Page 126 of What About Love

At that location, she spied Cap and Kyle pressed flat against the far end of the L-shaped building, two bodies lying at their feet. They were pinned down at their position from gunfire up ahead. Moving on with her search, she scanned the area for T. When she didn’t immediately locate him, her heart lurched painfully, but she didn’t stop her scan, sighting farther along the building.

She came to the corner, angled right, and tracked along the front, trying to get a lock on the source of the fire raining down from the roof. A large, dark shape moving along the bushes caught her eye. It was T, advancing in a crouched position. As she moved past his position, still sighting down her scope, she saw a ray of red light. It was a laser target, and it had a lock on his chest.

“T! Down. Shooter!” she called while following the trajectory upward. As soon as she located the sniper, she fired, hearing a rifle shot echo back in the distance. She kept her scope locked on the shooter, watching as his weapon flew out of his hands and he slumped forward. With one lurching step, he somersaulted forward, dropping the twenty feet to the ground below, landing headfirst at a fatal angle.

“Main roof sniper, neutralized,” she called, tracking back to where she’d last seen T. He wasn’t there.

“Man down!” came Cap’s cry. “He’s taken one to the chest.”

Angie’s heart rate doubled. She aimed her search lower toward the ground all around the location she’d last seen him. That’s when she saw Cap bending over his motionless body.

“What’s his status?” she cried out.

“Angie, focus,” the general directed softly in her ear. “Your team needs your cover.”

He was right. Three other men were depending on her. She blinked to clear away the mist from her eyes and refocused, still doing her job, although she wanted to fling herself from the tree and run to her man.

She located her assigned half of the team; Dex, Dan, and Jonas were closing in on the entrance. “I’ve got them.”

“Good girl,” came a familiar but raspy, low voice.

“T?” she cried out, shaky with relief. “Thank God!”

“I’m fine, darlin’. Took one in the shoulder. It’s not bad, merely a flesh wound.”

“I’ve got it tied off,” Cap murmured, obviously talking to T. “You hang back.”

“The hell with that,” was his reply.

“You’re still bleeding and not slowly,” Cap warned.

“It’s fine. Let’s get this done and go home.”

“If you pass out and I have to lug your heavy ass back to the truck, I’m not gonna be happy.”

“I wouldn’t jeopardize the mission if I couldn’t handle it, Cap. Seriously. I’m good to go.”

The general broke in next. “The compound is clear. You should go now.”

“Right. Let’s move out,” Cap ordered.

For the next several minutes, a series of simultaneous explosions lit up the night. Meanwhile, she and the general kept the path to the main entrance clear as the six men on the ground entered the building.

“Nice shooting, rookie,” the general acknowledged while they waited. “You blew his gun hand clean off.”

Angie didn’t respond.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, uh, don’t tell anyone, but he was moving.”

“And?”

“I was going for a kill shot to the head.”

There was a pause. “Uh, newbie. The mics are still live.”

She knew that, however, in all the excitement, she’d forgotten.

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