Chapter 30 #2
I edged along the back wall and peered through a gap in the window covering. Dark inside, but enough light bled through the curtain to make out shapes. A figure on the floor, hunched forward, hands in front. Small frame.
Sarah!
I turned to Andrew and gave him the okay signal. He nodded.
The back window was hinged at the top, propped open a few inches for air.
Andrew braced himself against the wall and laced his fingers together.
I stepped into his hands, and he boosted me up.
I caught the window frame, eased it open, and pulled myself through.
Andrew handed my rifle up after me so it wouldn’t clatter on the way in.
The room was small. Concrete floor, a metal ring bolted into the center. Sarah was on the floor beside it, her wrists zip-tied in front of her and tethered to the ring by a short length of cord. Her chin was on her chest. A plate with half-eaten food sat on the floor within reach. No silverware.
I crossed the room and dropped to my knees in front of her. Her head came up. Her right eye found mine, and her whole face changed. The composure she’d been keeping collapsed.
I put my hand over her mouth before she could make a sound. Leaned close.
“I’m here. Stay quiet.”
She nodded against my palm. I pulled the knife from my vest and cut the zip ties. Her arms slowly dropped to her sides, stiff and trembling. I pulled her to her feet and moved her toward the back window.
The front door opened.
Fuck.
The man with the dinner tray from before. He’d come back to collect the plate. He stepped inside, and for half a second, we looked at each other across the room.
Without thinking, I grabbed my rifle and brought the muzzle up toward him. His hands reached for his back, where his own rifle was slung.
My finger squeezed the trigger instinctively. But even if I’d had the time to think about it, I could not have crossed that distance to the front door before he either sounded the alarm or shot me.
The sound completely ruptured the silence of the night.
The front guard started shouting, just in time to see his comrade fall to the ground in the threshold with significantly less of a face than before.
The guard must have still had courage, though, because I saw him whip around the corner of the door.
Having seen his friend’s newly expired condition, he at least had his weapon ready.
It did him little good. I shot him dead too.
Doors banged open on the lit buildings, and men poured into the compound.
I spun to the window. “We won’t have time to navigate this window. Fall back to a firing position so you can support us exiting from the front. And keep yourself alive, brother.”
“Roger that. Moving.”
Andrew took off across the field to create distance and circle wide. He stopped, turned, and, from a kneeling position, fired several rounds toward the lit buildings. Then he was up and moving again.
I turned to grab Sarah and head for the front door.
Through the window, I saw Andrew fall.
No. No-no-no-no. These motherfuckers.
Sarah grabbed my arm. I looked at her. “Follow me.”
We advanced to the front door. I brought my rifle up and moved in a circle before crossing the threshold, scanning the compound. Men were pouring out of the other buildings. Some were already moving on where Andrew had gone down.
I opened fire. I had fired my weapon in hate before. Several of them dropped, and the others quickly reoriented their weapons toward us. The hail of incoming rounds forced me to grab Sarah and pull her deeper into the building.
I set my back to the wall next to the doorframe. Sarah was pressed against the opposite wall, her hands over her ears, her eyes on me. Outside, the gunfire was concentrated and closing.
Andrew was somewhere in the field bleeding out.
Sarah was in here with me.
The walls were at least concrete, which gave us some cover, but it wouldn’t hold up forever under sustained fire. I tried to peek around the doorframe and squeeze off a few more shots but was met with a hail of bullets that shredded even the frame of the door.
I couldn’t get to Andrew. I couldn’t move Sarah across open ground. And staying here was a countdown.
We are going to die here. Just like Owen. I’d made another wrong decision, and it had gotten Andrew killed. Now Sarah and I were going to be overrun, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
I slid over and tried to peek above a window to get another shot off. The glass exploded inward as a barrage of bullets answered.
Then something changed that made no sense.
The rounds hitting our building reduced, but the sound of gunfire outside increased. I slid back toward Sarah with my rifle aimed at the door and listened.
Gunfire, but from outside the farmstead. Disciplined and coordinated, spraying across the groups of men who had been advancing on our building. Controlled bursts from multiple angles, catching Nasser’s men in the open spaces between the buildings and the vehicles.
For a second, my brain couldn’t place it. The fire that had been pinning me shifted. The shooters were suddenly orienting toward a new threat, driven away from their positions.
Then a voice carried across the farmstead.
Zayn. Calling positions across the compound. Short, sharp commands, directing fire with the cadence I’d drilled into him on the training ground. “Alpha hold, bravo advance. Bravo hold, alpha advance.” I could hear them coordinating a full assault.
Then, as they closed in, individual voices barely audible over the sustained gunfire they were unleashing.
“Set.”
“Moving.”
“Move.”
Then another. And another. Ranger after ranger, their voices cutting through the gunfire as they closed on the farmstead.
Every one of them. They were all here.
My head dropped back against the wall. My eyes burned, and I couldn’t breathe for a reason that had nothing to do with the firefight.
I didn’t tell them to come. I didn’t ask.
I used the opportunity to lean out of the doorway and provide fire support. With the combined fire coming from me and the rangers, Nasser’s crew was forced back and eventually fell apart.
I crossed the doorway and dropped beside Sarah. She grabbed my arm with both hands and didn’t let go.
A man bolted from one of the lit buildings and was driven to the ground by a burst that kicked up dirt at his feet. He threw his weapon away and put his hands behind his head. Another stumbled out with his arms raised. Zayn commanded them down, and they went down.
“Zayn! Zayn! We’re in here!”
Zayn was the first ranger through the door. He swept the room with his rifle up, then saw Sarah and me. He gave me a big grin.
“I need you to watch over Sarah. I have to go get Andrew,” I said.
“Yes, sir,” Zayn replied.
Two more rangers came in behind him. I looked at Sarah. She was safe. She was in good hands.
I ran for Andrew.
He’d dragged himself behind a water trough. One hand clamped over his left side, the other still wrapped around his rifle. Blood on the ground beneath him. His face was white, but his eyes were open.
“How bad?”
“Through and through. Left side.” He pulled his hand away and looked at it. “Missed the lung. Probably.”
“Probably.”
“Probably is good enough, as long as it didn’t hit my liver. I need that.” He tried to push himself up, and his face contorted. He dropped back. “Who the hell is doing all that shooting out there?”
“The rangers.”
He let his head fall back against the trough. Something close to a laugh came out of him, broken and wet. “Of course they are.”
I grabbed gauze and chest seals out of his med kit and sealed up his wounds. I flagged down two rangers to come get him. When they arrived, I went back to the building where Sarah waited.
Sarah was against the wall where I’d left her, her arms wrapped around her knees. The gunfire was over. She knew it was over. But her body hadn’t caught up yet.
“I’ve got her now,” I said in a low voice.
Zayn nodded and walked back outside.
I dropped to my knees and pulled her into me. She locked her arms around my neck and buried her face in my shoulder. She held on with a strength that didn’t seem possible from someone her size.
I placed one arm around her waist. One hand cradling the back of her head. Her whole body shook, and her ribs expanded with each breath.
“It’s over,” I said. “I’ve got you.”
Her fingers curled into the fabric at my shoulders. Her grip tightened and didn’t let go.
Outside, the farmstead had gone quiet. Zayn’s voice carried through the walls, steady and calm, directing his men through the final sweep.
They’d chosen this.
I put my mouth on Sarah’s hair and kept my arms around her.