Page 24 of Hold On Through The Pain

Striker came up behind Whitney. “Why are we leaving?”

“Bishop’s group found a better building; it’s smaller with a natural block behind it. We’re in the open here. They expect us to be here. Those mortar shells are going to hit us soon if we don’t move.”

As if to prove his point, a shell struck close, and the building shuddered. A few ceiling tiles fell, crashing to the floor, and chaos erupted. The people they were sent to rescue started running out the back door of the building. Jackson bellowed for them to stop, and one of the other Rangers caught a few of the people, but the embassy employees didn’t listen worth crap. They were running away from Army Rangers and into danger.

Gunfire erupted again. Six of the diplomats went down in the dirt about ten yards outside the building. He stared out at the scene, thinking they were guarding the dumbest of the dumb. The remaining diplomats raced to cower behind Rangers. Striker moved into position to shoot anyone or anything that came at them.

Whitney cursed under his breath and pointed at one of the guys from the embassy who seemed to be in charge. “You, come here.”

Striker had been on Whitney’s bad side before, and it wasn’t pretty. For Whitney to be angry took a lot, like Striker had found out previously. This was going to be hard to watch.

The man’s voice shook when he spoke. “Y-yes?”

“I told your people to stay still. That meant no movement. They ran outside, and now they are dead. What part of ‘stay still’ do you not understand?"

“You should have stopped them,” the guy said.

“Are you freaking kidding me?” Whitney yelled. “Were we supposed to handcuff them? You listen to us from here on out. I don’t care what job you have at the embassy, we’re in charge. If you don’t like that and if you want to die, do it on your own. If you want to actually live, then listen to me. Like really listen to me this time. Every command I give, you follow like your life depends on it because it does.”

The embassy employee straightened his shoulders, and his lips turned down. “You were going to have us go out there. They would have died anyway.”

“No, we were lining up here, and we were going to send one guy out to survey the area. We weren’t going to send people running out into the night screaming.” Whitney looked around the room, shaking his head.

“Taking heavy fire,” Bishop said over the earpiece.

“Shit,” Jackson cursed.

“We’re fucked,” a woman behind Striker said.

They were. This was bad. They were in a foreign land where most of the inhabitants wanted them dead. There wasn’t going to be an easy escape. They had to knock out the surface to air missiles, get rid of the people in the trees firing on them, and somehow get these pampered idiots to listen to them. He’d run into difficult missions before, but this was ridiculous. These people seemed like they didn’t actually want to live.

Striker moved to Whitney and Jackson and kept his voice low as he spoke. “We’ve got to get rid of the missile sites.”

Whitney met Jackson’s gaze. They shook their heads. Striker took a step closer to them, hoping to press his point.

“It’s the only way,” he stated. “We have to get the heck out of here. No one will come in to pick us up until that missile site is gone.”

Whitney sighed. “He’s right. But it’s dangerous.”

“We need air support too,” Jackson said.

Whitney pulled out his phone and dialed into command. He stepped away and discussed the situation with the technical operations unit runningthe show. It didn’t look like a fun call from Striker’s perspective.

“I don’t like this,” Jackson said.

“Nope, I don’t either. I don’t like that Bishop and the rest of the guys are pinned down.”

Whitney ended his call and stepped over. “They don’t have a drone, and they’re working on getting access to a satellite overhead. We have to do this the old-fashioned way, blind as a bat and moving on hope and a prayer.”

Striker nodded. “Okay, I’ll take a group and move to Bishop’s position. We’ll take down whoever is pinning them in. Then we’ll head to the missile site.”

Whitney nodded. “Sounds good. Take Jackson, Brady, Ben, and Rand. We’ll clear out the group here.”

Jackson stepped closer to Whitney, his gaze landing on the group from the embassy who’d been held hostage. “These diplomats, do you think they can actually handle doing what you tell them to do?”

Whitney looked back and shook his head. “Who knows. They don’t really have too much choice though, do they.”

“I guess not,” Jackson said with a chuckle in his voice.

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