Chapter 26 #3
None of his men said anything else about it. JD turned the music back on, and packing for the mission resumed. It wasn’t the same. It couldn’t be, not without Oli, but it was as close to business as usual as they could expect.
Like spring, Aberlour kept telling himself. They felt like spring.
As Aberlour willed himself to get back to work, he looked down and found his hands—still clutching Oliver’s note—shaking. He was shaking, and had he been braver, he’d have thrown away the paper in his hand, just to see if it would miss the trash can.
He tucked it away instead.
One of the reasons Aberlour had been so adamantly against this whole operation was that it was set up like a SEAL op rather a Force Recon one.
There was no sneaking behind enemy lines.
No information to gather. It was simply a retrieval and execution mission.
They were supposed to go in, blow everyone to bits, and get out.
That was fine. Aberlour had no qualms about shooting assholes, but they weren’t trained for this.
For three years, they’d been drilled to take as few shots as possible.
Their job had always been to gather intel, keep a low profile, and sneak out without anyone being any the wiser.
They usually trudged through miles of uninhabited land to get to a remote destination and make their own way out.
Now, they were being dropped in by helicopter, after dark, and would be flown out the same way once the enemy was annihilated.
That was a SEAL or Green Beret operation.
Army Ranger even. Every branch was more suited to this op than Force Recon Marines.
Yet, it was their target they were getting back.
A target they’d lost after their mission had been sold out and compromised.
The blame wasn’t theirs, yet it was their lives on the line as they breached protocol to rescue their stranded target.
Aberlour had been flown in a few hours earlier. He was the only member of the op who would need to walk his way to the target. It was his sole job to take position as a sniper.
This too, had set him off. There was no doubt that Aberlour could shoot anything from any distance, but he wasn’t a marksman.
He kept both hands in the shit show and led his men on the ground.
Rarely, if ever, had he stared from afar through the lens of sniper rifle.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t, it was simply that he hated it.
Too far. He was too far. It was all he could think about as he waited for his men to sneak their way into the compound.
“Team Specter in position,” Marcus said over the comms.
The rest of Aberlour’s team had been dropped a few miles away from the underground encampment where they were keeping the mark.
According to their intel, the installation should be protected by seven guards.
Four patrolling the perimeter, three more inside.
If the intel was correct, it was an easy enough job.
Aberlour had the increasingly sinking feeling that it wasn’t right.
“Roger, Team Specter. Proceed,” a commander, miles away, instructed over the comms system. This too, was unorthodox. Recon teams were rarely, if ever, monitored by outside help. They usually went in alone, relying on each other to make it out, and no one else.
Aberlour watched as his men approached, their movements barely more than the ripples of leaves in the forest. Then, a shadow, nothing more, cutting an opening in the fence.
Team Specter moved in with practice ease, Marcus in the lead, Ghost bringing up the rear.
“I have eyes on Team Specter,” Aberlour said over the comms, reminding them of his presence. He watched the compound, his eyes darting from left to right, trying to make out any threat before it made itself known.
“Hold your fire, Captain Aberlour. You are not cleared to shoot.” That was General Baron. He’d have recognized the monotone voice anywhere.
Team Specter moved forward in formation, like a shadow in the night. Invisible, and as dangerous as the tip of a spear. Aberlour felt a surge of pride as he watched them. These men—his men, dangerous and stealthy, were a force to be reckoned with.
“Insurgent on the left. Walking the perimeter. Be advised, he’s 15 seconds out,” Aberlour said, as he watched the small man walk out of the shadows and straight towards Team Specter.
“Roger,” JD said. Twenty seconds later, Aberlour heard the muffled sound of a dying breath.
“Moving towards the compound,” Marcus advised.
“Coast is clear. Only three heat signatures outside. You are clear to move,” a voice advised over the comms.
Aberlour held his breath as he watched his men approach the door of the underground compound where they held the prisoner. It would get harder from here. He’d lose sight of them. It would be several minutes until he saw them again.
“Opening the door,” Marcus narrated.
Aberlour took a deep breath and readied himself to let go of them.
