Page 88 of Under Fire

“Her heart rate is rising,” one of the nurses called out into the hall, beckoning her colleagues.

His phone vibrated angrily in his pocket. He didn’t miss Brooke’s challenging gaze, as if she knew.

Katy started hyperventilating.

“She’s in shock,” Warren snapped, feeling her head for a lump.

How hard did she hit it? Is she going through delayed response?His military field training kicked in, aggressively pushing the nurses aside. He needed to take a leadership role. They weren’t doing enough for her.

“Sir, we need access—”

“No!” he yelled back, holding the crying child to him.

He had to fix her. She was slipping away. Her cries grew louder, gasping for breath. He could feel her struggling to breathe.

Fuck!

“Christ, Katy—stay with me.” He felt something strange coming over him, like he tasted sand in his mouth.

Iraqi sand.

His own vision blurred. “Please, Katy.”

Katy’s endless tears pushed him over the edge, the beeping on the monitor drove him to the brink. He was fucking losing her. He was holding her tiny body, and she was dying in his arms.

She was dying.

A weird wetness came over his right cheek, but his spinning mind was unable to place what exactly it was. It felt like the cold scope of a sniper rifle pressed into his cheek, having just slid down his face. That sensation, holding Katy to his chest, his mind flew rapidly to a time he only saw in his nightmares.

Warren looked around, realizing he was on the top of a crumbled building in Iraq.

It was midday, and the sun scorched the back of his neck, which was covered partially by akeffiyeh. The wind had blown part of the fabric off his neck and jaw, but he didn’t dare move to adjust. His finger was flexed on the trigger of his sniper rifle, locked dead on the doorway of the building where his high-priority target was situated.

He was alone, still as hell, and hadn’t moved for hours. He waited and waited…and waited. A grayish grit circulated in the air, moving all around him, getting into his nose and mouth. It was like a shit dust and tasted the same. The unforgiving climate threatened the outsider, making it clear that he wasn’t welcome.

“Whiskey Charlie, you sitting tight?” He heard the voice of his leading chief, Geoff, through his earpiece.

“Ten four,” Warren muttered back, keeping his voice low despite the blistering gusts at the top of the five-story building in the heart of the Iraqi city.

“When he comes out, you engage. Don’t fucking hesitate. I’m right down here.”

Warren waited, knowing his crew was around the ground level, preparing to assault the already-crumbling building. The only thing that kept them waiting was that they didn’t know exactly how many people were inside. Geoff had seen the worst and was resolved on minimizing collateral damage when possible. If they could take out the target and only the target, it would be a flawless mission.

He adjusted the scope, ensuring it was perfectly focused on the door to the building where the target would be exiting. Walking up and down the busy street, he observed women in black cloth, other men and a young child running after a well-used ball on the ground.

“Get out of here, kid,” Warren griped, looking for the kid’s mother.

It looked like a little girl, no older than four or five years old, in torn clothes. Then he saw the mother—all in black—she was bartering with a merchant a little up the sidewalk, not realizing her kid was running rampant after the ball.

A beat-up car sped through the street, and Warren’s nerves screeched into high gear. That fucking kid was going to get hit, he breathed to himself.Fucking hell.

“There’s movement in the window,” Geoff said. “Any second now.”

Warren’s black-gloved finger tightened on the trigger, and he sucked in his breath, holding it. He could hold his breath for a long fucking time, if needed, but hoped to God he wouldn’t have to.

And he didn’t.

The target, a tall Iraqi man in traditional garb with a Kevlar vest on moved out of the building, snarling as he looked around.

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