Page 37 of Shadow Games

They were still taking gunfire, but she couldn’t tell from where. It seemed to be all around them, but she couldn’t see anyone on the tarmac.

Then she realized there was some kind of vehicle racing up on their right. Doing as Crúz had, she shoved the logbook down into her shirt and retrieved her own gun from her waistband. Why the fuck hadn’t she been shooting? Flicking the safety off, she pointed at the SEALs and squeezed the trigger.

“Get down,” Crúz yelled as he swerved away from the vehicle. It kind of looked like a dune buggy with two men in the front and a man up top with a gun. They were all dressed in black. The man up top fired at them relentlessly, but Crúz managed to dodge the vehicle. They drove into a grouping of buildings and suddenly they were dodging people.

“Watch out,” she cried, as a man carrying a bright bundle of red silk jumped out of their way. Was that a parachute he was carrying?

Crúz wove between the buildings, and the dune buggy thing seemed to have dropped back. Were they afraid of being seen?

They raced in front of a line of airplanes, and Rowan realized she had no idea which plane to go to. She and Wyatt were supposed to have stayed together. He said he’d come in on a white jet, so that’s what she looked for. She scanned the horizon, spotting it a good distance away. It was a lone jet already out on the runway. She pointed. “I think that’s it.”

Crúz glanced in that direction, but he turned in the opposite. “What are you doing?” she cried.

Then she saw it. The dune buggy thing was running them down, weapon firing round after round. Then, from between two planes, the Suburban shot out and pulled almost parallel to the dune buggy. Rowan could see Wyatt look at her, then he looked at the vehicle beside him. Deliberately he swerved into the machine, and they both went airborne.

11

Wyatt took a calculated risk, and it paid off for him. Thank God the Suburban was as heavy as it was, because the desert patrol vehicle went flying when they hit. It sailed end over end, and he saw men flying. In one respect, he was sick at heart to know that he was fighting his former team. But on the other hand, they were after Rowan, and nothing would stand between him and her safety.

The Suburban bounced and he thought he heard something crack. Echo yelped from the passenger side floorboard, but he couldn’t look at her. He had to stay on theteniente’s speeding old car. It swerved suddenly, and he saw the jet at the far end of the runway, alone and exposed. He floored the gas, but the truck finally seemed to flag. Between the weapons fire and the crashes, the vehicle had finally broken something important.

“Get me to the plane, damn it, then you can die,” he said to the truck.

The gunfire had fallen silent for the moment, but he didn’t trust it. He had no idea how many of the team were in on this ‘exercise’, so he had to be prepared for more. Ahead of him, Rowan’s car veered left, running down the runway toward the plane. He followed it, scanning the area constantly for more attackers. None appeared. That put him more on edge than anything.

Ahead of him, the cartel sedan hit the brakes, skidding to a stop almost at the foot of the lowering stairway. The passenger side door popped open, but Rowan didn’t immediately jump out.Good girl. Wait for the steps to lower.

Then Jack stepped out onto the stairway and held a hand out to Rowan. Blood blossomed on the left side of his body as a sniper took a shot.

No!

A line of men surged out of the grass at the far end of the tarmac, running low and fast. They were a good ways away, but they were fast, and he knew he had seconds to cut them off.

Wyatt wrung everything he could out of the Suburban, jerking the wheel to circle around the front of the plane. It was a little desperate, but he slid to a stop between the plane and the advancing men, the Suburban rocking. There had to be at least seven men coming toward them. Reaching for his Scar rifle, he fired through the shattered passenger side glass toward them, and they scattered. He unloaded one hi-capacity magazine, ejected it, and slid another home, barely letting up on the trigger. They returned fire, but the surge had stalled out as they faced his opposition.

He would give Rowan as much time as possible to get on the plane. He prayed Jack was well enough to fly. The sound of the turbines winding up on the jet gave him hope. He continued to lay down cover fire.

Echo yelped on the floorboard, and he thought she had been hit. She stayed down, though, and waited for him to move.

Wyatt went through two more mags before he knew he had to move.

“Echo, heel,” he yelled.

Leaving the sagging Suburban and everything else behind, he raced toward the plane. Echo was running on three legs, and she was in pain. Grabbing the canvas loop at the top of her vest, he manhandled her as he raced beneath the plane. It was beginning to turn, and he knew he had seconds to make it up the stairway before they took off. With a mighty heave, he threw Echo up the stairs, then grabbed the flimsy handrail to hoist himself inside. She yelped as she landed and he felt terrible, but it was better than dead.

Once inside the plane. He pulled it up by the cable and locked the lever down. “Hit it, Jack! Hard!”

“Jack is indisposed at the moment,” a voice said behind him.

Wyatt turned, and subtly reached toward the small of his waist for his backup gun.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Britton said, sitting relaxed in a chair with a gun in his hand, pointed directly at Rowan. He was kitted out in black and looked ready for urban warfare. There was a satisfied smile on his face.

Wyatt panted, trying to catch his breath and understand what was going on. The plane was moving, speeding down the runway. He leaned over enough to see thetenientein the pilot’s seat.

What the fuck…

“We were expecting Gillette,” he said, puffing.

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