Chapter Twenty-Seven
It took Ben two hours to return to his office and fetch Sarah, but at last he arrived. “Ready?” he asked. She’d already sent an email to Milly.
Surprising her, Ben had changed into combat fatigues and heavy gloves. He smiled and quickly escorted her through the office and outside to a small structure she hadn’t noticed before, a hut attached to the shoot house.
Stevens waited at the little room. Three other new men stood by, each dressed in clothing similar to Ben’s. One was the hulking bald and tattooed man, Franklin. He stood stiffly, his eyes hard. They all wore helmets and carried weapons.
Rio stood nearby, talking to other new recruits.
“We turned this shed into the viewing room,” Ben told Sarah, opening the door. Inside the darkened area were large video monitors and two chairs. The monitors showed the inside of a warehouse-type building. Apparently, cameras were attached to the rafters, so the view was from above.
Sarah noticed immediately that the building had no windows. She pointed at the screens. “You did it! You installed cameras in the shoot house?”
“Yep. We made your idea come to life. Stevens has been hard at work.” Ben gestured at the other man.
“They’re thermal imaging cameras.” Stevens squeezed by Ben into the hut, his expression open and bright. “Their actual purpose is for security, but here we’re using them to observe the action. They detect the self-emitted heat of objects, like a running vehicle. Or—”
“Or a human?” Eagerly Sarah took one of the chairs.
“Right.” Dropping into the other chair, he indicated the monitors. “These are the display screens. I chose thermal imagining because it’s dark in the shoot house and these cameras need no visible light to produce images.”
“So, when the guys do their thing inside, we can watch in real time?” Enthused, Sarah stared at the screens.
“Yep. This system features video analytics and recording for training purposes.” Stevens leaned over to a control panel and turned a dial. Instantly, the view on the first monitor moved. “We have pan and tilt options, too.”
“Fantastic,” Sarah said. “Can I watch somebody in there today?”
“Right now.” Ben pulled a helmet over his head and accepted a rifle from one of the other armed men. “We’re giving you a demonstration.”
Rio came forward, grinning at Ben. “All’s ready, Boss.”
“You’re going in there?” Sarah asked Ben from her chair, surprised, but of course she shouldn’t be. Naturally he’d have a hands-on role in training his men.
An unexpected excitement gripped her. Then a new thought bloomed. “It’s safe, right? You said you use live rounds.”
“Don’t worry.” Ben was already turning away.
From inside the hut’s open door, she watched as he gave a few clipped orders and the other three men gathered close.
Ben addressed the men, his voice not loud and still commanding.
“This is a hostage rescue. One woman captive. We have an active shooter situation. Two armed Tangos that we know of. Could be more. Inside we’ll confront virtual simulations and other distractions.
Even I don’t know what waits for us because Rio has designed this exercise to mimic a real-world mission.
We locate the shooters, eliminate the threat, and grab our hostage. ”
One by one, the men lined up at the door.
“Franklin,” Ben said, “you’re on point.”
Franklin nodded.
Beside Sarah, Stevens shifted in his seat. “See how they’re standing close together?” he whispered, rubbing his hands together. “That’s called stacking up. On Ben’s command, they’ll pour inside and clear each room. This is urban assault training at its best. Everything is computerized. Watch.”
She heard Ben give a muttered order to flip their night vision goggles down over their eyes, and the tactile team pushed inside.
Sarah glued her eyes to the screen and Simmons said, “Here we go.”
On the monitor, four white glowing and moving figures came into view.
The first, given his size, must have been Franklin.
He peeled off to the right and took a knee, the second went left and remained standing.
The third and fourth quickly followed, their weapons covering their assigned firing sectors.
Sarah could hear their booted feet on the hard packed dirt floor, heard Ben’s terse, “Clear.”
As though leaching through the air, their tension affected her.
She felt their hyper alert attention and amped up energy.
A compelling scene was about to unfold and she could not look away.
Because she saw Ben go in last, she knew he was the fourth man.
But she would have recognized him anyway by his smooth, efficient movements, his watchful demeanor, even by the unique set of his broad shoulders.
She felt a strange connection to him, and it seemed as though she were in the shoot house, right beside him. Her breathing quickened.
The men kept moving.
In the next room, on the wall an image suddenly burst to life.
A hologram of an armed jihadi. He wore a turban and was dressed in the traditional dishdasha, an ankle-length Arab robe-like garment.
He held a pointed rifle. The projection was lifelike, the man’s posture threatening. Sarah caught her breath.
Instantly, two of the squad fired and the image winked out.
Moving stealthily as a single unit, the men kept tightly together and rounded a corner.
A new image popped up, this time of a woman holding a swaddled infant.
Her mouth was formed into a surprised and frightened ‘O’.
She wore western clothing—a floral dress and ballet flats. No shots were fired. “Clear,” Ben said.
They began to move on.
Abruptly, the young mother changed. She’d thrown off her baby’s blanket to reveal, instead of an infant, an AK-47 rifle. Her features transformed into a snarl of rage. She aimed her rifle at them. Sarah couldn’t believe how fast the innocent became a combatant.
In a flash, Ben raised his weapon and fired.
She disappeared.
Thoroughly fascinated, Sarah watched Ben direct his men with careful authority and quiet skill. This was his turf, his comfort zone. A tingle ran up her spine. He was magnificent. He was both at ease in this environment ... and lethal.
She remembered him slamming the rude paparazzi into her truck, the same man now leading his team in a life-and-death mission.
Yet in her mind she juxtaposed the rough warrior with the incredibly tender Ben who’d kissed her, held her with such care.
He intrigued her, this man with many personality facets and yes, fighting skills.
In the next three minutes, the team climbed metal stairs, ‘killed’ a combatant on the landing, discovered a lifelike dummy, the hostage, and carried it back downstairs.
Nearing the bottom of the stairs, apparently seeing something amiss, Ben held up a closed fist, the universal signal to stop. All the men froze.
Franklin peered around the corner, apparently saw nothing, and gave a thumbs up.
Ben reached out and gave Franklin a shoulder squeeze, silently indicating they should move.
On the bottom floor, suddenly an unexpected threat loomed. Violently swinging down from the rafters, a dummy on a rope came hurtling at them.
“Whoa,” Stevens exclaimed beside Sarah. “Where’d that come from?”
Springing out of the way, Ben fired a short burst from his rifle and eliminated the final threat. Shells from his rifle popped onto the floor.
Sarah could swear she smelled gun smoke.
The exercise was over. With shouts of exhilaration, knuckle bumps and high fives, the team burst into the sunshine.
Sharing their excitement, Sarah leaped out of her chair, joined by Stevens and met them outside the hut.
Ben took off his helmet and congratulated his new men. “A fine performance,” he told them. “Well done.”
Sarah noticed the ever-frowning Franklin was grinning. From the pounding adrenalin and their hurried movements through the house, they were all sweating.
“That was totally cool,” Sarah said to Ben. “Wait till you see the video. That part where the lady transformed into a jihadi was scary! And the dummy swinging from the ceiling! I jumped!”
“Yeah. I jumped, too,” Ben said, casting a weather eye at Rio.
“Did you like that?” Rio beamed. “I thought it up myself. Rigged a timed mechanism to let that baby fly.”
“It came at my head like a giant bat,” Ben told him. “But we got him. And we came out with our hostage and no injuries. If only all our real-life missions were so successful.”
Sarah could not stop smiling. Ben was amazing—a dangerous warrior and yet a tender, would-be lover—an incredible man.
Maybe it was time to change his would-be lover status.
To lover.