Prologue #3
He reached the driver's door and his heart sank. Driscoll was slumped over the steering wheel, blood dripping out of his temple. Nick checked for a pulse anyway.
"He's gone," Nick said.
"Get him in the back. I'm driving," Sterling said.
"We need to get Marlow. Dead or alive. We don't leave men behind," Nick said.
Sterling nodded.
"Meet me at the back of the building," Nick said. "It’ll be faster if I go by foot." He slammed the door and took off.
Sterling wasn't about to argue with him because he would've done exactly the same.
Sterling slid behind the wheel. "Hold on." He put the van in gear and pulled from the curb taking the first corner hard enough that Restrepo slid across the floor of the cargo bay and hit the far wall. The streets of Bogotá at midnight were narrow, wet and empty.
He went east around one block, north around the next, then doubled back. "Nick, copy."
"It's not good," Nick said. "Coming down back staircase. Four minutes."
"I'll be there."
Two men gone in an op that was supposed to end with Restrepo on a plane and a corridor burned at the seams. Sterling would still get him out. The testimony would still come. But the cost was two good men, and right now, Sterling wasn't sure the math worked.
"There he is." Doyle pointed.
"Go open the door, and help," Sterling said as he rolled to a stop.
The streets were eerily quiet. As if whoever had wanted Restrepo had decided he wasn't worth the trouble.
Sterling never trusted the quiet. Anything calm or peaceful was a flat out lie.
Once their fallen were loaded and Nick had climbed into the passenger seat, Sterling drove toward the access road toward the small private field where they were to meet the evac team.
Once the city lights were behind them, Nick reached for the radio. "Two KIA. Marlow and Driscoll. One WIA. Doyle, leg. Package secured. Inbound. Four minutes."
Sterling's hands were tight on the wheel.
This was not how this was supposed to go down.
He'd lost men on a mission before, and he was sure this wouldn't be the last time.
It was part of being a foreign field agent.
It certainly came with running high-stakes JSOC missions.
But it didn't make them any easier. Marlow was just a kid. Twenty-four years old. He’d had his entire life ahead of him.
And Driscoll? He had a wife and kids. This was the part of the job that Sterling loathed.
It was why he wasn't ever gonna get married.
Or have a family. It was bad enough his mama might have to someday get that call.
But he wouldn't put a wife and kids through it.
Unfortunately, the sad part was he loved his job more than he loved the idea of remaining vertical. He didn't have a death wish. He just didn't care to share his life with anyone or anything other than justice.
Even if it came with a cost.
The access road came up on the right. He took it without slowing. The chain-link gate stood open, the way it was supposed to. The bird sat at the end of the strip with the engines running and the rear ramp down, and Sterling pulled the van right up to the ramp, put it in park and killed the motor.
The chopper crew moved like a brand-new engine.
Sterling pointed at Doyle. "Load him first. He needs medical attention. Twenty minutes of bleeding."
"Copy," one of the crew said as they helped Doyle out of the van.
Sterling stood on the wet tarmac and watched them load Doyle onto a stretcher and carry him up the ramp.
Watched Snow and Nick walk Restrepo up between them, one on each side.
Watched them lift Driscoll and Marlow out of the cargo bay with the slow, careful respect good men gave other good men whose bodies had stopped working.
He rubbed his eyes with his palms before he climbed into the bird. He took a helmet and pulled it over his head, tugging the neck strap. He then went about securing his harness and completing all the other safety measures that seemed so mindless but were necessary.
Two good men had died, and that was all he could focus on.
His feet had gone numb somewhere in the last hour.
His muscles ached. His body finally registered the cold.
But his mind replayed every detail of the mission from start to finish.
Then he went backward, eight long months.
All of it. The corridor. The players. The corrupt governments.
The companies. He stored it all permanently in a file that he could retrieve and review in great detail, ensuring he’d never forget it.
Most people thought his memory was a skill to be cherished.
On a good day, it wasn't the worst thing in the world.
But on days like this, it was an absolute fucking curse.
Restrepo sat across from him with a blanket someone had given him around his shoulders.
The helicopter shook and shimmied as it lifted off the ground.
Below them, Bogotá rolled away in a grid of yellow and orange. The Cordillera Oriental rose dark behind it. Letting his head fall back against the bulkhead, Sterling closed his eyes.