Page 1 of We Thought We Knew It All
1
Jamie
I ducked down low, hidden in a patch of trees off to the side of the road. Hartley flanked me on the right with Raddich on the left. The rest of the platoon wasn’t far behind, but they’d catch up. The building across the street was our target.
We’d left our vehicles a little ways back, needing stealth to take us the rest of the way.
I looked to Hartley, her eyes signaling to me that she was in agreement. Raddich motioned us forward.
The dust kicked up under our feet as we sprinted into position. A simple snatch and grab. Our intelligence said he was alone, but that’d been hours ago, and he’d probably moved on by now.
I pressed myself up against the stone wall at my back and gripped my M4 tighter. Raddich, our team leader, nodded and ducked into the side door.
Gun fire erupted as soon as he did, shattering the silence of the night.
I ran in, followed by Hartley. Barely glancing up, I raised my gun and fired, hitting both shooters in quick succession. They dropped with loud yells and I kept my gun trained on them until they no longer moved.
Hartley ran to Raddich, her med kit already in her hands. Blood gushed between her fingers as she put pressure on the wound in his abdomen.
“Shit.” I snapped to action. “I’ll search the rest of the house. Barrette and his crew should be here any second.”
They’d been held up at the last house we searched, sending us ahead to what was supposed to be a preliminary search before the full team arrived to do a sweep. We didn’t actually expect to find our target here anymore.
“Did you check them?” She nodded toward the dead men nearby.
“Not him.”
“You sure?”
“Yes,” I snapped, turning to search another room. I couldn’t just sit there and watch a man die. Because that was what was happening. I’d seen enough bullet wounds to realize a hopeless case.
We’d been in Somalia for longer than anyone was comfortable with and our mission still eluded us. It wore on all our nerves and Raddich wasn’t our first loss. I had to steel myself. Hartley would be much better at comforting him than I would. She’d done it for me two years ago when I thought I was dead. Shaking my head, I realized the differences. I didn’t die.
God, I was pathetic. I couldn’t even hold his hand, knowing how it’d haunt me later. They always haunted me.
“Clear,” I called back once I’d checked the last room. Mission still incomplete. Brother in arms dead.
Rangers lead the way. Well, not these Rangers.
Something fell to the ground in the front room and I picked up my pace, bursting through the door just in time to witness the knife drag across Hartley’s throat.
What felt like a sledge hammer crashed into me from behind and I was falling. My knees slammed into the dirt floor seconds before my face followed and everything went dark.
* * *
My eyes poppedopen in the darkened room. Manner’s heavy snores sounded like a chainsaw as they came through the wall.
I lifted a heavy hand to rub my sweat-soaked face.
That dream was all wrong.Again.
Jessica Hartley died in Somalia one year ago. That was true. She wasn’t supposed to be in combat, and that would forever weigh on me. We were down a medic and I’d let her climb into the truck back at base.
Her death didn’t make a difference. Our mission went unfinished when they pulled us out. We didn’t get our man and none of us could forgive ourselves. Glenn Raddich had also died that day. A good man.
But I’d come home in one piece. The rest of the events of that day were still a blur. I remembered the rest of the team showing up and sounds of a firefight.
I shook my head, trying to clear it. There were six months separating that from the day I was taken in Nigeria. They shot me and held me for a total of ten hours before my brothers showed up to get my ass out of there. The medic who’d replaced Jess said it was just in time too because I was bleeding like nobody’s business.
