Page 77 of Over the Edge

“Is your arm functional?” he asked.

“It’s a little tired, but recovering. Yours?”

“Same. Let’s move out.”

CHAPTERSIXTEEN

Twinkle, twinkle, country star,

How I wonder where you are.

Up above the big divide,

Crossing to the other side.

Twinkle, twinkle, country star,

How I wonder where you are.

How many timesdo I have to sing this damned song before you kids start singing it, too? Voice almost gone. Croaking like a damned frog. Bet none of these kids have ever seen a frog. God, what I wouldn’t give for a few swallows of water. Going downhill fast, now. C’mon, you little rugrats. Sing along with me so I can stop and rest.

Sleep.

Hell, die if I’m lucky…

Anna puther near miss out of her mind as best she could and fell in behind Trevor as they advanced cautiously into the Swat Valley. It was a narrow strip of dirt in between two towering lines of mountains, nearly twenty miles long. The ambush had happened about three miles ahead of them.

They passed evidence of the Marine quick recovery force that had been deployed in the southern mouth of the valley—spent cartridges, empty cannisters that had once held shells, trampled bushes that had not yet recovered.

She pulled her floppy brimmed beige hat down lower over her forehead as a gust of cold wind swept down the valley and pierced her clothing with icy daggers.

She and Trevor fell into the rhythm of the hike—he cleared ahead and right, she cleared behind and left. They took their time, easing across the terrain without disturbing it, using the night to their advantage as they slid through the shadows, part of the darkness itself. Stealth was perhaps the most important tool of the SEAL besides their mental and physical toughness. If they were doing their jobs correctly, they would never be seen, let alone confronted.

Trevor stopped in front of her, and she froze automatically. Without moving her head she scanned the hillside to the west and peered as far back over her shoulder as she could. A tiny stream, no more than three feet wide trickled quietly not far from them, winding down the valley.

Not another thing moved out here. Which was beyond odd. A fertile area like this with water and grass should at least support a population of small rodents and the predators who hunted them.

Trevor motioned for her to move up beside him as he eased up a small rise and stretched out on his stomach to peer over the top. She did the same.

About three hundred feet away from them laid the ruined remains of the compound where the ambush had taken place. The exterior wall surrounding the cluster of houses, low barns and outbuildings had huge, truck-sized holes in it, and the eastern wall was completely collapsed. The buildings inside weren’t in much better shape. Three of the six main structures were piles of rubble, while the remaining three were bombed out hulls.

Intel sources had placed Abu Haddad here with his top lieutenants, and a hit on them had been green lighted from the very highest levels of the U.S. government. It had been a trap, of course. Haddad’s men had ringed this valley and hidden all over the mountainsides above this position.

When the three-three man SEAL assault teams had been all the way inside the compound, Haddad’s men—several hundred of them—had struck. There’d been a half-dozen SEALs investigating a tunnel complex in the hillside and six more guys outside the compound providing close cover. But they’d all been overrun. Three SEALs died and Kenny had gone missing before the hundred Marines in the southern pass could get here, and before the Apache gunship had rolled in.

Haddad had escaped…or possibly never been here at all.

Kenny, Sam, and Leo could very well have lain in this exact spot surveiling the compound. They would have swung left from here…probably using that cluster of boulders about thirty feet away for cover as they’d crept around to approach the target from the west. Had it been this quiet when they’d made their approach?

“Signs of life?” Trevor breathed.

“None.”

“Let’s swing west to approach. More cover that way. We’ll enter through the western breach and clear each structure in a standard pattern. You take point for a bit.”

“Roger,” she murmured. They’d done stuff exactly like this a hundred times before, and suddenly, she was grateful for the seemingly endless repetition of her training over the past year.

She took the lead as they topped the rise on their bellies and slithered down its front side. Easing to a crouch, she moved off to her left, heading for the boulders. She glided forward slowly, flowing like water, no jerks or sharp movements to draw any human eye to her. When she reached the boulders, she even sank down behind them slowly.

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