Chapter 11 #3
Noble’s needling was going to make him batshit, and if he didn’t stop it soon, Zenko was pretty sure he would want another go-around on the sparring mat with him. Except this time he wouldn’t go easy on him. Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that, dumbass. “Doing what again?”
“Getting annoyed when I ask you the same questions you would be asking me if the boot was on the other foot.” Noble’s voice was mild, as if he really didn’t give a shit what the answer would be.
Dammit, he always forgot that Noble was more observant than most. For fuck’s sake, he probably saw his dick twitching in his pants at the slightest mention of Shaun’s name.
“Fuck,” he muttered almost silently, but the cackling from Noble’s corner of the room told him the asshole had heard it anyway. “Asshole.”
“Yup.” Noble kept his eyes on his quadrant, watching for any movement. “There’s something else bugging me, but I’m not getting into it properly until we’re safely behind the wire.”
Zenko glanced at him. “About Shaun?”
“About that language the hostile team leader shouted in the meadow.” Noble shifted his weapon against his shoulder. “It sounded suspiciously like the language Shaun muttered under his breath in the briefing room.”
“And?”
“And if it was the same language, I want to know why Shaun speaks it.” Noble finally looked over at him. “Military, CIA, something else entirely. I don’t fucking know yet.”
Zenko’s jaw tightened. He hated being blindsided by people he trusted, and Noble damn well knew it. Worse, he didn’t like the possibility that there was something about Shaun he should have seen and hadn’t. “You think he lied to us?”
“I think we don’t know enough yet.” Noble returned his attention to his quadrant.
“There have been rumors for years about a second Black Ops team. Ghosts, legends, whatever the fuck you want to call them. Half the stories make them sound like fucking Batman, but I want Max to finish that background check before I dismiss anything.”
“If there’s something to tell, Shaun will tell me.” Zenko believed that. Whatever secrets Shaun was carrying, he trusted the man enough to give him the chance to explain them himself.
“Then Max won’t find anything you don’t already know.”
“Here is our ride,” Zenko muttered as the sound of a Chinook approaching shattered the night. Rotor wash kicked up dust and pulverized rock that had only just started to settle after Saxon blew the door off its hinges.
“Eagle, this is Ambra Four, come in.”
“Go ahead, Four,” Noble answered.
“Fuck.” Roman’s curse had Zenko exchanging a glance with Noble.
“Report, Four,” Noble ordered. “SITREP.”
“Boss, is this bird meant to be loaded for bear?”
Zenko twisted his body, trying to get a view of the incoming bird without exposing himself in the window.
“He’s right, Boss, that Chinook has gunners on both doors.”
“Fuck.” Noble’s entire posture changed. “Move your asses to cover!” he yelled into comms.
Zenko moved before Noble finished giving the order. “You think it’s JSOC making damn sure these weapons don’t disappear again?”
“Maybe.” Noble headed for the other side of the building. “But my gut says that bird isn’t here for retrieval or extraction.”
Zenko followed him. “Then what the fuck is it here for?”
Noble looked back at him. “Extermination.”
“TOC, this is Ambra One.” Zenko sprinted to the other side of the building where Noble was breaking the frame of the window.
The glass must have shattered in the explosion, and Zenko thanked every heathen god there was that the frame was old and the timber brittle.
It was still going to be a tight fit to get them both out the window.
“TOC, this is Ambra One, come in?” Zenko gave Noble the push on the ass he needed to get his shoulders through the window.
“Either my comms are fucked, or base is out,” he told Noble as he handed him his weapon and turned to grab some of the paperwork from the nearest box of weapons.
He stuffed the paperwork into the webbing on his flak jacket and squeezed himself through the window.
“Ambra One, this is Four, approaching at your nine o’clock.” Roman’s voice coming through Zenko’s comms as he and Noble sprinted for the cover offered by the trees confirmed the communication issue was at their base and not with his unit.
Fuck.
“Ambra Four, this is One, go ahead,” Zenko replied as the screaming of door-mounted 7.62 mm machine guns cut through the sound of the Chinook. Bullets riddled what remained of the building behind them.
“I am guessing someone didn’t want us to report finding those weapons.” Noble’s breath huffed out as he ran.
“Yeah.” Zenko ran a step behind Noble, covering his boss’s back as they retreated.
“Take cover.” Noble hadn’t needed to issue the order; the second those bullets started flying, Zenko had dived behind the nearest tree with the others scattering for whatever cover they could find.
Less than thirty seconds later, the Chinook either got a lucky shot or an unlucky one, depending on your point of view. A massive flash of light lit up the darkness before the boom hit, the percussion wave slamming into him as the old ruin imploded.