Page 66 of The Woman Left Behind

The rapidRAT-TAT-TATof automatic weapons in the distance died down. Anxiously she waited, her heart pounding, sweat pouring off her.Please, God, oh please, let them be all right.

At Babe’s two sharp words, “Ambush! Ambush!,”they all hit the ground. Simultaneously behind them was aboom!and Levi snapped a look over his shoulder to see, in the distance, a spreading glow exactly where the ruin would have been.

The internal shock wave that hit him was staggering.Jina!Before he could process anything else, Yasser wheeled, holding a weapon he must have had hidden beneath his loose clothing, and began firing while he ran to the side. Yasser didn’t have an NVD so he was shooting wildly toward where he thought Levi’s team was, which came close enough. A bullet zinged overhead with an angry whine. Levi rolled, aimed, and stitched a line of shots across Yasser’s torso. The man staggered, shook, went down. He twitched a time or two, then was still.

Not taking anything for granted, both Levi and Trapper took almost simultaneous head shots at Yasser. Careless people got killed by other people who weren’t quite dead yet. Levi wasn’t careless, and Yasser was now completely dead.

Jina.

He did a quick surveillance and saw nothing, urgently surged to his feet. Had Jina been telling them there was an ambush at the ruin, or warning them of Yasser? Maybe both. Already moving, he jerked his NVD up and stared in the direction of the ruin. Even at this distance, the glow had become a noticeable fire, pulsing skyward, bright enough to have blinded him if he’d kept the NVD in place.

The entire team was on their feet, looking back toward the fire.

Another shot, this one from the direction where the informant had been hiding. They hit the ground again. Cursing silently, Levi pulled his NVD back into place. The white flare of muzzle flashes revealed the location of the new attackers; they were running, advancing fast.

The good news was, that drastically affected their accuracy, which in his experience wasn’t great anyway; it was more blast away until they ran out of cartridges. The bad news was that the team was outnumbered by at least two to one.

He began squeezing off shots, carefully placing the rounds for maximum effectiveness, moving after each shot because his muzzle flash revealed his position, too. The rest of the team was returning fire, doing the same thing he was doing, looking for what cover they could find before the attackers overran them. They scrambled, looking for indentions in the terrain, a pile of rocks, anything. He saw Voodoo get hit, go down, get up, and keep moving.

Then some of the attackers began diving for cover, too, proving that they had at least some training.Shit!He was pinned down by these assholes when every cell of his body was being eaten by urgency to get back to Jina. Never before—never—had he had to force himself to concentrate during a firefight.

By his count six attackers were down and unmoving, seven if he counted Yasser. There were nine more, unless a couple had hung back to maybe flank them and come up behind them. He did a swift check of his six—clear—and also checked on Voodoo, who signaled a thumbs-up.

Using hand signals, Levi sent Jelly and Crutch snaking around to the left. He and Boom shifted to the right—not too much, didn’t want to get in the line of fire from Jelly and Crutch. Snake and Trapper, along with Voodoo, held the middle, but Voodoo was a worry despite the thumbs-up because Levi didn’t know how mobile his man was.

“Let’s take care of these fuckers,” he said.

“Report.”

Levi’s voice. Even though her hearing was still muffled she recognized that rough tone, and tears of relief sprang to her eyes. She wiped them on her grimy sleeve, then had to blink away the dust. She thought she’d heard him say something before, but the sound had been garbled.

“Crutch and Voodoo are down.”That was Snake.

Ah, no. No no no.Down didn’t mean dead, but they were a long way from the secondary pickup point, and that wasn’t good.

One by one the team reported, except for Crutch and Voodoo. Then Levi spoke again. “Babe, report in.”

She tried. She clicked the mic, said “here,” but the silence met her effort. She tried again, then faced facts: she couldn’t. Automatically she reached for her holster so she could fire a shot to let them know her location—she’d also be alerting the bad guys who might or might not still be at the ruins, but that couldn’t be helped—and her hand slapped an empty holster.

Damn it, damn it!Why had she ever taken it from the holster? She’d felt uneasy, yeah, and with good reason, but she wished she’d ignored that impulse.

“Babe!” His tone was sharp now. “Report in.”

“Shit,” Boom said softly, a few seconds later.

“Trapper and I will go back—”

“No.” Levi cut Jelly off.

“She might be alive—”

“Snake, what are their conditions?” Again Levi’s voice overrode Jelly’s.

“Crutch has an abdominal. Voodoo was hit in the leg and upper right torso. They’re both bad.”

“Find something to make litters. We’re carrying them out of here.” There was both ice and steel in Levi’s tone. “Snake, do what you can to stabilize them. We have to move fast.”

“Ace...” That was Boom, his voice shaking a little, then it steadied. “Do what he said, guys, and double-time it.”

---