Darren signaled their approach. Bennett took several deep breaths. He was in charge of clearing the leader’s house, hopefully with him in it. His heart played ping-pong, but from experience he knew as soon as he was on the ground instinct would trump any nerves.
They unloaded and formed two lines, moving fast and keeping down. The helicopters took off to await extraction. A woman screamed. Muffled words snaked through the night. The first gunshots came from on top of one of the houses—erratic and not well aimed.
Bennett ignored the fire and concentrated on locating the leader’s stronghold. His insides crackled. It wasn’t nerves. The Navy had trained the nerves out of him and taught him to harness the adrenaline pumping through his body. His senses heightened and reacted to every stimulus—sight, sound, smell. The smallest clue could be the difference between success and failure, life and death.
The pops of gunfire overlay the yells of men. Hide. Death. Gun.
On the ground at night, with chaos around him, everything looked slightly different from the map. More ominous and not as easily discernible. He stopped at the corner. The shuffle and vibration of five other men hitting the wall behind him barely registered.
If the intelligence was correct, the leader’s house was around the corner, and Bennett expected it to be protected. Or did the leader think a village full of human shields enough protection? Bennett kicked rocks out into the middle of the street. Bullets thudded into the ground, kicking up dirt and rocks. The angle of impact suggested one or two men were on top of the buildings.
Bennett motioned behind him, and like a choreographed dance, they moved in synchronicity, each with a role. Bennett stayed focused on the door while the others laid down heavy fire into the rooftops.
Motion at the far end of the street drew his attention. His night-vision glasses tinted everything in an eerie green. Bennett raised his gun and sighted a figure. It was a kid in jeans. Or what Bennett would have considered a kid. Eighteen or nineteen.
The kid had a gun and it was trained on him. Bennett fired. The kid hit the ground and didn’t move. It had taken only seconds, but those seconds would haunt Bennett like so many others.
Bennett shot the door latch and shouldered it open, dropping to a squat to surveil the area. Noah was doing the same over his head. A man rushed them from an open doorway at the end of a short hall. Noah took him down.
“Clear the hall and the downstairs,” Bennett barked to the men behind him.
A set of stairs led to a second floor. Bennett climbed them, took them two at a time with his gun trained at the top. Noah was on his heels. A spate of gunfire sounded from the back of the house, but Bennett stayed focused. He trusted the rest of the men to do their jobs.
Darkness enveloped the top of the stairs. He paused, his breathing loud in his ears. The whine of a child punched through the silence. The noise was quickly muffled, but it came from his left. Bennett gestured to the door with his gun barrel. Noah nodded and joined him on the other side of the door.
Bennett shoved his shoulder against the thin wood and a cracking sound accompanied the swing open. Two women scooched back against the wall, hands covering their faces. Mattresses on the floor lined the wall. At least two children huddled against the women. No sign of weapons.
To be sure, he strode forward and used his foot to search around the women and in the covers. The women scurried out of his way like animals trying to escape the clutches of a predator. A sick feeling turned his stomach. He ignored it.
“Stay down. Stay down.” Bennett barked the orders to the women unsure if they understood. He made one last scan over the room, identifying nothing threatening.
He backed out and followed Noah to the only other door on the hall. This time Noah led the way into the room. A man huddled over a computer. He was wearing a pair of khaki cargo pants and no shirt.
“Move away from the computer. Now.” Bennett clipped the words out loud and slow, even though the information they’d been given indicated the man was fluent in several languages including English.
The man didn’t move except to throw a glance in their direction, still frantically typing.
“Move.” The force in Bennett’s voice did nothing. He couldn’t let the man delete or corrupt the information on the computer.
“On the floor, hands over your head.” Bennett grabbed the back of the man’s neck and forced his compliance.
The man went to his knees but no farther. Noah put a boot in the middle of his back and pushed him down, letting his gun drop to pat the man down. He pulled a knife from a holster strapped to his leg but no gun.
Bennett scanned the small room again. Nothing. The man had left himself unprotected. Inner alarms rang.
Time ceased to abide by the laws of physics. Noah reacted to something over Bennett’s shoulder, a curse rolling out of his mouth like molasses to Bennett’s ears. Noah launched himself at Bennett, their shoulders making jarring contact. The move shoved Bennett off his feet. He landed hard on his opposite shoulder and elbow. The report of gunfire echoed against the walls and reverberated in his head.
Adrenaline pumped his heart and masked any pain. He couldn’t tell whether he’d been hit or not. He flipped to his back and brought his gun up. A woman stood in the doorway with a gun she was fitting another magazine into.
Bennett didn’t hesitate. The force of the bullets sent the woman backward into the hall. A wail came from the leader as he scrambled toward the woman. The gun was at her side. Bennett fired again, putting two bullets in the man’s legs. He crumpled over and grabbed his legs with a high-pitched scream, blood welling through his fingers.
Noah was sitting up, his hand around his throat, his torso wavering. The clomp of boots up the stairs put Bennett on alert, and he trained his gun on the doorway. Darren appeared, the shadows of other team members behind him.
“We need a medic!” Bennett yelled.
Darren called the same to a team member down the hall.
“Secure the women in the other room. Here’s our guy. I only hope he didn’t have the chance to delete everything.” Bennett gestured to the man on the floor. “What’s the situation outside?”
“All secure. Get him out of here.” Darren gestured two men into the room, stepped back, and radioed as Bennett turned back to Noah.
Two team members grabbed the leader under his arms and dragged him out of the room, red streaking the floor like a gruesome finger painting.
Blood slicked Noah’s fingers and pooled on the floor. A neck shot. Bennett eased off Noah’s headgear and helped him stay upright. Keeping the wound above his heart to minimize blood loss was crucial. Noah’s hand trembled.
“Let me. I can put more pressure on it.” Bennett’s voice was rough.
The brief moment the wound was revealed sent ice through Bennett’s veins. Blood pulsed from Noah’s neck with every beat of his heart. An artery had been hit. Bennett slapped his fingers over the gash and pressed hard, but blood leaked through.
“Fuck. Where’s Doc at?” he yelled.
Now that the situation was secure, the moment scrolled through his head on repeat. Noah had sacrificed his own life to save Bennett. Noah was the one with a wife and a baby on the way. Bennett had nothing and no one to miss him. He was the one who was supposed to take a bullet to save Noah, not the other way around.
“Why’d you do that, man? Why?” Bennett whispered, not expecting an answer. Someone turned on lights and Bennett ripped off his headgear.
Noah’s bloodied hand circled Bennett’s wrist with a surprising strength. His mouth opened and closed before words emerged on the wisp of a breath. “Tell … tell Harper … love.”
“You’re going to fucking tell her yourself. I’m not going to let you die.”
They locked eyes. Noah blinked and looked straight through Bennett.
Bennett gave him a little shake. “Hang on. Doc’s coming.” He yelled over his shoulder, “Where’s the fucking medic?”
“On his way.” Darren knelt on Noah’s other side.
“Baby,” Noah whispered.
“You’ll see your baby. Just hang on.”