Page 8 of Legacy's Call

“Who do we have for this mission?”

Jacob rolled his eyes. “Dude is your primary, as always. Tink will be his relief.”

“Excellent. Someday, I’m going to shake that man’s hand, and Tink is damn good, too.”

“They’re the best we can get,” Jacob agreed. “You take care of yourself and that team, Ronan, whatever it takes.”

“For as long as it takes, Uncle Jacob. For as long as it takes.” The screen went dark, and Ronan closed his eyes for a moment. Working with local militia was not his favorite pastime. Hell, it didn’t even rate on the top one hundred list. He opened the door and managed to un-wedge his ass from the chair.

After making his way to the barracks, where his team waited for him, he opened the door to see Wraith’s weapon was leveled on him. “Got the spooks?” he asked as he walked in.

“Nope,” Jug said. “Just had an unexpected guest who thought they were going to bunk with us.”

Ronan felt his eyebrows hit his hairline. “No fucking way.”

“Way,” Stryker said. “Had a duffle on his shoulder and, by the looks of him, was greener than a fried tomato.”

Ronan would handle that shit. They were guaranteed a private barracks, a given for all deployments.Guardian would have arranged that in advance of their bed down.

“I’ll work on that issue after we finish here.” He looked at Stryker. “Did you run a scan?”

Stryker flipped him off, meaning he’d scanned the room for listening devices. Ronan pulled a wooden chair out and spun it around, straddling it. “We’re heading for an IDP that’s drawing down. Seven of their staff have been tortured and killed in the last two months.”

“Son of a bitch. They’re targeting the only source of assistance in the fucking country?” Jug shook his head. “Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your ugly-ass face.”

Wolf cocked his head. “Just us?”

Ronan shook his head before muttering, “Local militia.”

Groans came from everyone, including Wraith, which was telling. “Listen, we don’t have a choice in this matter. You know the drill. Alpha will send assistance as soon as he can free it up.”

“How long?” Jug asked.

“As long as it takes to draw down this camp and get the staff out safely. But Alpha did say if it went to hell, we shove the staff into a plane and evacuate.”

“IDPs are full of kids,” Wraith said. “Ain’t leaving the kids to those fuckers, are we?”

Damn, that was a full diatribe from Wraith. “Not if I can help it, but sometimes, we don’t get to dictate extraction, you know that.”

Wraith nodded. Jug slapped at a bug that was buzzing around his head. “Someone said showers when we landed.”

Ronan chuckled. “Wraith, take your weapon. I’ll stand guard here until you get back, and then I’ll address the ex-wannabe roommate and grab a shower.”

Wraith pushed off the wall he was leaning against. “Let’s go.” The team grabbed their kits and headed out the door. Before he left, Wraith stopped. “This could get messy, Skipper.”

“Yeah, I know,” Ronan said, listening to the door shut behind his team. Messy seemed to be his team’s forte.

CHAPTER 2

Fleur Buchanan finished the letter, signed her name, and placed the slip of paper in the box that would ship Deb Forrester’s belongings home to her family. It was the seventh letter she’d written to people she didn’t know to give them some sense of closure.Closure. She closed her tired, dry eyes and prayed that she could cry about Deb’s death someday. After the first two deaths, she’d cried for weeks. Then the third, fourth, and fifth attacks and murders happened. She touched the small bear Deb had kept on her bed. She’d said her father had given it to her to keep her safe. Tucking the bear into the box, she said a small prayer for Deb’s family. Her grief overwhelmed her to the point of numbness. She couldn’t imagine what Deb’sfamily was going through. Despair. Desolation. Anger. And so many questions. She wished she had answers.

Fleur turned to look out the tent’s window. The plastic made it hard to distinguish anything other than colors, and people who moved past were a blurred blob. The dark robes of the unaccompanied women were immediately distinguishable. The children wore whatever they had on their backs or what Children’s Hope International was able to get to the camp via the convoys. Supplies were next to impossible to get in, and now, the factions who hunted supply convoys were attacking the convoys they used to send her charges out of the country to safety.

She rubbed her arms, cold in the heat of the day. Her position as anti-trafficking coordinator placed immense pressure on her to find a safe way to get the children to safety. She was responsible for coordinating the convoys with other NGOs at the camp, international agencies, and local authorities. She’d had great success for over a year and a half, and then something had … changed.

“Fleur, are you done packing Deb’s things?” Earl Adams asked from the canvas partition that separated Deb’s cot from the other beds in the tent.

Nodding, she turned back to him. “What did we miss? How did this happen again?”

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