Chapter 12
Aberlour’s boots were soaked through and through. His clothing was drenched as well, and he genuinely felt like he would never be dry or warm again.
“Five clicks out,” Oliver said, teeth chattering over the comms.
They were almost there. Almost home. Just a few more miles and they could put this one behind them.
They were trekking through wetlands, in the middle of the Peruvian , as they had been for nearly four days now.
Everyone on Team Specter was at their wit’s end.
It was supposed to be a simple op, but their intel had been horrible, and their target had not been anywhere near where it was supposed to be.
Instead of being a quick in and out, they’d been two days early, and had been forced to camp in the mud, waiting for their cargo to be delivered.
They’d kept a safe distance from the drop site, and waited until the smugglers delivered the package before stalking their way into the camp, killing everybody inside, and leaving with their package in tow.
It was currently in Aberlour’s backpack, which was the only “dry” thing about him.
“Hold,” Marcus called, suddenly, and Team Specter stopped in their tracks. Aberlour took cover next to a tree and crouched down, making himself a smaller target.
“What is it?” Aberlour whispered over the comms.
“I see a heat signature. A couple actually,” Marcus whispered back.
He was in charge of monitoring their exact location.
Trekking back to camp in the dark could be tricky for a hundred different reasons.
The Peruvian jungle was vast and diverse.
The last thing they needed was to sink into a forest river and be eaten whole by a giant anaconda.
“Birds?” Carlos suggested with a chuckle.
“Too big for a bird,” Marcus replied, his tone clipped. Several hours before, he’d had them hunker down for 15 minutes because of what had turned out to be a flock of birds perched on some low hanging branches. Apparently, Carlos wasn’t ready to let him live that one down.
“It’s coming this way.”
“Ready positions. Ghost, Marcus, and Carlos take the right flank. Oli, JD, and I will take the left. Keep low. Hopefully they’ll walk right past us.”
Wordlessly, Team Specter split into two factions. He heard the gentle rustling of Oliver wading through the waist high foliage a few feet away as he focused on moving quietly himself.
There was a camp not too far from their position. It had nothing to do with the one they’d just raided. A drop camp for a drug operation, or so their commanding officer had claimed. Still, the occupants would be heavily armed and have no qualms about gunning down Abe’s men at the first opportunity.
“Stop,” Marcus warned again, his breathing hard.
All of them instantly obeyed, dropping to the ground, hoping to fade completely in the lush foliage.
“I hear footsteps,” JD said. He was a few feet ahead of Aberlour. Crouched low behind an alcove of trees.
“How many?” Abe asked in a hushed whisper.
“Four.”
There was nothing to do but wait, an inherent part of all Recon operations.
They were dropped behind enemy lines and expected to get past them like tiny flecks of sands traveling through a sieve.
They were ghosts, all of them. Invisible and deadly.
They couldn’t open fire on these men. If they did, they’d be noticed, and then the entire camp would be after them.
This was known territory for the enemy, so it was easy for them to track down Team Specter.
Aberlour figured their odds of survival were pretty low in that scenario.
Aberlour heard a man walk past them. The man moved cautiously, only a slight rustle of vegetation revealing his presence.
Then someone shouted something, there was a scream, and a single shot rang out. There was a spate of rapid-fire Spanish, which escalated into an argument.
“Carlos can you make out what they’re saying?” Aberlour whispered, counting on the loud argument to provide cover for them to converse.
“Negative,” he replied, his voice sounding strained and strange, like it did when he’d taken a hard hit during the sparring match.
“Carlos?” Aberlour asked, nervously, a suspicious shiver running up and down his spine.
“He’s saying he thought he saw an Apu. A spirit of some kind, I think,” Marcus whispered.
Aberlour ignored him.
“Carlos,” he repeated. “Were you shot?”
There was no reply, just sounds of rustling vegetation and shallow breathing. A few moments later, Carlos finally spoke.
“It’s just a graze.”
Nobody believed him.
The next minute or two, all Aberlour could hear were muffled curses and complaints as Marcus gave Carlos a thorough examination. Waiting anxiously for a report on Carlos’ condition, Aberlour remained still and hidden.
“He’s losing blood. It won’t kill him, but it’s not pretty,” Marcus finally reported, voice strained.
“Ghost, is the coast clear?” Aberlour asked. They needed to get moving. Fast. Getting pinned down in the jungle with an injured man was never good.
