Page 16 of Protecting Clove
This was what they’d been waiting for. The moon was in the dark phase, and most of the stars were covered with scatteredclouds. The lights from other buildings were low, and the ones that were problems would be shot out as they entered the structure. Safe was set up to cut the power to this place so everything would be dark. Only people with night vision would be able to operate.
They were down to five seconds before going in when they started to move into position. Q’s voice broke the silence.
“Fall back. Abandon the plan.”
Bud felt the hesitation of the other guys, but Q’s warning gave them the time they needed to back up before the entire structure exploded. Bud fell to the ground and scrambled to get behind a wall that would allow him some protection.
All hell broke loose. He could tell who was friend versus foe, so he began firing, killing anyone in the area who wasn’t another SEAL. It felt like a long time, but it was probably less than a minute before all the enemy was dead.
“What the fuck?” Kevlar asked.
“We’ve got incoming,” Trip said.
“We need to fall back. We’ll meet at the rendezvous point,” Rider said.
Everyone signaled they understood. Bud was alone. Somehow, he’d been separated from the other guys who’d been beside him. He had to get clear of the surrounding building and make his way around to the other side of the city. The place they were meeting would take him about thirty minutes to get to.
Bud moved out, heading to the east first then going north once he was clear of the immediate danger. One thing he had to watch for was widespread resistance, but he didn’t run into anyone else. Somehow the guy had known they were planning their attack. This wasn’t the first mission that had been compromised. They needed to figure out what the hell was going on.
It took him more than thirty minutes to get to the location they’d picked as the last measure for pick up if things went haywire. None of them expected to use this location, but here they all were, just waiting for the helicopter to swoop in and pick them up.
“Dammit, that was close,” Trip said.
“I hate this,” Flash added.
MacGyver shook his head. “Someone knew.”
Rider looked pissed. “And they blabbed.”
Zip was next to say his piece. “People in the intelligence community knew about this raid because they’d asked for it.”
Rider shook his head. “No blame yet. We’ll deconstruct after we get on the ship. This is a shit show, and we’re in the middle of it.”
“Fuck.” Bud hated every bit of this mission. If they couldn’t trust other people in the government, their effectiveness would be hampered.
The flight out to the carrier off the coast was somber compared to flights they took after a successful mission. There was nothing successful about what had happened today. After a mission they were debriefed and it took time, but this would take forever. He hated the idea that they would be held until they figured out who had caused the failure of this mission.
Maybe this time, they would be able to figure out where the leak was and fix it. He hated the implications that it could have been one of them because he knew the other SEALs well, and they wouldn’t do this kind of shit. They were trustworthy, and he wouldn’t ever doubt them.
14
Neo’s test results came in, and she was asked to attend a meeting at the district office. She went, worried they were going to tell her she was doing something wrong. That was the worst part of being a parent, always worried someone would find out you didn’t know what the hell you were doing and call you out on it.
When they arrived at the location for the meeting, they were led into a conference room and asked to sit at the table. Neo had a book to read, but Clove just worried about what would happen next.
The door opened, and she jumped then laughed at her reaction. Three people walked in which was more than she expected. One of them walked over to Neo and knelt next to her chair.
“Hello, Neo, I’m Doctor Nyema. I heard you did well on the test.”
Neo shook the woman’s hand and then shrugged. “It was an easy test. I don’t know why my mom was worried about it. I made sure to get one wrong on purpose so you didn’t think I cheated. I read that in a book about test taking.”
Dr. Nyema’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? You purposely got one wrong?”
“Yes. Adults think kids lie, so I made sure to make it look like I had one issue. It was a question that wasn’t that hard.”
The three people from the district were looking at their papers, shaking their heads. Clove wondered what they were thinking. How many questions had Neo missed? Surely, it couldn’t be that many.
“So, how did Neo do on the test?” Clove asked.
