Page 18 of Tate
And now he had her in his brain, thanks. The last thing he should be thinking about was Scarlett’s short brown hair with those red highlights gleaming like copper when the hot Middle Eastern sun hit it, and those big brown eyes that never missed anything, including tangos—terrorists—who might creep up and kill him or any of the other operators on his team.
No, not the kind of thoughts he should be having anytime about a fellow sailor. Especially one who he outranked.
His eyes burned, so dry his eyelids were nearly glued open, although that could also be from fatigue. And the frustration of watching Martha Garrety, American nurse and current kidnap victim, being dragged from the main house by the three young Yemeni men who’d decided not to kill the missionary nurse but take her captive and do—yeah, he couldn’t let his brain go there.
He watched them emerge into the compound through his helmet-mounted NVGs—night vision goggles—and with everything inside him wanted to squeeze off a round into their black-and-white keffiyehs. But orders were to not awaken the entire compound.
Not start an international incident.
Just to extract Martha alive.
Apparently, it didn’t matter that the militant group AQAP, an offshoot of Al-Qaeda, was headed by Nasir al-Rimi. Whoever had taken her had also gunned down her husband—probably right in front of her eyes—and another nurse serving with Medical Mission International. This was the second attack on the MMI organization—the first had been a Lebanese militant who carried a gun into a Baptist hospital like it might be an infant and opened fire.
Every other mission organization in this part of the world—and especially Yemen—had bugged out when the US government issued a warning.
Not Martha and her cohorts.
Now Martha was paying the price for her dedication. Helpless, probably violated—although he’d heard that the ultrazealous left the infidel women alone—and definitely terrified.
The team went quiet around him as Martha was dragged into the open, fell, and was kicked.
Ford heard a curse from Nez, their master chief. “Give me a good word here, Marsh.”
“Still waiting on the order, boss.”
“Please,” Cruz said.
“Anytime,” hissed Sonny, their explosives expert from Chicago, in position outside the back wall of the compound with Kenny C, their weapons specialist, poised to scale the wall for the snatch and grab.
Twenty feet above Ford to the west, Levi—from Minnesota—made a strangled, odd sound as one of the men hauled Martha up and slapped her.
“Operations, we need something, now,” Ford said softly into his mic.
Yeah, time to finish this, bring Martha home.
Bringhimhome. Because he was so close to the end of his deployment, he could nearly taste the chalupa that Cruz had promised them from his backyard smoker in Coronado.
Ford had one of the tangos between the grids of his MK11, Leupold Vari-X Mil Dot rifle scope.
“Hold, Charlie Three,” Scarlett said.
Only her voice kept him from lining up his MK11 for a head shot.
“According to our drone, they’re leading her to an outside hut near the compound wall.”
“We don’t need a drone to see that,” he whispered.
Maybe Scarlett heard him because she responded with, “Just relaying information, Marsh.”
“They probably don’t want her inside with the family,” Trini—maps and logistics—said.
“Yeah or maybe they simply didn’t want to hear her cry,” Nez growled.
Ford didn’t relay any of the team’s ire to Scarlett. It simply settled in his gut.
Later, he might find her at their FOB, sit outside under the stars as the massive ship parted the black water, and let out his frustration. Like the fact that every time they chopped off one snake head in this militant-infested world, another popped up. And it was women and children who paid the price.
Scarlett would just sit, drinking a bottle of lemonade, and listen.
