He agreed and passed the order onto Jericho. “Four, I just pinged you the nest location.”
“Copy.”
Rowan didn’t need to look to know his sniper would work his way around to the position they’d pinpointed.
The delay before an assault, when everyone was in place, was something he’d learned in SEALs and an important part of their process. It allowed the Operators in the assault element to become oriented to the target zone. It allowed them to know the swamp sounds around them and to focus on the tangos they would face. It gave Jericho time to get to his location and to study the layout in front of him. Having your sniper familiar with the movement of sentries was always useful.
After close to ten minutes, Jericho came up on the tac net. “One, Four. In position and waiting on your call.”
“Roger that.” Rowan brought his weapon to ready position and patted down his gear in the order he’d perfected over the years, making sure everything was locked, loaded, and ready to roll. “All Stations, TOC, on my count.” As he held up his hand, two fingers folded, three standing vertical, all his men activated their IR beacons so their sniper could identify them.
“Three.”
He dropped one finger.
“Two.”
He dropped the second finger and took a breath, “Green light. Go! Go! Go!”
Their goal was to move fast and stealthily. If they could avoid an outright firefight, it would be safer for the hostage they wanted to rescue.
Rowan stepped out of the jungle canopy behind the first tango. He clamped a hand over his mouth, drew his blade across his throat from ear to ear, and carefully lowered his body to the ground.
A sentry walked around a hut and froze when he saw what was happening in the clearing. He opened his mouth, but before the yell could pass his lips, a suppressed pop sounded, and red bloomed on his chest before he, too, dropped to the ground.
Scout is taking care of business.
“Seahorse, search this place,” Rowan ordered over comms. “If our package is here, find her, stat.” He didn’t have time toreceive the confirmations from his team before his connection with the overlord that was his Tactical Operations Center pinged him on comms.
“Seahorse One, TOC.”
“Go ahead, TOC.”
“You have a convoy coming up from your eight o’clock.” Theo informed him, “We’re counting at least twenty-five tangos.”
Fuck.
Just fuck.
“Copy, TOC. We’re about to go hot. How soon can G-TOC’s extraction team get to my primary extraction site as a priority one, over?”
“Patching you through, sir.”
Rowan didn’t bother to respond, as he knew Theo was already doing his nerd thing and connecting him to the pilot of their extraction helo.
“Seahorse one, Skillet.”
“Go ahead, Skillet.”
“We can be at your primary extraction point in fifteen mikes if I push it.”
That’s going to make it tight.
There was no way he could put Rock and Grif’s helo in the line of fire unless he had no choice, especially when the bird was being flown by their wife. “Make that thirty, Skillet.”
“Copy that, Seahorse One,” Skillet replied. “See you when I see you.”
He flipped back to his team tac-net. “All stations, we’re on a clock. We have a convoy incoming, and thirty mikes to extraction at priority one.” Once he’d let his men know the intel that had come from TOC, he wanted to know what they’d found. “Talk to me, Seahorse Two.”
