Page 78 of Operation: Reckless Angel

He worked the vest off her and saw there was no penetration to her back, no blood. He worked his hands under her clothing and then felt over her entire back, checking each bone, each vertebrae. No place he touched brought her any additional pain. Nothing felt deformed. “What were you thinking? You could have been killed!” he scolded her.

She turned her head to look at him, rolling onto her side when he’d finished his examination of her back. “And had I not, you definitely would have been. Damn, that hurts,” she repeated.

“I’m sure you’ll have a hell of a bruise. When we get back to the Air Force Base, I’ll want their emergency medical department to take some x-rays, just to be sure nothing in your back is broken. We need to be careful getting you out of here. So, no unnecessary movement.”

“I’m not about to try to be a contortionist, if that’s what you’re worried about.” She took several deep breaths and then she rolled to a sitting position. “Can you help me up?”

Roth gently pulled her to a standing position, and then he wrapped his arms around her and held her to himself. “I hated knowing you were hit,” he whispered in her ear. “Scared the crap out of me, Briana.”

“I’m fine, better than you would have been. And the thought of you getting hit scares the crap out of me.”

Roth chuckled quietly, his lips still beside her ear. “You know we’re going to have to explore where this can go.”

She nodded against him.

“We need to move back to the chopper,” Jackson said. “Are you okay to walk?” he asked Briana.

“Yes, just stiff and sore from being hit.”

“Yeah, it’s going to hurt like a bitch for a while,” Jackson said.

They went back the way Jackson and the two PJs had come. Briana pushed through the pain and kept up with the quick pace Jackson set. Roth once again held her hand. Halfway to the chopper, they met up with another set of guardsmen, who reported no one in the area.

When they broke through the tree line and into the clearing, the beautiful sight of a HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter greeted them. Two more troops stood near, guarding it. Briana had never been happier to see a military aircraft, and she’d seen a lot in her days as an MP.

As promised, once they reached the Air Force Base, Roth had the emergency room doctor check her over and take x-rays of her back. They were clear. Later that day, after a few hours of sleep, Jackson, Roth, and Briana returned to the burned-out cabin to retrieve her van. It couldn’t be driven in its condition. There were multiple bullet holes in the body as well as the windshield.

In a communication with the two men, Shepherd instructed Jackson to remain on site to get the van repaired and then drive it back to their headquarters in Schaumburg, Illinois. Shepherd requested that Roth escort Briana Woods back to HQ via a commercial flight. The three of them gave their statements to the FBI, who were in control of the scene and the investigation into Sheriff Elsworth, though Jackson had already had a lengthy conversation with them from the base while Briana received medical attention.

They had found the deputy’s body earlier that morning. He’d been shot in the back, presumably by Sheriff Elsworth. According to the statements from other deputies, he was a good guy and none of them believed would have been a part of anything illegal. As far as their opinion of their sheriff? It turned out none of them liked him very much. They saw through his friendly persona, finding him to be a slimy politician they didn’t trust.

Penny Weston’s body was recovered. Her husband had not been home the evening before. Briana wished she could speak to him about how very sorry she was. And she also wanted to tell her husband that Penny hadn’t suffered. Death came quickly. She knew that always helped someone who lost a loved one.

Amanda Elsworth's body would be found later that day, after a search of the lake prompted by Briana’s statement. The coroner would later rule her cause of death was manual strangulation. Briana knew Amanda Elsworth would forever stay in her thoughts, the one she didn’t save. She’d never know if someone tipped off her husband that she was about to flee, or if Amanda’s own actions made her husband suspicious. Or it could have been the timing was coincidence, and he snapped for other reasons that would have happened regardless of if Amanda was about to leave or not. Briana would do better in the future. There wouldn’t be another Amanda Elsworth.

Briana, Roth, and Jackson returned to the hotel in Portland, exhausted and hungry. They ate at the hotel restaurant and then went straight to the room to sleep. Jackson stated that he’d shower in the morning. He grabbed a pillow and blanket and claimed the couch. There was no discussion of sleeping arrangements. Roth went into the private bedroom with Briana and closed the door.

“I have my alarm set for zero five hundred. We have to leave for the airport by zero five-thirty. Is that enough time for you to get ready?”

“Yes,” she said, nodding her head. “I don’t understand why your boss insists I come with you. And what if I decline?”

Roth’s lips tugged into a grin. “That wouldn’t be a good idea. Shepherd provided you with the resources to help you. You owe him, Briana.”

“I know,” she moaned. “And I do appreciate the help. Darren Elsworth would have gotten away with murdering his wife if you hadn’t come. My only recourse was to drive away and forget what I saw, which was not an option.”

Roth wrapped his arms around her. “Then what’s the problem?”

“I don’t like walking into an unknown situation. I know nothing about your boss or your agency.”

“You know enough to know we’re the good guys. And Shepherd is definitely one of the good guys. I and every member of our team respect him immensely, and my boots weren’t even on the ground with his. But I heard about him when I was active in the Teams. He’s a legend in the SpecOps community.”

“He’s a former SEAL?” she asked.

“No, Army brass, a full bird colonel, West Point graduate, his entire career in SpecOps in the Sandbox. He was attached to Delta Force when he ran ground missions.”

“He’s still active duty?”

“Yes and no, I guess technically, yes, but he’s retired on paper only to give the DoD and our unit separation. We run a lot of covert missions for the military, things our regular active-duty forces can’t touch.”

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