Page 69 of Welker

“Go ahead, Welk,” Mason replied.

“You probably heard. We have multiple, confirmed pathways. Three, at least.”

Mike, Talia, and Amos, the leaders of A, E, and G, clicked in immediately. “Same with us,” they each confirmed.

Mason didn’t hesitate. “All squads report back to command. Now. That’s an order. Things aren’t adding up.”

Yeah. Circumstances were smelling as fishy as a day-old catch.

Welker had just turned around to head back when a single gunshot rang out.

Fuck. It sounded close. In his unit’s area.

“Shot fired,” he cried out for all ears. “Shot fired. H Squad. Report in,” he barked, stopping in his tracks.

“Ryker, clear.”

“Brent, clear.”

“Sin, clear.”

“Vic, clear.”

Welker heard similar check-ins from the other squads, but where the hell was Moira?

His throat threatened to close up.

“Moira? You copy?” he managed to strangle out.

Nothing. Dead silence

Before he could get his paralyzed larynx to actuate, Mason was already on it.

“All units to Welker’s search area. Possible woman down. Be vigilant. By the multiple paths, there’s more than one bogie.”

Welker had already turned off his IR so he wouldn’t be seen, and started in the direction of the shot when Everlee’s voice shouted across all channels. “Mace! It’s a set-up. I repeat. It’s a set-up.” She explained as succinctly as possible. “Sarah Biner asked to use the park bathroom. Opal followed, guarding the door. When the shot rang out, Opal entered to make sure she was safe, and found that the woman had gone out through a back window.”

“227 MC,” Welker snarled, his entire demeanor turning to ice.

“We’ll go on that assumption,” Mason snapped back. “All units, consider multiple perps, presume they are all armed and dangerous.”

Welker went into battle mode, his worry for Moira tamped down as far as it would go, so that his emotions wouldn’t knee-cap him.

He slipped into SEAL mode and began stalking quietly through the forest.

As far as he was concerned, the situation had quickly changed from a rescue mission, to an all-out war.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Moira tried to breathe through the pain. She’d gone down hard, hit in the lower chest quadrant by a single round. Luckily the bullet had been of a caliber that hadn’t penetrated her vest—or so it seemed since there was no blood—but the hit had been harder than any mere .22, and would certainly leave a nasty bruise.

Once on the ground, her well-honed instincts had kicked in thanks so her extensive training, and breathing or not, she’d crawled several hundred feet across the forest floor—leaving as minimal a trail as possible—to hide behind an ancient stack of fallen trees. She’d burrowed under a pile of leaves, hearing numerous footsteps tromping through the underbrush nearby. They were clearly searching for her downed body to see if she was still alive.

Words were being spoken, but they were indistinct enough that she couldn’t hear exactly what her poorly-trained trackers were saying.

She didn’t need to.

Moira’s assessment agreed with that of Welk and Mason, and what they’d said of the situation before she’d been shot. This whole thing screamed set-up. Was it the work of the MC?

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