Page 3 of Hidden Chance

“I take it you all noticed the three empty beds?” Robby asked, and they nodded. “We should assume that there are boys missing and go down the hole with that in mind.”

“Yes, sir,” Holland said.

Robby nodded at Mitchell, who pulled the door up and stepped clear while Robby checked the opening, which remained vacant.

He listened for sound and thought he heard a whimper, but it was impossible to tell.

“We go in hard and fast,” he said. “Ready?”

His men nodded, and he tossed a flash grenade, angling it so it landed out of sight before exploding.

They dropped through the hole in quick succession, identifying themselves and calling for surrender as they entered a large bunker with their weapons ready.

A volley of shouting erupted as Robby and his men found a group of three men along the back wall holding kids in front of them.

Robby’s senses were at full alert as he took in the hostage situation, as well as the crates that were piledhigh to his left, probably filled with ammunition and other weapons. To his right and along the other wall was a table with a laptop with a pile of papers and two filing cabinets underneath.

An uneasy silence finally settled on the room when Robby lifted a hand, signaling they would yield.

They’d trained for this. It was why his team was hired over others, and it was why he’d chosen Holland, Mitchell, and Green to stay with him. They were his best marksmen. They’d completed each of their previous missions with a hundred-percent success rate. He intended to add this one to that list.

Slowly, Robby lowered his gun while his other hand raised higher. He watched the enemies until he noted the subtle change in their countenance as they relaxed, believing they had won, and prepared for the surrender.

That’s when Robby’s finger twitched, and three simultaneous shots were fired. The boys screamed as the three militants slumped to the floor. Two of the boys jumped from their dead captors, but one boy remained.

“You shot him!” Robby said in a rare moment of panic as he ran for the boy. “Who shot him?”

He looked at Holland, who was making sure the men were dead. “Was that us?” Robby demanded of his teammates.

Holland took off his helmet and tucked it under his arm before he crouched beside Robby, checking the entry wound.

“That’s not ours. He must have gotten off a round at the same time we did.” He pursed his lips and looked long and hard at Robby. It was a warning look. As theteam’s leader, Robby couldn’t afford to get emotional in front of his men. They’d debrief later, after their nerves had settled and the details were clearer.

Normally, this kind of thing wasn’t an issue for Robby to control. It was part of the job, and even though it was always hard, today he’d reacted out of turn.

He squeezed the bridge of his nose to reset himself, then stood.

Holland slapped him on the back. “We saved the others. That’s more than most.”

Robby cleared his throat. “We’ll gather everything on the table and do a quick inventory of what’s in these boxes, then get these boys home. If they still have one. Green, radio to the others and let them know our mission was successful. Well done.”

Those last words were hard to say, but theyhaddone well, and they needed to know it whether they’d admit it or not. It wouldn’t be easy on any of them to lose one.

After one last look at the dead boy, he pushed the death from his mind. They’d try to find his parents, and, if not, he would make sure the boy had a proper burial. But tonight, they still had work to do.

Mitchell slipped the laptop in a bag from under the table, and Robby pushed a few of the papers around to see if anything stood out. They had people back at headquarters to comb through all of this stuff and find every clue they could gather. There would be no scrap of information left untouched. But he needed a clue to focus on. These eight men on site that they’d taken out were the tip of the iceberg. There were more that had tobe held accountable for the atrocities that had taken place.

He flipped open a file, sliding the pages out of the way until he found a document in English. It had a business letterhead with a U.S. address.

“You ever heard of a company called TreadCraft Dynamics?” he asked the room.

Holland leaned over his shoulder to get a look. “Address in Pittsburgh? Nope. But I’m sure you’ll know everything about them by the time we enter U.S. airspace.”

Robby folded the letter and tucked it into his shirt. “It won’t take me that long. I’m heading back up. Get the rest of this stuff collected. We’ll let our local contact organize the extraction and inventory of these crates. The sun will be coming up soon, and I want to make sure these kids have a place to go before we leave.”

“You do realize?—”

“I know. But we can’t abandon them in the forest.” He stared down Holland, who finally nodded. He was the team member Robby had known the longest, and he’d grown to rely on the man’s steadfastness. While Robby would have trouble getting the dead boy out of his head, Holland was the type of guy who lived for the mission with little thought beyond that. He was better at compartmentalizing. Holland had no problem with taking the kids back to the village; it was the vulnerability he could see in Robby that he was resisting.

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