Chapter 23
Ashlin lay perfectly still on her stomach on top of a hill to the east of the terrorists’ camp, the way she’d been taught in sniper school.
Through her thermal scope, it looked empty.
The only heat signatures at all were coming from the hot spring, except the trickle of water that would eventually cool before it made its way to the lake three miles away.
“I have no human heat signatures, either,” Kayla announced after several team members, including Ashlin, reported no activity.
She wore her tiny communication bud inside her left ear.
She’d learned years ago that the recoil from a bullet exiting her Barrett fifty-caliber rifle could knock out an earpiece.
The training sergeant threatened to make her pay for it.
“Hold for twenty minutes,” Clint ordered.
“Next satellite in twelve minutes. We’ll know more after the analysts take a look.
” Hearing Clint’s voice sent a river of warmth through her whole body.
Then she remembered where they were and what they were doing.
She needed to focus on the mission, not her loving husband.
Starting with her toes, she squeezed and released them, then worked her way up through her calves and thighs to keep blood flowing through them until she reached her face.
The balaclava kept most of that warm. She was extremely glad that they had brought the same gear that they had recently used in Alaska.
They weren’t that high in the mountains, but Montana was fucking cold in mid-May.
Eight of the team members had jumped out of a C130 Hercules that Van had borrowed from the Air Force that night.
Before leaving D.C., they had decided the best approach was a surprise visit while everyone was asleep.
A few nighttime guards would be easy to take out quietly.
A silent approach meant parachuting in from a high altitude, thus a HALO was the best option.
High-Altitude Low-Opening jumps required oxygen bottles and were always cold.
Ashlin usually warmed up as soon as she hit the ground, but since she was the only certified jump master, she’d gone last, which meant she had to stand in the freezing wind of the open door the longest. She’d landed close to this hill, so she took her oversight position there.
Dog, their other sniper, had jumped first, so he could take the tallest hill on the west side.
Clint led Shadow, Mick, Boomer, Dog, Lady Leopard, and Lady Cheetah carefully down into the valley while she and Dog climbed upward.
As soon as she was in position and had assembled her rifle, she flipped her scope to thermal mode.
She was surprised not to see any people in the camp, so she checked her equipment twice.
It wasn’t an equipment failure. They just weren’t there.
The last satellite photos showed fifteen hostiles moving around as usual.
“Hold for Director of Section 7.” The voice sounded like one of the techs in the Operations Center who monitored everything during a mission.
“This is Katlin Callahan Wolf. Several new satellite photos confirm that the camp is empty.” Their boss did not sound happy.
“Proceed with caution. Enter the camp. Take anything they left of importance. I’m ordering a cleanup crew in at daylight.
Malmstrom is monitoring the sky, just in case they decide to obliterate it themselves.
Boomer, Lady Cheetah, sweep for bombs. Lady Lion, get the little bird on the ground in case everyone needs to make a fast escape.
I’ll be watching from here. Director Section 7 out. ”
“We have our marching orders. Move out,” Clint ordered the ground team.
“Lady Tiger, Dog, hold position,” Kayla commanded. “Although we’ve checked the surrounding mile, we have no idea how far they’ve gone.”
“Copy that,” Ashlin and Dog said at the same time.
Well, she wasn’t going anywhere fast. She deliberately changed position and slowly swept the area three hundred and sixty degrees, looking for humans.
She saw a small herd of what she thought were cow elk bedded down for the night, although some of them may have been yearling bulls, not yet kicked out of the herd.
She thought she saw a few spikes, but couldn’t tell for sure because it was still early for antler development.
There were two very small ones that she identified as newborns.
One calf was almost out of the mother. She couldn’t help herself, even though she couldn’t have done anything to help from her distance.
She watched until the little one was completely out and wiggling.
She caught herself smiling as she thought about trekking through the mountains of Arizona and New Mexico with her father who was an avid hunter.
He’d taught her to shoot as soon as she’d turned ten.
That fall, she’d hunted deer at his side.
