But then it hit—a direct blast to the school’s Quonset hut—and they all heard that, loud and clear, as the explosion ripped through the night.
The place was still packed with people—mostly children.
Anotherwhumpfollowed, and the SEALs all started to run.
“Do whatever you have to, to end those motherfuckers, whoever they are,” Shane ordered the senior chief as he scrambled down the hillside, even though he had no right to dispense orders anymore. “Make them stop, then help the wounded! I’ll get the woman and her family to safety!”
“Don’t you dare get your ass killed by friendlies, LT,” the senior shouted back as he headed directly into the kill zone, Rick and Owen on his heels, even as he opened a radio signal to Dex.
“Magic, you’re with me,” Shane shouted, but the taller SEAL was already at his shoulder.
“My Pashto’s shitty, so I’ll start with French,” Magic said. “Because of the whole Canadian-father thing.”
“Just start talking, and don’t stop until you’re sure they’re not going to kill us,” Shane said as the group of villagers that were halfway up the steeper of the two trails stopped, turning to watch in horror as yet another mortar hit, and this time a car went up in flames.
And then, because they’d started to move back down the hillside, no doubt going to help the injured escape the fire that was now burning in the school—a move that would mean certain death for Tomasin Montague—Shane didn’t just walk toward them on his injured foot.
He full-out ran.
Chapter Four
Tomasin Montague spoke perfect English.
She also had an escape route planned—but she was unwilling to divulge information about it to two Americans, one of whom was still wearing a military uniform.
Her bodyguards kept their weapons carefully, unswervingly trained on Shane and Magic, and Shane didn’t blame them. Were he in her position, he would do the same.
He told her everything.
The assignment he’d been given to take out a wanted terrorist, known for her ruthlessness in killing children.
The realization they’d had that the face-recognition software was intentionally set to deceive them.
Shane’s attempt to placate his superiors and buy time to contact and rescue Tomasin and her family by calling in the bombing on the deserted farmhouse down the hillside.
The still unidentified rogue team that launched the mortar attack on the school—an attack that had been silenced, no doubt permanently, by Senior Chief Salantino and the other SEALs.
“It’s important,” Shane said, as he looked into Tomasin Montague’s weary and wary brown eyes, “that this time, when you disappear, you disappear for good. I can help you do that.”
She didn’t trust him, but she didn’t shut him down, so he kept talking.
“I have a friend,” he continued, but then corrected himself, because Jean was not anyone’s friend. “A contact. In Vienna. He can help you vanish. You and your children.” He looked from Tomasin to the little boy she held close to her side, the one from the images, and then to a teenaged girl who was still wearing her costume from the play. She, too, looked a lot like her mother.
One of the guards, the one with the AK-47, murmured something, and even though Shane was no kind of languages expert like Magic, he knew from the tone and the urgency that the man was saying it was time to go.
“You think you can hide,” Shane persisted, and the woman looked back at him. “But the people who are after you won’t give up. Theywillfind you.”
“And next time Lieutenant Laughlin won’t be there to help you,” Magic chimed in. “You have no idea how lucky you are that this man was in command of this mission.Noidea.”
“Jean Reveur,” Shane said as Tomasin looked from Magic to Shane and back again. “You can contact him via his email address. Dreamer19 at qmail dot com. Tell him I sent you. Tell him I’m cashing in the favor he owes me. Tell him after this? We’re even.”
“You would use up this favor,” she said in her gently accented English, “for strangers?”
Magic answered for him. “Yes, ma’am. He would.”
“Go,” Shane said. “Now. Dreamer19. Qmail. We’ll go help the wounded.”
The woman nodded, and with her children at her side, she turned to continue up the path into the mountains. The guard with the AK-47 lingered, backing away from Shane and Magic, his weapon still trained on them until he was swallowed by the night.
