Page 21 of Shattered

“What’s that?” Tuck asked with a half-smile, trying to keep things light as he laid a fatherly hand on Vance’s shoulder.

“Don’t want her to worry…”

“I told him I’d wait until we got him safely outta here,” Ethan said. “Stubborn bastard.” He glanced back at where Bauer still knelt beside Schroder, then shifted his gaze to their team leader, lowering his voice a little. “How’s Doc?” He was acutely aware of the intent way Blackwell and Evers were looking at Tuck.

Tuck’s brown eyes shifted to his. He didn’t say anything. Didn’t have to, because the resignation and sadness in his gaze said it all, and the small shake of his head made Ethan’s stomach drop.

****

Commander Matt DeLuca strode into the Atlanta Bureau office, eyes on his phone as he scrolled through the various emails he’d missed on the flight up here. He had eight minutes until the meeting with the Atlanta taskforce, and by then he wanted to be up to speed.

The situation out in the mountains was dire. The teenage daughter was confirmed dead. That left only two options: wait the suspect out, or conduct a full-scale breach and clear the place out.

He was a fan of the former. Sending his team into that isolated place against a distraught father ready to kill anyone coming at him was just asking for it, and even if the breach went as planned, there were other lives to consider. One civilian death was inexcusable enough. They needed to defuse the situation first, wait for darkness before carrying out the assault.

As a former Scout/Sniper, Matt couldn’t understand how it had happened in the first place. There was no way anyone with that amount of training should ever have mistaken the girl for her father. None. He was bringing in one of his sniper teams for this along with the assaulters on Blue Team, and he had absolute faith in each and every one of them. Because he had personally vetted each and every member.

When he was halfway down the hall to the boardroom, an office door on the left shot open and the Special Agent In Charge of the Atlanta division stepped out, his face showing surprise and then going eerily blank. “Commander. They told me you’d just arrived. I was coming to find you.”

Matt lowered his phone, taking in the man’s rigid posture and set of his jaw. “What can I do for you?”

“Can you step inside for a minute?” He gestured to his open office.

With apprehension twining through his gut, Matt followed, the sensation growing sharper when the SAIC shut the door and faced him with hands on hips. “There’s no easy way to tell you this.”

Matt stared at him, bracing himself for bad news. “Tell me what?”

“It’s Blue Team. There’s been an accident.”

“What kind of accident?”

“Their plane went down.”

For a second, the words didn’t compute. “Itwhat?”

The SAIC nodded. “I’m sorry. I don’t know much else, but it crashed shortly after takeoff in a rural area a few miles from the airport. Emergency crews are being deployed to the scene as we speak.”

Fuck…

It took Matt a moment to speak. “Are there any survivors?”

“I don’t know.”

Matt immediately raised his phone to call HQ, but it rang in his hand. A wave of relief slammed into him when he saw Tuck’s number on screen. “Tuck,” he answered, praying there were more than one survivor. “I just heard. Is everyone all right?”

“No.”

Matt held his breath, his hand tightening around the phone. “What happened?”

“We’d only been airborne for about twenty seconds or so before something hit us. Not sure what.”

Ground fire? A rocket? It didn’t make sense. The flight had been arranged at the last minute. How the hell could someone have time to set up and fire that kind of weapon at them, let alone in a restricted area?

“We crashed into a field, managed to get everyone in the back out in time. Schroder and Vance went back for some injured crewmembers. They were caught in the blast wave when the plane exploded.”

Matt closed his eyes, his chest tight, lungs like concrete blocks pressing against his ribs. His men were the most critical thing. He’d worry about the cause of the crash later. “Are they alive?”

“Vance is cut up pretty bad, and I’m not sure about internal injuries. He was in and out of consciousness. They’re transporting him to the hospital now. As for Doc…” The heavy pause was ominous enough, but Tuck’s leaden tone sent a chill up Matt’s spine. “I dunno. He’s bad. Real bad.”

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