Only for a few minutes. Only for a few—
Spotlights turned on suddenly, flooding the ground all around Team Specter as Marcus got ready to breach. Then, all at once, the compound was crawling with men. There were at least ten men in military gear, weapons drawn, surrounding the team. The bottom of Aberlour’s world dropped out.
He wasn’t sure how it had all gone so wrong when it had been perfection before, but it was going up in flames before his very eyes, and Aberlour was powerless to stop it.
Before he could even radio in about shooting anyone, his friends were on the ground. Their knees sunken into the wet red dirt, their heads bowed as men holding American made weapons hogtied them at gunpoint.
Abe fought not to get caught in the details of the how’s, as he assessed the situation, looking for a way out for his men.
There would be time to navigate the obvious breach they’d experienced.
For now, he needed a plan. The insurgents had known they were coming.
They’d been waiting. His men had barely made it inside before they’d been surrounded, outnumbered, and captured.
A complete goatfuck. He couldn’t change any of that.
All he knew as he took in the scene, was that he had clear shots all around, and his aim would be true.
They would be extremely risky shots. The kind that took a man that wasn’t quite human.
He’d have to be quick and precise. The insurgents would start firing back the moment he opened fire.
Aberlour would have to aim at the men holding weapons and shoot quickly, to allow his men to free themselves and hopefully get away.
It seemed like an impossible shot, but as his finger moved above the trigger, he could feel it. There was seven of them holding his men on their knees. Only seven. Seven shots. Quick, precise, and perfect. Just seven shots and he could get them out.
“I have a shot,” Aberlour said, his finger already hovering over the trigger. He took a deep breath, readying himself for it.
“Stand down,” Major General Baron growled in his ear.
“I have them. Clean shots.” Aberlour argued. There was no doubt. He could make this happen. He’d been waiting his entire life for this. He took another deep breath to settle himself. He couldn’t afford to shake.
“I told you to stand down! That’s a fucking order! Fire a single bullet and you’ll know nothing but the inside of a jail cell!”
Aberlour didn’t give a flying fuck, right then. He’d have happily taken the prison sentence if it meant saving his friends.
Team Specter had been forced to the ground.
Carlos was shouting insults in Spanish, Ghost was quiet but seething, JD was yelling at their captors.
Marcus looked resigned. Aberlour focused on Marcus.
He always focused on Marcus when shit went sideways.
If he smiled, they’d be fine. If he frowned, they were in deep shit.
Now? Now, he looked like a man about to walk the plank.
“They’re not going to see the light of day again! If they go inside then that’s it!” Aberlour argued over the comms. He hated this. Hated being so fucking far from his men, his team. Hated knowing exactly what awaited them if he didn’t act.
“Stand down! You won’t have time to shoot all of them. If they catch wind of a sniper, they’ll kill ‘em all.”
“I don’t miss,” Aberlour growled over the line as he lined up to take the shot. He took one final deep breath, let it out and inched his finger closer to the trigger.
Seven shots. That was all he needed.
Seven shots. Seven perfect shots. That was nothing. Nothing at all when you had a perfect aim like Aberlour.
“Don’t shoot, Abe. We’ll get them back. We’ll get them back. Don’t shoot.” Oliver’s voice broke over the comms and Aberlour held his finger off the trigger, taken aback with surprise.
The insurgents had finished tying his men up, and they were placing thick black canvas bags over their heads. One by one, their faces disappeared from sight. Something in Aberlour broke. Fully unleashing his anger.
“They’re gonna fucking die!” He yelled at Oliver, or whoever else might have been listening.
“They’re hostages. We’ll have parley, get them out of there safe and sound.
Shooting will only cause things to escalate.
Major General Baron’s order stands. Do not engage.
” It was a voice Abe didn’t recognize. But it was Oliver’s words that kept his finger off the trigger.
Oliver—he still trusted Oliver. Still believed his orders.
If Oliver told him to wait, then perhaps—maybe it was the right thing to do.
Aberlour watched, heart racing, bile filling his mouth, as one by one, they were marched into the underground compound, and one by one, they disappeared and were no longer under Aberlour’s watch.
He felt thousands of miles away. Incapable of doing anything other than mentally cursing the chain of command.