Barnes’s phone. Raynor’s number.
Somewhere off to his left, an engine turned over and then eased into a low idle. Red and white lights suddenly became visible through the trees, and then began moving.
Raynor started forward, running at a full sprint. He threw the shotgun aside and unholstered his semiauto on the run, even as the lights moved farther away. It took him only a few seconds to reach the road, but the red taillights—all that he could see of the retreating vehicle—were at least fifty meters away.
He fired anyway.
One of the taillights winked out, but the other one continued to recede into the distance until the car rounded a bend and it vanished as well.
Raynor didn’t waste breath cursing Shiner’s escape. He wheeled and took off in the opposite direction, heading back to the trailer. With the sniper threat neutralized, the next immediate task was assessing and treating the casualties.
There’s still time, he told himself.
He refused to second-guess his decision to go after Miric. If he had stayed where he was or attempted to help Webber, one of those rounds would have eventually found him too. React to contact—infantry battle drill two—was army doctrine for the same reason that the airlines told parents to put their own oxygen masks on before attending to their children.
You couldn’t help
anyone if you were dead.
He passed his pickup, wondering if he should wait for the paramedics or just drive Webber to the hospital himself, then bounded up the steps and blasted through his own front door.
“Colonel Webber!”
Webber lay exactly where Kolt had left him, and Raynor knew, even from across the room, that it was too late for him to do anything for the other man.
He dropped to his knees alongside the Delta commander, checking for a pulse even though he knew he would not find one, and then gently, reverently, rolled him over onto his back.
If Shiner had been aiming for Webber’s eye, he had missed, but only by an inch. The bullet had entered through Webber’s forehead, just above the brow. The entry wound wasn’t a neat, precise little hole; the supersonic round had far too much energy for that. The exit wound was a lot worse.
Jeremy Webber had been dead before hitting the floor.
Raynor just knelt there for several long seconds, staring in disbelief as the blood puddled on the tan rug. He knew that he had to do something, call someone. The police … CID.
He would have to call Lilian. Webber’s wife.
Widow.
He shook his head, still unable to process any of it.
Shiner had come after him. At his home. He’d taken out Barnes as well.
How had he found either of them in the first place?
Who would he go after next?
He swallowed and then reached over to pick his phone up off the floor. The screen still showed the connection to Barnes’s phone. He thumbed the button to end the call, and then dialed Slapshot’s number.
The call connected almost immediately, and then Slapshot’s voice poured from the speaker. “Kolt! What in the hell is going on? Webber called me a few minutes ago. Is he with you? We got cut off. He told me to go over to Brett’s place. He’s dead, Kolt. Brett is fucking dead. Gunshot!”
“I know. Jason, just listen. We’ve been compromised. I don’t know how, but Shiner is targeting us … the Unit, the squadron maybe. He hit my trailer. Call the staff duty and alert the entire Unit. Families too. Get them to the compound.”
Slapshot processed this for a moment, then said simply, “Got it. You okay, brother?”
“No,” Raynor admitted. “I’m really not.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Hawk felt a profound sense of guilt as she plopped down on the couch next to Troy. She set a stainless steel bowl filled with just-popped popcorn in his lap like an offering, but the gesture did not ease her mind one bit. Troy put his arm around her, a casual, almost thoughtless action that was more possessive than affectionate. She dreaded the moment when he would inevitably attempt to stake his claim on other territories.
Guilt was the reason he was here, on her couch, eating her popcorn with his arm around her.
After everything that had happened—the assassination attempt, the uncertainty about Raynor’s future, and maybe even the future of the Unit itself—Cindy Bird had felt an overwhelming need for some normalcy. Not Delta normal—the kind that came from emptying magazines in the shoothouse—but ordinary everyday normal. So, in a moment of weakness, when she heard Troy’s ringtone coming from her phone, she had decided to answer the call instead of simply letting it go to voice mail.
It wasn’t until they were together that she remembered why she had been avoiding him. She didn’t love him. She didn’t even really like him that much anymore. And the thought of actually sleeping with him made her feel faintly nauseous.
It had been her idea to stay in and marathon the Expendables movies. Wanton violence and mayhem would keep Troy distracted for a while, but eventually she was going to have to deal with the problem.
She needed to just tell him it was over. End it. She dreaded doing that even more than she dreaded the inevitable fight that would follow, but for both their sakes, it had to be done.
She picked up the remote and was about to hit the Pause button when her cell alerted.
Saved by the bell, she thought, but as she glanced at the message displayed on the device, her heart began to pound in her chest.
Just three numbers.
911.
“N, B, or C?” Troy asked.
Hawk did not look at him. “What?”
“What kind of emergency? N, B, or C?”
