Chapter 2 #3
Shaun stared at him. Whatever had been said on the other end of those comms must have been flirting while he was sitting there half-naked and covered in horse salve.
Fucking operators.
The amusement disappeared from Ambra One’s face as quickly as it had arrived. He pushed to his feet and reached for his weapon.
“On it, Boss. Keep me updated.” He looked toward the other two men. “At least ten tangos less than a klick behind us. We need to move.”
Shaun was already hauling himself upright when Ambra One paused to listen again.
“Solid copy, TOC.” He glanced toward Shaun. “Helo is inbound. We’ve got twenty minutes to make the extraction point.” He checked his weapon before settling it back into position, and spoke into comms, “Yes, boss, we’ll be the ones hauling ass toward it with a screaming horde on our heels.”
Shaun checked the Sig and extra mag he’d been given before looking back at the man who had dragged him out of that fucking cage. Ambra One. The designation kept scratching at something in the back of his mind, and now that he had enough water in him to think straight, he wanted to know why.
“So, do I call you Ambra One?”
“Yeah, or just One will do.” Ambra One pointed toward the dark-haired operator. “He’s Two, and the other one is Three.”
Shaun looked between them as another piece dropped into place.
Ambra One. Ambra Two. Ambra Three. Three operators moving together with the kind of precision that came from years in Special Operations, backed by a tactical command center with drone support and a comms specialist good enough to feed them intelligence in real time.
Holy fucking shit.
Red Squadron.
JSOC and NATO had formed the task force around the same time Ghost Team had been established, and there had been rumors among the Ghosts ever since. Rock had once been hoping to recruit a comms specialist for their own team, only for Red Squadron to steal the guy right out from under his nose.
Shaun tightened his grip on the Sig and looked at Ambra One again. If he was right, he hadn’t been found by some random Special Operations team passing through Syria. He’d been rescued by fucking Red Squadron.
The sudden echo of machine gun fire ripped through the hills, and Shaun flinched before he could stop himself.
“Shit, gunshots.” The words were out before his brain caught up with how fucking civilian they sounded, and he almost groaned.
Nice one, asshole. Might as well tell them guns are loud while you’re at it.
Ambra One glanced back at him before turning his attention toward their rear. “No shit, Sherlock.”
Shaun resisted the urge to tell him exactly where he could shove the sarcasm.
For now, letting Red Squadron continue believing they had rescued a civilian contractor was probably the smarter option anyway.
The second he got secure comms and contacted Rock, that particular problem could become somebody else’s headache.
“Nobody ever taught those idiots about saving ammo, huh?” Ambra Two muttered as he pulled out a scope and studied their back trail.
The gunfire continued in sporadic bursts, each one echoing through the hills as some idiot sent another handful of rounds into the air.
Shaun had spent enough time in the Middle East to have seen the same shit more times than he could count, and he still couldn’t understand the point of burning through perfectly good ammunition when there wasn’t a fucking target in sight.
What a waste.
Shaun refused to give Ambra One or the others any reason to slow their pace for him. His back burned beneath the clean shirt, his shoulders fucking screamed with every jarring step, but he kept up with Red Squadron without bitching or asking for a break.
An MH-60 came screaming over the nearest ridge, and Ambra One twisted to check behind them before snapping his attention back to Shaun.
“That’s our ride. Run like hell. Those fuckers are right behind us.”
Shaun took off like he was aiming for gold in the one-hundred-meter sprint.
Bullets chewed into the ground around him and the Red Squadron operators, sending dirt and rock flying as he forced another burst of speed out of legs already threatening to quit on him.
The MH-60 hovered ahead, rotors hammering the air hard enough to steal his breath as he closed the last few yards.
His injuries might have made getting aboard a problem, but a hard boost in the ass from Ambra One sent him scrambling into the bird while the other two operators fired past them at the insurgents closing from behind.
Ambra Two and Three followed seconds later, clipping themselves in before taking positions at the door to provide cover fire as the helo began to lift.
“Go. Go.” Ambra One’s order was almost ripped away by the wind as he shoved Shaun toward a flight seat. Shaun dropped into it while Ambra One grabbed a headset, pulled it on, and looked toward the pilot. “Nice of you to show up and join the party.”
“Jeez,” Shaun muttered as he watched the pilot expertly move them out of range of the machine gunfire before giving Ambra One the bird. “You’re all fucking crazy daisies.”