06 Double Danger (2 page)

Moving more quickly now, intent on exploring the storefront and the stone structure, Simon led the way, gun at the ready. Avery and Tyler came next, staying low, moving almost in tandem on their respective sides of the square. Behind them, walking backward, Nash and Drake kept eyes on the rear, making sure there was nothing to threaten from behind.

Simon slowed as they neared the stone building, his senses going on high alert. There was still no noise, but something had triggered his attention. He motioned the others still, eyes narrowed as he swept his gaze across the windows on the remaining buildings. Nothing moved. But still he waited. And then after a slow count to ten, he took a step forward.

Bullets strafed across the square, sending dust spiraling into the air.

“Fall back,” Simon shouted, not bothering to use his comlink. He dove for cover, another round of fire whizzing past his shoulder as he rolled to the relative safety of a building. “We’ve got a sniper.” This time he spoke into his com unit, his eyes still searching the buildings in front of him for signs of life.

“Looks like we were right about the stone building,” Avery said, pointing to a top window on the far left.

Sunlight flashed on something metal, and the curtains swayed ominously.

“Son of a bitch,” Drake growled, moving to crouch beside them.

Across the way, Nash and Tyler were huddled behind an abandoned cart of some kind.

“You guys got a shot?” Avery asked. “Angle’s impossible from here.”

“Negative,” Nash replied. “Besides, either he’s moving or there’s more than one of them. The first shots came from a different window.” He motioned to a window two down from the one where they’d just seen movement. “I could try to ease my way around back.”

“Won’t work,” Tyler’s voice replaced Nash’s. “There are windows on at least three sides. We make a move, he’ll see, and odds are, he’s got a shot.”

“So what?” Drake groused. “We just call it a day and head back into the mountains?”

“Not likely,” Simon said, his mind already working on the angles. “I can’t get a shot from here, but if I can make it up to the second floor over there, I should be able to take the son of a bitch out. I’ll just need covering fire.”

“Well, whatever we do, I think sooner is better than later.” Drake raised an eyebrow, his grin at odds with the grim nature of their situation. “The longer we sit on our asses, the more time the hostile up there has to call in reinforcements.”

Avery nodded his agreement. “Simon, you’ll go on three. We’ll hold him off, and as soon as you’re clear, I’ll follow behind you.”

“I don’t need—” he started.

“Help. I know,” Avery said, cutting him off with the wave of a hand. “But I can draw the hostile’s fire better
from closer in. And in order to get the shot, you’re going to need me to get the asshole to engage. Otherwise he’ll just move out of range.”

Simon started to argue again, but stopped himself. Truth was he preferred a solo act. That propensity had become his Achilles heel in the SEALs. Hell, it had probably gotten Ryan killed. He blew out a breath and nodded, moving into place as Avery held up his fist.

One finger, two, and then three.

Simon dashed into the opening between the two buildings, the gunman above them immediately opening fire. Nash and Drake both responded with volleys of their own, and Simon just tucked and ran, feeling the ground beneath his feet reverberating from the shots.

In what felt like an eternal stretch of minutes, he made his way onto the rickety planking that served as a porch for the store-fronted building. There was a sporadic continuation of gunfire and then, like before, everything was quiet.

“Everyone okay?” Simon spoke softly into his comlink.

“Affirmative,” Avery responded. “You in one piece?”

“Roger that,” Simon said. “Moving into place now.”

Turning his attention to the task at hand, he made quick work of searching the bottom floor, relieved that there were no surprise residents. Then, taking the stairs two at a time, he hit the upper floor just as the shooting began again in earnest as Avery moved into position.

Simon crossed to the window, kneeling so that his head was just barely above the sill. It took a moment to locate the gunman again. But after a volley from just below him, Simon saw the movement he was looking
for—a flash as the sun hit the muzzle of the machine gun, three windows closer from where they’d originally spotted him.

Simon pulled his rifle from his pack and adjusted the scope. He’d come to A-Tac as a logistics man, but when Annie Brennon, Nash’s wife, had announced that she was retiring, he’d taken on her duties as team sniper as well. He steadied his hand and closed an eye, waiting for Avery to work his magic.

“I’m engaging now,” Avery said, a blast of gunfire from directly below Simon underscoring the words.

Unlike the previous window, the one the gunman occupied now was curtainless and open. All the better to take him down. Simon smiled as the man leaned into view, his gun trained on Avery.

Sucking in a deep breath, Simon squeezed the trigger.

The man’s eyes widened and then he fell forward, half in and half out of the window.

“
Hooah
.” The cry over the comlink came from Tyler. And Simon pumped a fist in response, his gaze searching the area for anything to contraindicate the idea that the shooter had been acting alone.

Everything was quiet, and with a sigh of relief, Simon headed down the stairs to join the rest of the team.

“Good shooting,” Drake said as Simon stepped back into the square. “Got him in one. Don’t think Annie could have done it any better.”

“High praise,” Simon acknowledged, his body still pumping adrenaline. “Gotta admit it was one hell of a rush.”

“Now you sound like her, too,” Tyler said with a laugh as she and Nash joined them on their side of the plaza.
“But swear to God, I don’t see the point of such a risky maneuver if you can just blow the damn target.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes you just don’t need the overkill,” Nash said, his tone teasing. “But in a pinch, I’ll take whatever works. Hell of a shot, Simon.”