The military had stopped using that method of classifying weapons of mass destruction years ago, replacing it with the more comprehensive CRBN, which differentiated nuclear and radiological threats. Troy knew that. It was just a none-too-subtle putdown of the work she ostensibly did for the army.
“I guess I’ll find out,” she said, rising from the couch.
911?
Whatever that meant, it could not be good. “I’m going to head in to work. I guess you can hang here or whatever.” She cringed as soon as she said it. She didn’t want him loitering at her place; she wanted him out of her life.
To her astonishment, he stood up. “I’ll drive you.”
“What? No. It’s okay. I mean, I appreciate the thought, but I don’t know how long this is going to take.”
“It’s probably just some bullshit,” he said dismissively. “I’ll drive. That way we can at least spend some time together for a change. And you can show me off to all your pogue buddies. Make ’em jealous.”
“Troy, that’s really not a good idea. I have to go. You should go, too. I’ll call you when—”
“Shit, Cindy. What the hell? You embarrassed to be seen with me?” His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Or is there someone you don’t want me to see?”
A couple years earlier, back when she was in the augment pilot program and working with Raynor’s AFO team to track down Libyan SAMs, Troy had happened upon her and Raynor having a conversation in public. It had been completely innocent—they were just talking shop—but Troy, in typical chest-thumping fashion, had tried to make a scene, and while Kolt had both talked him down and put him in his place, Troy had never forgotten the incident. He knew that Kolt and Cindy worked together, even though he was unaware of what they actually did, and whenever things got tense between the two of them, Troy’s memory of the incident and his lingering resentment for Raynor bubbled to the surface like swamp gas, and he threw the accusation in her face.
“Troy, I really don’t need this right now.” She raised her cell and was about to finger Shaft’s number when Troy’s hand wrapped around her wrist like manacles. She instinctively tried to pull away, but he held on tight, squeezing. “Damn it. Let go.”
“I said, I’ll drive you.”
With adrenaline already flooding through her as a result of the ominous page, Hawk was in no mood to tolerate Troy’s display of alpha dominance. Through clenched teeth, she said, “Let. Go.”
“Or what?”
A dozen possible takedown scenarios went through her head, but she resisted the impulse to act on any of them. Troy was a Green Beret. He had received some of the same grappling training as her, and probably a lot more of it. And he was stronger and bigger than her. The only advantage she would have in a physical altercation would be the fact that he didn’t really know what she was capable of, but if the situation escalated—if she escalated it—there was no telling how it would end.
“Or I will scream my fucking lungs out until the neighbors call the police,” she said, still speaking in a low voice. “So if you care about me, or give a shit about your career, you will let go of me now.”
To her astonishment, he did let go. She wondered which argument had been most persuasive. Probably the latter. Police involvement would jeopardize Troy’s security clearance, and a domestic violence charge would invoke the Lautenberg Amendment to the Gun Control Act, making it a felony for him to possess a weapon, even for use in the course of his military duty. Not that she believed Troy was that smart about the law. Either would end his career in Special Operations.
“Fine,” he said. “But I’m still driving you.”
Hawk did not respond right away. She really di
d not know what to say to him, so instead she went back to what she had been doing before. She found Shaft’s number in her contact list and initiated a call.
Her assault team leader answered right away, skipping the customary greetings. “Hawk. Get to the compound. ASAP.”
“What’s going on?”
“We got hit.”
She could hear the urgency in his voice and sensed that he was not in a position to give further explanation, or perhaps did not have any information to give, but she needed some idea of what was happening, if only to come up with a plausible reason for ditching Troy.
“How bad?”
“Bad. I don’t know the whole story yet, but we’ve been compromised. We’re circling the wagons, bringing in the wives and kids…” He hesitated a second. “Or whatever. Just get here. And be careful.” He hung up without waiting for an acknowledgment.
“Cin?” Troy asked. She realized that he was still staring at her. The suspicion was still there, but there was also something else. Concern.
She thought about what Shaft had just said: We got hit.
He had not been talking about an attack against America, another 9/11 or something like it. No, whatever had happened, it was a lot closer to home.
We’re circling the wagons.
The Unit was under siege, the threat evidently dire enough to warrant bringing immediate family members to the top-secret Delta compound in order to guarantee their safety.
Every Unit wife knew what her husband did, if only in very general terms, but that degree of trust was extended in committed relationships, and those wives knew the potentially deadly consequences of even the most innocuous indiscreet comments outside the family circle. It wasn’t a secret to be shared when the relationship was casual, or in Hawk’s case, circling the drain. She wasn’t concerned about OPSEC but she did know that revealing her secret life to Troy would mean committing to him in a way that she knew now she absolutely did not want to do.
But if Shaft was not exaggerating the gravity of the situation, and she knew he was not, then Troy was potentially at risk because of her.
