“We’ll get them all back.” Fuck, it was alie. Oliver was lying. A goddamned bold-faced lie.
He’d never heard Oliver lie before.
Aberlour didn’t remember the walk back to his extraction point. He didn’t remember getting on the chopper or being flown back to camp. All of it was background noise. He was a man of singular purpose, his mind obsessed with finding a way back to save his men.
As soon as he’d landed, he’d bulldozed his way into the Major General’s office, finding the man confident and resolute in his stance, as if expecting Aberlour’s visit. Oliver was right behind him. The entire time. Together, they’d imposed on anyone with ears. Yelling, arguing, slandering, cursing, doing everything and anything they could do to get their men back.
It was the longest 24 hours of Aberlour and Oliver’s lives. Labouring for four lives that meant more to them than their own. Hearts stuck in their throats, pounding incessantly with a single purpose—survival.
He’d begged, then he’d threatened, and then he’d waited.
Well,they’d waited, sitting on the linoleum floors in a dimly lit hall, still in their BDUs. They couldn’t recall when they’d last eaten. They waited, barely breathing, for a miracle they could feel slipping away with every second.
And then high command made their decision.
“We can’t negotiate.” That was the final answer he’d gotten from Major General Baron and his commanding officers. Team Specter had been deployed against the orders of the UN. The US was in direct violation of what had been agreed upon. It had been a black op, and there was nothing they could do about it except pray that any US soldiers now stuck in enemy territory found a way out. No, the United States of America could not admit to the black op mission, and so, those men would die, not as Marines, but as unclaimed individuals. There would be no bodies to retrieve. The details of their deaths would never be released. The official story was already in the works: the four men would die as a result of an explosion. Something banal that happened to soldiers overseas all the time.
“A terrible loss,” one of the men had said, shaking his head, rows and rows of medals pinned to his uniform clanging like mocking hyenas in the otherwise silent conference room.
Oli had sat down heavily, as if collapsing under the weight of the world.
Abe had refused to hear it. He’d spun on his heels, not even bothering to mockingly salute, and walked out.
Then, he’d gone rogue.
At 4:00 a.m. Eastern Pacific Time, Captain Shawn O’Reilly had picked up Aberlour’s call. The man who he hadn’t spoken to in over four years answered on the second ring.
“O’Reilly,” he answered, his voice gravelly with sleep.
In an undeniably serious breach of national security, Aberlour told Shawn everything. Absolutely everything. Fromstart to finish, he’d ran through the whole shit show, and Shawn had listened, humming now and then, but never interrupting. Finally, at the conclusion, he said, “I’ll see what I can do.”
And he had. Fucking Captain Shawn O’Reilly—now actually Major Shawn O’Reilly—had cut through more red tape for Abe than he’d thought possible. The SEAL was only too happy to show the USMC up by implementing a rescue mission. No one liked playing the hero more than SEALs did, O’Reilly had said, as he explained the plan to Aberlour. He’d gotten the go-ahead for a poorly financed, half-assed rescue mission. Half of a regular SEAL team, a small command post, and about 12 hours of prep time. And Abe had believed it—if only for a few hours. He'd even managed to get an hour of shut eye in there somewhere.
But alas, it had been too little too late, and in the end all of Abe’s begging and fighting hadn’t made a lick of difference. They’d lost so much time cutting through the bullshit and getting a plan in place—that they’d run out of time. Before Shawn’s rescue mission could even leave the tarmac, the live feed had gone up…
They couldn’t even trace it—yet another form of proof that there was a leak in their system. A giant fucking one like an open wound pumping blood into a chest cavity. The entire branch was drowning in it. They’d been outdone twice now. While Major General Baron kept denying it, no one believed his delusional bullshit. As if to insult him personally, the enemy contacted them directly through an untraceable link. Not a message. No. Nothing so mild.
Instead, they were treated to a live feed.
Their captors filmed every second, uploading in real time so Aberlour could watch in agony as the black canvas bags were taken off the heads of each member of Team Specter to reveal mangled but familiar faces. They’d been beaten. Again andagain, judging by the state of their faces. Marcus’ left eye was so swollen it had disappeared completely. They looked—Aberlour could hardly look.
There were shouts all around. Intel professionals trying to rat out their positions, trying to trick them and catch them. It didn’t matter. Aberlour had faced them down. He’d been where they were. He’d just—
It was horrible. A sight too terrible for words.
Everyone had warned him to get out. He didn’t need to see this, they’d said. Neither did Oliver, but they’d ignored their warnings. If his men were going to die, then Aberlour would watch. He’d watch and keep the image burning behind his eyelids, fuelling a guilt that would eat him alive. It was what he deserved for failing them.
They were lined up, then pushed to their knees. None of them fought back. For a pathetic moment, Aberlour thought they might have planned something. A surprise attack—a brilliant plan to rescue themselves since everyone else had given up.
There was no such plan.
There was just silence, and time ticking by.
Then there was just an indiscernible figure, with a machete, making his way down the line, one man at a time. Marcus saved for last. The expression of defeat creasing his face deeper and deeper as the heads of his brothers rolled one after the other.
One by one.
Sabine’s voice, gentle and kind as she’d danced with Abe on her wedding day,“Thank you for bringing him back to me, time and again,”ran on a loop in Aberlour’s mind as he watched. No longer praise but judgement. He’d failed them. All of them and all of their wives.
