Page 2 of Ford

But it didn’t matter who their parents were, really. Children deserved to be saved, period, full stop. Regardless of their nationality or the size of their parents’ bank account.

Although apparently nationality and probably bank accounts had everything to do with the attack on the international school by the Army of Jihad, a Sunni supremacist group out of Pakistan, whose MO was to attack expats and hold them hostage.

The US still didn’t negotiate with terrorists, but they did send in men like Ford.

The teams’ objective was to take out the four still-breathing hostage takers in the gym via Cruz’s and Levi’s expert marksmanship.

Infiltrate the gym after Sonny and Kenny C, their explosives and weapons experts, blew the doors. Then he and Trini would grab the twelve children, all under the age of ten, and exfil them to the waiting arms of their parents.

Hooyah.

The SEAL team would fly back out to their temporary base in Bahrain, and maybe, just maybe, Ford could get back to the other breaking news that he couldn’t think about at the moment.

The thing that settled in his gut like a burr and now, as the rescue mission progressed, only dug in and burned.

Scarlett had left him…okay, so maybe he was being a pansy. Truth was, he wished her well in her training as a Rescue Swimmer. Really hoped she’d make it. But he still hated the fact that she’d left for training without even talking to him. That she’d walked out of his life without a second glance at their friendship—one that, okay, yes, felt like something more, at least from his end.

But what did he expect? It wasn’t like he’d told her how he felt.

Shake it off. She clearly hadn’t felt the same way about him, and he just had to put on his big boy pants and get over her.

Problem was, Petty Officer Second Class Scarlett Hathaway had been the voice in his ear for the past two years as the assigned radio combat services support to their unit. He’d relied on Scarlett’s instincts, the way her calm voice kept his heart rate a notch lower. Knowing she was watching his back via the drones overhead always felt like having a guardian angel on his side.

For Pete’s sake, hewasgetting dramatic. But being on the op without her only raked up the hollow places and put a knot in his gut. Ford didn’t believe in talismans, like fuzzy feet or dirty socks, but he couldn’t escape the sense of doom.

Worse, every time Petty Officer Third Class Berkowitz, Scarlett’s replacement, opened his mouth to relay op information, it simply grated in Ford’s ears.

“We see at least six heat signatures in the building, besides the ones in the gym,” Burke said now.

“Copy,” Ford answered and relayed the information to his chief, Master Chief Chester Nez.

“That puts us at a total of ten targets,” Nez responded.

If Nez thought that deploying Ford into a hot spot of drama and heartache might make him forget—

Boom!

The gymnasium shook with the force of an explosion. Ford ducked as stone work shattered down around him. Next to him Trini, their Trinidadian-born maps and logistics expert, also ducked, and Sonny and Kenny C pasted themselves to the wall of the building.

“What the—” Ford said.

“Shanin deployed his men!” Nez shouted. “Execute! Execute! Execute!”

Sonny blew the door.

Smoke fogged the huge gymnasium, fire dropping from the ceiling, and Ford gulped in fresh air a moment before he followed Kenny C inside, pieing out with his Colt M4A1 assault rifle to Kenny’s flank.

Trini mimicked him beside Sonny, and Ford fought the smoke to find the targets. A man in a long beard and white turban lay bleeding near the door, an AK-47 lying outside his reach. He grabbed for it, but Ford took two steps and kicked it out of the way.

Two quick shots sounded somewhere in the smoke. Screams pierced the air. The far wall of the gymnasium was rubble—the bomb must have detonated on the other side of the wall, in the hallway. Maybe some suicide bomber detonating his pack when he saw the rush of Shanin’s guards. Fire where it licked through the walls, roaring.

A boy ran toward them, his face bleeding, and Trini caught him up in one arm and dragged him out of the building. Sonny disappeared into the smoke, and Kenny C dropped another target. Through the clutter, Ford glimpsed a huddle of three girls, and Kenny straight-lined for them.

“Sit rep!” Nez said.

“Two targets down in the gym,” Ford said as Cruz and Levi called in their shots.

Four down, maybe more in the hallway.

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