Chapter 4 #2
Truck thought about Beatle’s words for a long moment and realized he was right.
He’d been afraid to talk to Mary, really talk to her, because he didn’t want to hear her say that she wanted a divorce.
That since she was better, she didn’t need to be married to him anymore.
But maybe she was waiting for him to make the first move.
That made more sense. As much as she was brash and bold, she wasn’t all that confident when it came to relationships.
He knew it was because of how she was brought up, but he hadn’t ever come out and asked her point-blank about it.
She needed reassuring as much as he did.
And the second he got back to Texas, he was going to be a different kind of man for her.
He wouldn’t force her to talk to him, but he was going to make sure she knew how much he loved her, and that he was there to talk whenever she needed it.
He’d open up to her about his own life, his own feelings.
Not about her—although he was going to make sure a day never went by without him telling her how important she was to him—but how he felt about work, his family, their friends… everything.
“Thanks,” Truck said softly.
“You’re welcome,” Beatle responded, then picked up his binoculars and gazed down on the rebel camp.
“Moving in sixty seconds,” Ghost’s voice said through their earbuds.
“You ready to kick some ass?” Beatle asked as he grinned over at Truck.
“More than,” Truck responded. “Those fuckers are as good as dead.”
“Damn straight,” Beatle said.
The two men shifted and got into position.
Their job was to attack from the back side of the chow tent.
Twenty or so of the rebels were inside eating lunch.
If they could take them out, it would cut the number of rebels in half, making the rest less likely to turn on the girls and more likely to flee for their lives.
Beatle and Truck heard Ghost counting down from ten in their ears, and at the word Go, all hell broke loose.
Time had no meaning in the middle of battle.
If asked, Truck would be hard pressed to say if minutes went by or seconds.
He focused entirely on the task at hand and everything else faded into the background.
He focused on covering his teammates and getting the job done.
Truck didn’t know how many rebels he’d taken out once the shooting started, but ultimately, it didn’t matter.
He lost track of Beatle in the chaos of battle, but knew the man was to his right somewhere.
The air was full of smoke and the smell of gunpowder, and he could hear yelling outside the tent, but he didn’t take his concentration from the men hiding behind overturned tables.
Every time a head popped up from behind a table to try to shoot at them, Truck fired.
He heard a yell from his left and turned to aim in that direction, then hesitated for a split second—because he wasn’t expecting to see what he did.
One of the rebels hadn’t just popped up from behind a table to shoot at him. No. He’d leaped over it and was running toward him as fast as he could.
Truck squeezed the trigger of his weapon, taking the man down, but not before he’d gotten way too close for comfort.
The man went down on his knees and swayed. His hate-filled eyes met Truck’s for a split second—and then he grinned. An evil, nasty grin that made the hair on the back of Truck’s neck stand up. He raised his weapon to fire again…and noticed too late what the man held in his hands.
Grenades. Two of them. And the pins were nowhere to be seen.
Truck had enough time to yell “Gre—” but before he could finish the warning, the chow tent exploded in a shower of body parts, wooden table pieces, and metal.
“Sitrep! Sitrep!” Ghost yelled, his voice echoing through the earbuds of the other Delta Force men.
Trigger and his team had secured the girls and gathered them all together in the largest of the three tents they’d been held in.
Three had been killed in the raid, but Lefty, Doc, and Brain had taken out the men guarding them before they’d been able to shoot any more.
Brain was put in charge of speaking to the girls, as he was the only one who could communicate with them.
He was a language savant and spoke more than thirty different languages, hence his nickname.
Doc was tending to the injured girls, and seemed to be doing his best to keep his temper under control.
The girls were beyond freaked out. They were emotionally scarred, and it was more than obvious which ones had been abused, as they cringed away from the Deltas anytime they got close.
The little French girl was found hiding amongst them as well.
They weren’t yet sure if she’d been assaulted.
During the short time the teams had been watching the rebel camp, the captors hadn’t seemed to differentiate between the local girls and the international ones.
Oz and Grover were standing guard outside the tent holding the former hostages, and Lucky and Lefty were doing their best to get the trucks started so they could get the hell out of there.
Coach and Blade had disappeared into the surrounding trees, chasing after the rebels who had decided to cut and run rather than stay and fight.
