Page 125 of What About Love

As she scanned the area for threats—up ahead, along their flanks, and at their six—her finger hovered over the trigger. They made it to the first outbuilding and took cover. She watched as Jonas set an explosive charge. One of eight the team would plant on the outskirts of the compound. Once detonated and chaos had ensued, they would take the main building where the hostages were being held.

Heart slamming against the wall of her chest, Angie felt the tension well up in her throat. Breathing deeply in through her nose, she blew it out slowly through pursed lips, trying to maintain her calm.

“Angie. Status.” Tech, aka Jonas called through her earpiece. It was one of at least a dozen nicknames they had for the computer and electronics specialist on the team. Sometimes someone, usually T, came up with a new one and Angie would have to ask for clarification.

“I’m green,” she answered, wondering at his concern.

“There’s interference on your headset.”

“Pursed lip breathing,” T’s voice broke in. “She does that when she’s concentrating. Move your mouth piece away so we can hear, Angie.”

“Uh, roger, that. Sorry.” Leaving her finger on the trigger and her eye trained down the scope, she moved her mic away with her other hand. She’d worry later why his having noticed such a little thing about her made her quivery inside.

There was silence in her earpiece as they moved forward in the dark undetected. A few minutes passed before anyone spoke again.

“We’re a go.” It was Cap. “Dex?”

“Go.”

“Pete?”

“Good to go.”

“Angie?”

“Hooah.” Her response was met with silence, then a few chuckles with Dan the lone Marine in the bunch correcting, “She meantoorah. Didn’t you, honey?”

“Cut the shit,” grumbled T.

“I’m ready, Cap,” Angie answered after that.

“Let’s get this done. Move out.”

She could only describe the next twenty minutes as chaos. There were explosions, panicked shouts, and a barrage of gunfire from Angie’s rifle and the general’s off to her left. Not all of it was cover. As she scanned the area for potential threats, she picked off two armed men who appeared on the roof of the main building.

She could hear the men communicating back and forth as they moved forward into the compound.

“Pete,” Cap called. “Two on the roof of the outbuilding across from the main doors.”

“On it,” was the general’s reply. The next minute, she heard a hoarse cry and two thuds through her headset. “Targets neutralized,” called the four-decade veteran, his voice cool as ice.

She didn’t take her eyes off her assignment, but an image of bodies falling from the building flashed through her mind.

Movement on the right came in as a shadowy blur.

“Shooter, Dex,” she called. “Coming up along the fence at one o’clock. He passed behind the storage shed on the right and I lost him.”

“We see him, Angie.”

She watched as Dan peeled off and approached the shed from the opposite side. A minute later, he ran around the front of the shed and rejoined them.

“We’re clear,” he reported.

“Sniper on the main roof,” the general called. “I don’t have an angle. Angie?”

Swinging her rifle to the left, she scanned. “I don’t see him.”

“He’s on the move. Check your eleven o’clock,” he directed.

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