“Yes,” Ghost answered.
Aberlour took a deep breath and listened for any sounds that would indicate the enemy was still out there.
“Keep to the left, we’ll keep right. We cover as much ground as we can as quickly as possible,” Aberlour ordered.
“Copy,” Ghost replied.
The two groups waded through the jungle quietly and cautiously, listening intently for signs they’d been spotted by the enemy, and—though it went unsaid—for the continuous sound of Carlos’ harsh breathing over the comms. His curses were oddly reassuring.
It took them nearly two hours to reach their rendezvous point. Aberlour’s team made it there first, but Marcus’ team was only a few minutes behind. When they reached the safe zone, Carlos dropped to the ground in exhaustion, weak from blood loss.
Aberlour and Marcus immediately went to him to check his condition. Aberlour was worried about how badly Carlos’ shoulder was bleeding. He glanced nervously at Marcus, searching for a hint of reassurance from his usually stoic teammate.
“He’ll be alright,” Marcus said tersely. He packed fresh gauze around the wound while Carlos cursed in colourful Spanish, despite his lack of strength to follow through with the threatened ass-kicking.
“Chopper is two minutes out,” Oliver told them, as he came to stand behind Aberlour. He put a hand down on Abe’s shoulder and squeezed. It was a firm hand. A steadying grip and Aberlour was silently glad for it.
“Is there an exit wound?” Oliver asked Marcus.
Their field medic shook his head, and no one asked him for any further details.
“Two minutes, Chichi. Hang tight, yeah? Then it’s booze, girls, and cigars for two weeks,” Aberlour told their usual firecracker of a teammate.
Carlos responded with a forced smile that was really more of a painful grimace, but it was somewhat devilish all the same.
“Amen,” Carlos said, with a nod, as he leaned back and looked up at the night sky.
Aberlour walked away with Oliver following closely. Once they’d put some distance between themselves and the rest of the team, they felt free to openly discuss their concerns.
“What the fuck happened?” Oliver asked.
“Ghost probably knows, but—I’m guessing one of the guys got spooked, maybe he caught a glimpse of Carlos, thought it was the—ghost thing, or whatever, and took a shot. Those guys are always trigger happy. It was a fluke. A stupid fucking fluke,” Aberlour said, shaking his head.
His hands formed into fists, his jaw clenched, and his gut was on fire with fury over what they’d been through on this mission.
Four days of trekking through this fucking jungle, on high alert for every strange sound.
Four days of sneaking through enemy lines and sharing sleeping quarters with deadly spiders and venomous snakes.
Four days, and not once had their presence been discovered.
Yet somehow, just four miles from their safe zone, some trigger-happy moron had managed to blow a hole in Carlos’ shoulder.
Aberlour’s fingers twitched with the need for some target practice using the fucker who’d hurt Carlos.
He’d killed a dozen men on this mission, but none of them had seen him coming.
He needed—he needed to be feared, if only for a second.
Needed to see the realization shine in the eyes of good-for-nothing men.
Death had come, and it looked like Aberlour.
That is what he wanted. It was a sick, broken thought, but as his chest tightened with anger, it was all he could think about.
“Hey!”
Oliver’s hand, clutching at Aberlour’s bicep, grounded him for a moment. Even in the dimly lit area where they were standing, Aberlour could make out that warm, comforting smile on Oliver’s face.
“Carlos will be fine,” he reminded Abe.
“I know.”
“There was nothing you could’ve done.”
“I know,” Abe repeated dutifully.
Oliver did not believe him. He took a step closer, and his hand slid from Aberlour’s bicep to his hand. His fingers weaved through Abe’s then, and he squeezed.
“There was nothing any of us could’ve done. It was a terrible situation. With shit intel, in a fucking hellhole, but we’re all alright, yeah? You got us out. We’re here.” Oliver squeezed his hand again, and spoke hurriedly, as if all that mattered now was that Abe believed him.
Aberlour took a deep, steadying breath and let it out. He looked over at Carlos, who was lying there resting, and gave a sharp nod.
“Okay,” he said. Oliver squeezed his hand once more. “Okay,” he repeated, a bit more confidently.
Clutching the back of Abe’s head, Oliver pressed their foreheads together in a familiar move from their bootcamp days. “Darling and Dumber,” Oliver said, voice lowered, tone soft—the strong affection and sentiment for Abe’s ears only. “We can’t fail. Not if we’re together.”