29. Attack at First Light
Chapter 29
Attack at First Light
Griff
The world is filled with people who aren’t early risers. They miss out on the brilliant hues that happen in the gap between night and first light. We call that moment “Stand-To”.
The night was cold. Colder than usual, probably because of my blood loss.
I took a skin stapler to my stomach, and closed up the bullet holes. One in the front, and another in my back. It was a clean exit wound. But I wasn’t immune to the pain. I just didn’t have time to care. Not while Taz was waiting for me.
I’m a morning person. I always had been. Years of military training, and my own sense of discipline made me an early riser, at my most alert just before the sun came out.
The body armor weighed heavy on my back, as I lay on the cold ground in Army-like fatigues, the ammo pouches on my stomach barely keeping me a few inches from the frozen dirt. We blended into the dying tall grass, looking at the old factory building that housed the Prodigal Sons.
Sierra was several feet to my right, exactly where I had gotten used to her being. I looked through the binoculars, hoping to see my woman somewhere inside the building, in one of the many lit windows.
The ring grew heavy in my breast pocket. The one I had made as a death gift to her. But now, it was more than that. It was an engagement ring. One I wanted to put on her finger sooner, rather than later. Or hell, we could not get married at all. I just needed it on her.
The fact that I had been married before was an affront to her. The world had once associated me with someone that wasn’t Taz Guerro, and it was wrong. It was wrong that she wasn’t my wife. That she wasn’t more than my wife… that the world didn’t see her as my other half. A part of my body, like my own fucking arm.
A car slowly drove by, passing the building and heading to the distance.
I knew it was Veder and Top. They’d be getting into position, approaching from the eastern side to our left. On my right, I knew that Goose and Charlotte were already in position, waiting like the rest of us.
Comms in our ear let us talk quietly to one another, but we used it sparingly. At least, until the team got in place. Then shit got… annoyingly chatty.
I had only given them a building description and talked over the basic infill plan. Once inside, I hoped our training would take over and we’d clear the building and get Taz out.
One didn’t forget their Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT) training without a serious lobotomy. That shit was drilled into us so often, especially before we went into Iraq, that I’d long forget my own name before I forgot how to clear a room.
“Team Charlie is set.” It was Veder, with Top.
“Team Bravo is set.” Charlotte said, for her and Goose.
“Hey, question, bro,” Veder again.
He used to never talk when I was around. That all seemed to change when he got super chatty with Taz in the barn. I preferred him silent and sulking.
“How’d you know where Taz was after they took her?”
I could feel Sierra turning her head towards me. She knew. I knew. Now everyone would fucking know and I was in for a dogpile of epic proportions.
“Tracker on her bracelet,” I mumbled.
The silence on the other end of the comms was damning.
It dragged on for two blissful minutes, and I assumed they were either laughing and keeping themselves on mute, or they were stunned into a quiet stupor.
My answer came from Goose, who spoke and laughed, “Jesus, does she know that?”
“No, she doesn’t know that!” I was having a hard time keeping my voice down, as the heat of embarrassment flared up my neck.
“The silver bracelet with the bug on it?” Veder’s voice was broken by static, but not enough that I couldn’t hear his humor. “She was playing with it when we had our little chat. Looked new. The bug bracelet has a bug in it?”
“It doesn’t fucking matter!” I knocked my fist against the ground. “And it’s not a bug. It’s a firefly.”
“A firefly is a bug,” Top pointed out.
“Shut up, guys. It’s sweet.” Charlotte jumped in. “He’s in love.”
If we had done this in the team room, or in a briefing room, I woulda punched them all. Charlotte included.
The problem was that we had to wait until we were in position. And even then, we needed their shift change to happen, or we risked the full force of them standing on top of us when we made our move.
They bandied back and forth, making jokes at my expense as the cold truly settled down in the valley at the base of the Catskills. The jagged green mountains in the distance were as pointed as the evergreens.
“Do we have a plan, or we just going in balls to the wall?” Goose asked, and I heard him shuffling through the radio.
“Balls. Go with the balls.” Veder, again, was showing the old humor I hadn’t seen on him in almost five years - not since he told me that he’d fucked my wife.
I wanted that thought to sting again. Him. Kristin. Sleeping together in my bed.
But it was toothless. I felt no anger, or resentment. I didn’t even want to punch Veder for that.
I hated that it was water under the bridge. I had held my anger for so long, it was a comfort. Now? It was just another nuisance. Another way that I might hurt my sweet Firefly.
I saw her face when Sierra and I discussed it in the trailer. I saw how she fidgeted with the table, then her beer bottle. I could feel the resentment she repressed, as I accidentally called Kristin my wife…
A habit that I had to break.
Taz was my woman. She was my soulmate. My best friend. And yes, though we didn’t have a piece of paper to make it legal, I long considered her my wife, and my family.
“We should see signs of a shift change,” Top said. I was grateful to get our head s back into the game. “We’ll let that be our trigger to get the hostage.”
“Taz.” I clenched my fists tight around the M4 Carbine I had pulled into the pocket of my shoulder. “Her name is Taz. Not the hostage. She’s Trinity Blaze Guerro. Staff Sergeant-type. We all fucking know her, so quit the jargon and call her what she is.”
“You need to stop grinding your teeth so hard, or you’ll release your cyanide capsule,” Sierra said. “I can hear them from here.”
“I swear to God, Sierra, I’m sick of your shit! It’s not a fucking joke!”
“Just because I’m laughing, doesn’t mean I’m joking,” she said forever the fucking smart ass, throwing my own phrase back at me.
“That’s enough, Griff,” Top said. “We know how important she is, and referring to her as the hostage does not diminish her. But we have to get through this the way we know how, you get me? We get through this like it’s any other operation, and we increase our chances - and hers - of coming out the other side.”
“But he is right,” Veder chimed in. “The fact that she is Taz increases our chances of success.”
“Let’s be more aggressive.” I hated that I was agreeing with Veder, but if he and I needed to take sides together, then… fine. If it was what was best for her, then… fine. “Balls to the wall.”
What choice did I have?
My life was in that building. God knows what they were doing to her.
But I had to trust what I knew. That she was smart, and strong. She was resilient. Unbreakable.
And very, very much mine .
“I’m coming for you, baby,” I whispered to the grass around me. A prayer, a promise, and gone to the wind as quickly as the steam of my own breath.