“Dammit, Beatle. Truck. Sitrep!” Ghost barked harshly, even knowing they probably wouldn’t answer. He looked over at Fletch, who was staring at the smoldering tent that used to be standing thirty feet away, but was now nothing more than a smoking mess.
“Coach and Blade, get your asses back here. Pronto,” Ghost ordered as he and Fletch made their way cautiously toward where the tent had been standing.
“You need us?” Trigger asked.
“Hold,” Ghost said, his eyes scanning for his teammates.
He’d heard the gunfire coming from inside the tent, but he’d been busy taking out his own share of the rebels.
Beatle and Truck knew what they were doing, and he hadn’t been concerned.
In all their surveillance, they hadn’t seen any weapons other than the rifles the rebels were constantly holding.
No RPGs, no explosives. The rebels were prepared, but they weren’t exactly a well-oiled Army machine.
Their clothes were worn and torn and the highlight of most of their days seemed to be chow time.
Ghost gestured to Fletch to go to the right and he went to the left, his eyes constantly checking for any kind of movement.
He came upon a few rebels who were still alive and dispatched them without mercy.
He’d seen for himself the terror in the little girls’ faces.
He had no sympathy for the men who’d kidnapped and abused them. None.
At one corner of the smoldering rubble, he saw a leg wearing a pair of black pants.
Kneeling, Ghost frantically tore boards and debris away from the man. He sighed in relief when he saw a pair of familiar eyes blinking up at him.
“Beatle? You okay, man?”
Beatle nodded and slowly sat up, with Ghost’s help. He shook his head sluggishly and said, “Holy shit.”
“Where’s Truck?” Ghost asked, more relieved than he could say that Beatle seemed to be all right. There was a trickle of blood coming from the side of his head, but otherwise all his limbs seemed to be good, and he was quickly becoming more and more aware of his surroundings.
“He was over there the last time I saw him,” Beatle said, pointing to where they could see Fletch cautiously combing through the debris. “We were picking them off one by one when a rebel ran right toward him. Truck shot him and the guy went down to his knees. Truck yelled something, then kaboom.”
Ghost hauled Beatle up and kept one hand on his teammate’s elbow and the other on the trigger of his weapon. The last thing they needed was one of the rebels to pop up and shoot them. They made their way toward Fletch, their eyes constantly on the lookout for either bad guys or Truck.
By the time they made it to Fletch, Beatle was walking almost normally. He’d regained his balance and was kicking at wood planks that used to be tables as he went.
“Where exactly did you last see Truck?” Ghost asked, well aware that time was running out. They’d made enough noise for any rebel in a ten-mile radius to hear them, and they wanted to get the hell out of dodge before reinforcements showed up.
“There,” Beatle said, gesturing to a point about ten feet away from them. Without a word, the three men fanned out and began lifting every piece of wood they came in contact with.
“Oh, shit. Found him!” Fletch said urgently. “Help me!”
Ghost tasted bile in the back of his throat at the tone of Fletch’s voice, but didn’t hesitate to close in on him. With Beatle’s help, they threw off a large wooden tabletop, two arms, a leg, and someone’s intestines before completely uncovering Truck.
He was lying on his back, his arms outstretched, his weapon nowhere to be seen. He looked like he was sleeping, but all three Deltas knew that wasn’t the case.
Ghost leaned down and put his fingers on Truck’s carotid artery and held his breath.
He immediately breathed out a sigh of relief at feeling the strong pulse. “He’s alive,” Ghost told the others.
“Injuries?” Fletch asked.
“Not sure,” Ghost said. He looked up and saw a metal box lying nearby. At one time it probably held ammunition, but it was empty now. It did have a huge dent in the side…about the size of a human head. “Help me turn him over so I can check his back. Careful, keep his spine straight.”
With Fletch and Beatle helping, Ghost did a quick battlefield survey of their friend. His spine seemed all right, no protrusions of his spinal cord, and Ghost didn’t see any blood pooling under him either. Glancing down at his limbs, nothing looked obviously broken.
But with the way he’d been buried by debris, he probably had some fractures of some sort.
“Truck?” Ghost said loudly as he squeezed his friend’s shoulder.