Page 109 of Fire for Effect

“Tracker on her bracelet,” I mumbled.

The silence on the other end of the comms was damning.

It dragged on for two blissful minutes, and I assumed they were either laughing and keeping themselves on mute, or they were stunned into a quiet stupor.

My answer came from Goose, who spoke and laughed, “Jesus, does she know that?”

“No, she doesn’t know that!” I was having a hard time keeping my voice down, as the heat of embarrassment flared up my neck.

“The silver bracelet with the bug on it?” Veder’s voice was broken by static, but not enough that I couldn’t hear his humor. “She was playing with it when we had our little chat. Looked new. The bug bracelet has a bug in it?”

“It doesn’t fucking matter!” I knocked my fist against the ground. “And it’s not a bug. It’s a firefly.”

“A firefly is a bug,” Top pointed out.

“Shut up, guys. It’s sweet.” Charlotte jumped in. “He’s in love.”

If we had done this in the team room, or in a briefing room, I woulda punched them all. Charlotte included.

The problem was that we had to wait until we were in position. And even then, we needed their shift change to happen, or we risked the full force of them standing on top of us when we made our move.

They bandied back and forth, making jokes at my expense as the cold truly settled down in the valley at the base of the Catskills. The jagged green mountains in the distance were as pointed as the evergreens.

“Do we have a plan, or we just going in balls to the wall?” Goose asked, and I heard him shuffling through the radio.

“Balls. Go with the balls.” Veder, again, was showing the old humor I hadn’t seen on him in almost five years - not since he told me that he’d fucked my wife.

I wanted that thought to sting again. Him. Kristin. Sleeping together in my bed.

But it was toothless. I felt no anger, or resentment. I didn’t even want to punch Veder for that.

I hated that it was water under the bridge. I had held my anger for so long, it was a comfort. Now? It was just another nuisance. Another way that I might hurt my sweet Firefly.

I saw her face when Sierra and I discussed it in the trailer. I saw how she fidgeted with the table, then her beer bottle. I could feel the resentment she repressed, as I accidentally called Kristin my wife…

A habit that I had to break.

Taz was my woman. She was my soulmate. My best friend. And yes, though we didn’t have a piece of paper to make it legal, I long considered her my wife, and my family.

“We should see signs of a shift change,” Top said. I was grateful to get our head s back into the game. “We’ll let that be our trigger to get the hostage.”

“Taz.” I clenched my fists tight around the M4 Carbine I had pulled into the pocket of my shoulder. “Her name is Taz. Not the hostage. She’s Trinity Blaze Guerro. Staff Sergeant-type. We all fucking know her, so quit the jargon and call her what she is.”

“You need to stop grinding your teeth so hard, or you’ll release your cyanide capsule,” Sierra said. “I can hear them from here.”

“I swear to God, Sierra, I’m sick of your shit! It’s not a fucking joke!”

“Just because I’m laughing, doesn’t mean I’m joking,” she said forever the fucking smart ass, throwing my own phrase back at me.

“That’s enough, Griff,” Top said. “We know how important she is, and referring to her as the hostage does not diminish her. But we have to get through this the way we know how, you get me? We get through this like it’s any other operation, and we increase our chances - and hers - of coming out the other side.”

“But he is right,” Veder chimed in. “The fact that she is Taz increases our chances of success.”

“Let’s be more aggressive.” I hated that I was agreeing with Veder, but if he and I needed to take sides together, then… fine. If it was what was best for her, then… fine. “Balls to the wall.”

What choice did I have?

My life was in that building. God knows what they were doing to her.

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