Page 34 of Black Sheep

“We take out the one in the middle first, then you grab the left guy, I take the right,” Crunch murmurs into his mic.

“No, I’m taking all three.”

Before he can argue, I spring from the boulder we’re crouched behind and power at a full run for the men.

“Fuck! Wait!”

I hear him coming after me but I don’t stop.

Perhaps a part of me wishes for an end to it all. Perhaps part of me craves more of the blood that was forced on my hands at nineteen. Or perhaps this is my fucked-up way of atoning for the lives I took that dark fall night four years ago.

Whatever.

My first knife finds the throat of the closest sentry. He drops like a sack of stones to the ground, clutching at his gushing carotid. My second finds the chest of the next guard. He cries out before I get to him, alerting the third in frenzied Pashto. I silence him with a push dagger, which I yank out a second before the last sentry raises his gun. With a flick of my wrist, my last knife embeds itself between his eyes. His gun drops a second before he does.

Crunch gets to me as I’m dragging the first body out of sight.

“Jesus fucking Christ. What the hell’s the matter with you?”

“Got the job done, didn’t I?”

“That’s not what I’m asking, and you fucking well know it,” he hisses, puzzlement and rage deepening his voice.

I dump the body against the towering compound wall and head for the second. “You want to stop and have a discussion about it?”

“The CO’s going to knock your fucking block off when we get back.”

“Not your fucking problem then, is it?” I reply, my voice even despite the elation filling my chest.

In the darkness, I feel his eyes probe me as he helps me hide the third body. “You gonna go lone wolf when we get inside too?” he demands.

“I’m gonna do what I came here to do. You do what you were assigned to do—watch my six and document the whole thing.”

I retrieve my knives, turn from the bodies, and head toward the preplanned point of ingress. He’s not happy, and I’ll most definitely get chewed out for this once we get back and he makes his report, but right now his happiness matters very little to me.

For the next hour or two, the color red will wipe away visions of blond-haired, blue-eyed traitors and a million could-have-beens. I’ll have new nightmares to sustain me, at least for a while before they too are smashed beneath the one betrayal that refuses to stay buried in the past.

I breach the east wall of the compound with Crunch tight on my heels. We clear the first floor, disposing of six guards. I keep one alive long enough to force the information I need out of him. With the location of the big players secured, I move silently through the large house, my gun tucked against my side, the blades in my fists an extension of my body.

The two younger war lords, brothers of the most powerful war lord in the region, die in their sleep, their throats slit before they can so much as shift from dream to reality.

The last target is the most difficult, naturally. He’s situated behind bolted double doors at the end of a long, dark corridor, and it takes a few minutes to clear the rooms leading up to it to avoid being ambushed.

Once we reach it, I lay down my knives, crouch low, and go to work with my lock pick.

I hear the click of the final tumbling lock one second before a deafening explosion rips through the air, followed almost instantaneously by an enormous plume of orange mushrooming into the dawn sky. Two more explosions follow in quick succession.

Crunch backs against me. “Shit! We’re fucked. We need to bail. Right fucking now!”

But it’s too late. One of the many wives we spared but left tied up has gotten free. She runs to the middle of the compound and screams at the top of her lungs. Rapid-fire Pashto rips through the compound, followed by running feet. Light floods the hallway, illuminating us in vivid relief.

Behind the doors, I hear movement then the distinct recoil of a submachine gun. “Crunch, get down!”

I dive for the floor, grabbing his leg and yanking hard.

But Captain Crunch is dead before he hits the floor, face first, blood oozing from several wounds delivered by the bullets that just ripped through the wooden doors.

I mourn my comrade’s passing for one single second before pure instinct kicks in. Both legs slam against the weakened door, smashing it inward and sending the man behind it sprawling onto the floor.

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