Page 67 of Luck Be Mine
“Yep. Go Baxter. Alpha Six, Go.”
Both vehicles executed a quick U-turn.
Carter’s voice silenced everyone. “Stemmons has minor injuries. Working on him now.”
“Life threatening?” Jack’s eyes drilled into the front vehicle as if he could see.
“No. I’ve got him, LT.”
“Let’s get out of here.” Hernandez’s voice slurred. Head injuries sucked.
Hunt leaned in his seat to Doogie. “Do you think the south group will catch us down the road?”
“We’ll find another route if they do.”
A sudden explosion rocked the vehicles.
Jack chuckled. “Good work Alpha Six.”
“Thanks, Alpha One. I aimed to fuck them up.”
Hunt guessed at their tried-and-true move. “He blew up the first vehicle, didn’t he?”
“Yep. Can’t have them using it, can we?” Jack took to the radio. “Homebase, we are exfiling.”
“Copy. Come home.”
Both vehicles were dented to hell with a bonanza of bullet holes and their windshields cracked.
Three people were injured.
A failed mission.
Enemy still on the road home.
Six dead.
The whole country was going up in smoke, and there wasn’t a damn thing they could do to stop it.
Doogie handed him a bandage. Hunt pressed it to the bleeding gash above his eye and ignored his tight chest. He didn’t have the heart to turn around for one last look at the black smoke from the car, the burned-out home, or the dead bodies.
He’d made himself numb to those truths to do his job, but the layers were stark and exposed now.
First time he’d ever set foot in Afghanistan, he thought he knew the job. Thought he understood what the patches, the trident, the endless hours of training prepared him for. Then he’d landed, breathed in sand-choked air, and realized the job description.
Men die.
You kill.
You figure out how to live with it.
Or you don’t.
§§§§§§§§§§
◊ Lifelines ◊
Cait parked at QM and closed her eyes, rubbing the bridge of her nose. Bad days at work left her tapped out. She still hadn’t figured out how to tell Mackey she’d punched someone or how to weather hisyou need more trainingspeech. To top it off, an injured employee needed her, too. One of the bodyguards had tangled with an ex-husband and a big knife. With her medic in northern California handling a family problem, she would be doing the stitches herself.
