Page 11 of SEAL's Tempest
“Thank you. I appreciate that.” Not having to deceive them eased a lot of the worry about the mission. They wouldn’t stop her when she had to go off on her own.
Now she just had to get past the tangos and hope the tech she needed to gather was still in the lab.
ChapterSix
Josh reviewed the mission package several times, looking for anything that might cause problems. It should be a straightforward in and out rescue, but in a war zone, nothing ever went as expected. They had no intel about any injuries and if so, how badly. At least the EXFIL would be closer than their insertion point.
They’d dealt with much worse over the years, and none of them were worried about their mission. But Tempest’s mission—that could be a huge clusterfuck.
Quinn had tried to get information out of Knox before they left, but he wouldn’t even admit to there being an additional mission. It was fucking ridiculous. Josh wondered if JSOC thought they were just a bunch of drones following orders without question. Hell, maybe they were. Did Command really think they’d believe that the team needed an interpreter for this mission? Especially after they’d been training for months for an insertion into Marikistan?
“Time to gear up,” Quinn announced.
The familiar surge of adrenaline slid along Josh’s nerve endings, temporarily driving out the concern about Tempest’s mission. It was “go time,” and he couldn’t deny he loved the rush. It would be one of the hardest things to leave behind when they eventually grounded him.
As the team suited up, they checked their oxygen and made sure their masks were in place. The ramp slowly lowered, and Josh shuddered as the freezing air hit him. He looked over at Tempest as they lined up in jump order. He could hardly recognize her in all her equipment. Lucky was first, then Ry with Whiskey strapped to his chest, followed by Josh, Tempest, and Doc, with Quinn jumping last.
The light turned green. With one last look behind him at Tempest, Josh followed Ry as they jumped from the ramp and pulled into a tight cannonball. They flew through the frigid air as the ground raced up to meet them. It only took them about two and a half minutes to free fall from thirty thousand feet to their target chute deployment at one thousand feet. Josh checked to make sure all five chutes deployed in the star-filled sky before silently floating to the ground.
Josh landed first and watched as everyone landed safely. They quickly removed their chutes and masks and buried their gear. It was crazy how much gear he’d buried over the years that they’d ever retrieved. After a quick comm check, they put on their night vision goggles, NVGs, and set off for Zdolnihiv. If possible, they wanted to reach the outskirts of town while they still had the cover of darkness.t
Pine trees covered most of the terrain, and they’d been lucky not to get caught up in any of the trees. Josh hoped that boded well for the rest of the mission.
As they made their way through the hills, Tempest easily kept up with the team. Not that he expected less. She was too damn stubborn for anything else, and it was one of the things that he liked about her. That list kept growing the more they were around each other.
Ry and Whiskey took point and disappeared as they scouted ahead checking for tangos. They were making excellent time when Ry’s voice came over their comms.
“Three tangos ahead a half a klick from your location.”
“Falcon 5, copy that. Are they armed?” Quinn responded.
“Uncertain. Possibly handguns, Falcon 1,” Ry answered.
“Copy that, Falcon 5. Hold your position,” Quinn ordered.
“Copy that Falcon 1. Falcon 5 out.”
Josh and the others gathered around Quinn, waiting for his direction. “I want to avoid any interaction if possible. Understood?”
“Copy that.”
Slowly they made their way to Ry’s position without encountering any of the tangos. Josh hoped they’d cleared out. The last thing they wanted to do was risk the mission before they even reached Zdolnihiv.
“Falcon 5, any movement?” Quinn asked through the comms.
“Negative, Falcon 1. It looks like they were heading home from town. There’s a cabin in the woods about three hundred meters to the south.”
So far so good, and they could already see some lights in the distance. It looked like there were some buildings still standing in Zdolnihiv. Maybe they’d get lucky and none of the aid workers would be injured.
Twenty mikes later, they made it to the outskirts of the city. It was eerily quiet as they stowed their NVGs and put on the UN uniform vests and helmets for cover. Ry grinned when he put a vest on Whiskey declaring him a service dog, even though Whiskey managed to look slightly offended. The pale-blue color almost glowed as the sky lightened with the predawn.
With the need for stealth no longer necessary, they spoke with quiet voices as they made their way through the decimated town. Very few buildings remained standing and those that were looked vacant. Josh figured most people were hiding in the basements or underground where it would be safer from the shelling.
As the team approached the first checkpoint in Zdolnihiv, Josh stole a glance at Tempest. He couldn’t imagine how he’d react to this kind of devastation to his home city. But her face was devoid of any emotion, carefully blank. Did she really feel nothing at all or was she just that good at hiding her emotions?
Josh doubted he’d find out anytime soon. He’d believed she was the ice queen and damn if she didn’t look like her now as she made her way around the destroyed buildings and bombed out cars.
Quinn stopped, and the team gathered around him as the sun rose in the sky. They’d expected to see more civilians, but it looked like the city was mostly deserted.
