Page 92 of Leading Conviction
A chorus of screams met them on the other side, and despite Eagle’s muscle memory and training sending him through the door after Jaybird, he stopped point blank at the terrified cries and stood stock-still when they didn’t stop.
They were the good guys, or at least they were supposed to be. The General had fucked them over all this time, but his team and the victims they saved always believed they were the heroes. As he stood in that room, though, there were only petrified women. The ones who weren’t drugged out of their mind or sick, stared back at him, huddling away and seeking shelter.
Fromhim.
He searched the room for the target and his heart froze in his chest when his gaze caught the scene in the center of the room.
“Masuma,” he gasped.
The woman he’d called a friend stood beside their proxy target, a knife to her neck. Tears streamed down her stoic face, and her brown skin was ashen with fear. Eagle wanted to comfort her, to tell her it was all going to be okay. All he had to do was take the shot. But then his eyes fully focused on the proxy.
Their “target” wore a vest of explosives and a deranged smile.
“No,” he whispered as the proxy shoved Masuma in front of his vested chest, blocking the shot.
Jaybird raised his gun, but Hawk yelled at him. His voice was deep and sluggish, as if Eagle was watching it all in slow motion.
“No! You’ll get Masuma!”
At Hawk’s command, the proxy threw the knife to the side and slapped his chest.
The world erupted around them.
Hawk threw his body against Eagle and Jaybird, shielding them both as the room exploded. Women screamed at the top of their lungs and his men yelled over their headsets.
“Friendly fire! I repeat, friendly fire!” Phoenix shouted over his headset as gunshots peppered outside the wall.
“—get… out—there!” Snake ordered them. “—villagers… setting up… IEDs—”
A new screeching wailed into his ears as his comms went berserk with feedback. Eagle clawed off his headset and threw it on the ground, just as another explosion rocked the earth beneath them. The back of Eagle’s vest was jerked up as Hawk scrambled to his feet, helping him stand.
Eagle searched the room to find Masuma, but once he caught her deep-brown eyes, lifeless in a nearly unrecognizably burned face, he knew she was gone.
One part of him wanted to help the women, the other knew there were too many and not enough time to assess who could and couldn’t be saved. Meanwhile, bombs were going off outside, shaking the ceiling and walls all around them. He had to get his men the fuck out of there.
This had all gone wrong. The General had tricked him and their team into thinking they’d served their time. It was their last mission alright, but the General had never intended for them to go home. Not without body bags.
Bile rose in his throat as he tugged Jaybird up.
“We gotta go,” he ordered his teammates and turned to Hawk. The man was attempting to calm down a bloodied and burned woman screaming at him, trying to crawl away.
“Hawk! Let’s go!”
“But, Eagle, the women—”
“It’s done, Hawk. We have to go. Our men are taking on fire.”
A bullet tore through the wall, proving his point and spurring Eagle to push Hawk and Jaybird through the door.
“Eagle, what the—”
“Move, Hawk. Now! That’s an order!”
Hawk’s eyes narrowed on him and he looked like he was going to argue further when an explosion behind them rocked their feet. The doorway they’d just exited caved in, but Eagle didn’t give them a chance to sightsee. He shoved his teammates down the hallway they’d just come through, forcing them to run. With each step closer to the door, more and more bulletsthunkedthrough the walls around them. When they emerged from the building, chaos reigned.
Draco and Devil fielded shots directed at the helicopter as Phoenix fired it up. Former allies swarmed the hillsides to their right, shooting at their group in an uncoordinated attack.
“Come on, let’s go,” Eagle commanded, reaching up to press the microphone to his lips, only to remember it wasn’t there. “Shit,” he muttered, having forgotten he’d tossed it aside. He grabbed Hawk by the vest and yanked him closer to scream in his microphone over the gunshots.
