Jaw clenched, he slung his weapon across his back and began climbing up the metal rungs of the ladder anchored into the concrete wall.Near the top he paused.“Craig, how we looking up there?”he murmured into the mic.
“All clear.You guys coming up?”
“Affirmative.”Without the adrenaline masking the pain, his arm was now aching like a bitch.He grimaced as he climbed his way to the top, and by the time he got there he was covered in sweat.Biting back a groan, he crawled over the edge of the opening and stayed on one knee to catch his breath.
A solid hand landed on his left shoulder.“You good?”Cam.
“Yeah.Just need a second.”
“I got movement outside the tunnel entrance,” Craig reported, voice sharp.“Single heat signature, lost it in the trees to the southeast?—”
The rest of what he said was lost under the roar of blood in Ryan’s ears.
He was already dropping to his stomach, rolling behind a slight knoll to take cover.As soon as he was in place he aimed at the far tree line, and a bullet punched into the metal hatch two feet in front of him with a loud ping.
“Fucker,” Cam snarled under his breath, flat on his belly beside Ryan.
“You guys got him?”Taylor said over their comms, still inside the tunnel.
Ryan lay unmoving, eye to his scope, every muscle tense as he scanned those trees.“I got nothing.Craig?”
“Moving around to get another look.”
“Ruby—”
“She’s good.”
Was it Coventry out there shooting at them sniper-style?Or was it another of March’s men?“Any other heat signatures?”
“Negative, just the one.”
For now, anyway.Ryan eased the barrel of his weapon farther to the right.
A flash of movement caught his attention through the trees.“I got him.Hundred-and-twenty yards, two o’clock.”
“You got a shot?”Wade said, inside the tunnel with the others.
“Negative.We’re gonna have to flush the bastard out,” he muttered.
“Roger that,” Taylor answered.“Craig, you cover the left flank.Ryan, you and Cam take the right and we’ll come up and take the middle.”
“Roger.Wilco.”The right side of his undershirt was stiff with blood.More of it pooled warm against his ribs.Sooner you get this bastard, the sooner you can get that plugged again.
“Ready?”Cam whispered.
“Yeah.I’ll cover you.”
Cam shot up and ran to the right while Ryan watched the trees for more movement.Another shot rang out.Cam cursed but kept running.“To my left,” he reported, dropping behind the cover of a big boulder.
Ryan used his left arm to push to his knees, waited for Cam’s softgobefore racing after him.No more shots echoed in the silence, but Ryan glimpsed a tiny shift in the underbrush ahead and to the left as he ran.“I got him.”Dropping onto one knee, he took aim, fired.Then he waited.
“I see him,” Craig reported.“To the left of your position.”
Ryan eased the barrel of his weapon to the left, consciously slowing his heart rate.Come on, asshole.Move.
A branch swayed in his night vision goggles.He aimed at it and fired.
“You winged him, but he’s not down,” Craig said.“I can’t get a clear shot, but he’s moving deeper into the woods now.”