At fourteen, he’d taken her on her first elk hunt.
She wondered what had happened to her first elk, hung on the wall next to her father’s dozens of taxidermy animals in his man cave.
She almost giggled out loud. She could still hear her mother’s voice calling it the dead animal room.
She hoped whoever purchased his collection enjoyed it as much as he did.
She could still see the pride in his eyes, knowing it was a fair game hunt.
He hated the growing number of hunting farms where they would grow naturally wild animals like cattle, and people with more money than time would pay to walk into a pasture and shoot whichever one the owner picked out.
He was of the belief that hunting helped control populations, saving the animals from starving to death.
He often used her home state of Arizona’s ten percent increase in human population over the past decade as an example of human encroachment on wild habitat.
Thinking about her father made her realize how many of his core characteristics were in Clint.
She moved her rifle onward, staring down the scope as she looked for terrorists.
She saw a bear, but she couldn’t tell whether it was a grizzly or a black bear.
Six deer and a moose grazed on the sprigs of grass down the stream.
A small movement in the taller grass caught her eye.
She held on to it until she identified it as a mountain lion sneaking up on the deer.
She continued her search and only found wild animals before she returned her sights to her team, entering the camp.
“Oversight two clear,” he announced.
“Oversight one clear,” Dog announced, then added, “I can’t tell you if bears shit in the woods, but I can guarantee you that they fuck in the woods. I watched two of them fight about a thousand feet away, and then the winner pounded into a third one.”
“Thanks for that visual. I’m going to need brain bleach,” Mia responded.
Through her scope, Ashlin watched Clint use standard military hand signals to move the team forward. After Boomer and Mia had swept the camp for explosives, the two of them stood in the opening between the main tents and the larger two.
“All clear,” Boomer announced.
The team moved in and divided into three groups. One started on the smaller tents used by the men, while the other two each took a large tent.
“Holy shit,” Mia mumbled. “I just found a box of U.S. passports.”
“Send a couple of pictures of the detail pages.” The voice sounded like their boss, Katlin.
“They were making IED’s, or teaching them how to make them,” Piper claimed. “I found this under a footlocker.”
“Great!” Piper exclaimed. “A poster-sized full-color chart on how to make a homemade explosive device. Every home needs one of these. Not.”
“My favorite picture is the last one that shows them the most efficient way to duct tape it to a vest.” That was Mia’s voice.
Ashlin wished that she were down there with everyone else searching the camp. She did another three sixty sweep, this time catching the baby elk trying to stand up on new wobbly legs.
“I think they were practicing making IED’s here. I’m showing lots of positive explosive material on this table.” Boomer’s voice, definitely. After spending Monday morning with him at Theodora’s house, she could identify his voice in the crowd.
Nearly an hour passed before she heard Clint say, “All sectors have checked in, Kayla. No injuries. Ground team ready to go.”
The team leader gave everyone the coordinates of where she had landed the little bird. “It’ll be a tight fit, but I’ll make it.”
Clint had already situated himself in the helicopter by the time Ashlin made it down from her position on top of the hill and halfway up another to the meadow, where their new aircraft sat.
“You can sit on my lap,” Clint offered as Ashlin crawled into the very back, where gear was often stored.
She clicked her gun into the specially designed storage space and crawled into her husband’s lap.
He took her helmet off and placed it next to his.
“I knew you were out there watching over us. Thank you, my wife.” He gently grabbed her chin and pulled her lips down to his.
Their kiss was short and sweet because they had an audience.
Half the team was facing backward, looking straight at them.
As soon as everyone had ear protectors on that doubled as communication devices, they lifted off and headed back to the Air Force Base.
“What’s next since we didn’t find anyone there?” Shadow asked the group.
When no one answered, Clint said, “We’re heading back to Malmstrom to await orders.”
Little bird was back in its place next to Black Swan in the secure hangar when a full bird Colonel walked up to Clint and handed him a white envelope stamped top-secret, then handed a matching one to Kayla. Without a word, the senior officer left the hangar.