“Any chance it’s Kamaal?” he asked, rolling the body over so that they could see the face.

“There aren’t any really clear pictures of the man,” Nash responded. “But I’d say this guy is way too young.”

“Pity, that.” Simon nodded down at the dead man. “Would have liked to have taken him down.”

“Another day,” Avery said, coming up to stand beside them. “For now, let’s just be grateful we got the shooter. For all we know, this guy called for reinforcements, and although I’d put money on us in a firefight I’d just as soon avoid one, if possible. So I’m thinking we need to move fast if we want to search the building.”

“Roger that,” Nash said. “So you think there’s anything to find?”

“Only one way to know for sure.” Drake grinned, then strode off for the building, the others quickly following.

At the door, they stopped, backs to the wall, as Avery reached out to open it.

“Wait,” Tyler said, quickly feeling along the frame for signs that there might be some kind of booby trap. “It’s clean.”

“All right then,” Avery said, “I’ll go first.”

The big man swung into the doorway, leading with his gun, and after calling “clear,” the others followed him inside. The first floor was a one-room affair. Ratty furniture was scattered around with seemingly no thought to decoration. A sofa lay overturned, and a table had
been flipped on end. Behind it, a fireplace smoldered, half-burned papers spilling out onto the hearth. Boxes littered the floor, and an open crate stood in the center of the room.

“Looks like weapons,” Tyler said, motioning to an old Soviet stamp on the side of the crate as she peered inside. “I’m guessing, from the indentations, old PK machine guns.” She lifted a bed of man-made straw to reveal what had most likely been a second layer of weaponry.

“A holdover from the Soviet/Afghan war?” Nash asked.

“That or maybe just old cast-offs.” Tyler shrugged. “The Russian black market is full of serviceable but outdated equipment. And there are always people ready to buy.”

“Like our boys here.”

“Guy up here was packing a PK,” Drake said, leaning over the stairway banister. Nothing to identify him. But there’s crap all over the floor up here, too. Looks like whoever was using this building moved out on the fly.”

“Leaving dead dude to hold the fort?” Simon quipped. “Talk about hazardous duty.”

“Everyone fan out for a look,” Avery said as he bent to pick up a torn piece of paper. “Maybe we’ll still find something.”

“Most of the paper is too burned for anything to be legible,” Simon said, sifting through the singed rubbish. “But there’s a notebook here that looks salvageable. The covers are toast, but the pages inside are relatively untouched.” He held out the charred notebook. “Unfortunately, I can’t read Arabic. Nash, what about you?”

“I can speak it fairly well,” he said, taking the notebook from Simon and flipping through the pages with a frown. “But I’m not nearly as good at reading it. It’d take me a couple of days to make any sense of this.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Avery shook his head. “We can get someone at Langley to translate when we get back.”

“Well, it’s definitely schematics of some kind,” Nash said.

“So we’ve got weapons and diagrams.” Avery frowned. “Seems to verify our intel that this was more than a simple village.”

“Not to mention having their own personal sniper,” Tyler added. “My guess is that he was finalizing clean-up with an eye to our arrival.”

“And when forced into action, he started shooting.”

“Yeah. And I’m betting it wasn’t a voluntary assignment,” Tyler said. “He had to have known it was suicide.”

“Maybe he thought he could scare us off.” Avery took the notebook from Nash, carefully stashing it in his pack. “Or maybe he thought it was a fast ticket to all those virgins.”

“Well, wherever he ended up, maybe his hasty exit will play to our advantage somehow.” Simon was back to sifting through the refuse in the fireplace.

“Damn well better,” Avery said, “because it seems like lately, no matter what we do, we’re always just a few minutes behind the ball. Anybody got anything else?”

“This count?” Drake asked, coming down the stairs holding out a small black box. “Looks like an external hard drive. I found it mixed in with some other destroyed electrical equipment.”

“Don’t know what you expect to get off that.” Simon
wiped the soot off his hands as he studied the box in Drake’s hand. “Looks to me like someone took after it with a hammer.”

“I’ve seen Harrison resurrect worse,” Avery said. Harrison Blake was the team’s IT guru. “Hell, if we’re really lucky maybe there’s something on it that’ll connect to the Consortium.”

New York City, Hospital for Special Surgery

S
o on a scale of one to ten, how would you rank the pain?” Dr. Weinman asked as he probed the deep scars running across Simon’s thigh.

“Three,” Simon said, fighting against a grimace, pain radiating up into his hip. The long hike through the Afghan mountains plus the stress of the firefight had aggravated his injury, his pronounced limp causing Avery to send him to the orthopedist for a look-see.

“So a six.” The doctor released the leg and scribbled something on his chart.

Simon opened his mouth to argue, but Weinman smiled. “Look, I’ve been patching up people like you for most of my career. Which means I’m more than aware that in your world, a three would definitely be a six for the rest of us. God’s honest truth, probably more like an eight or nine.”

“Apples to oranges,” Simon said, his smile bitter. “The rest of you wouldn’t have a leg full of shrapnel. So am I cleared for duty?”

“Yeah.” Weinman shrugged. “You’re good to go. There’s no new damage. But I’m afraid as long as you insist on engaging in the kind of
work
you do, there’s always going to be risk. And sooner or later, there’s going to be additional injury. So it’s not a matter of if, but when.”

“Nothing I didn’t already know,” Simon said, jumping off the table to get dressed.

“I assume you’re still working with the PT?” the doctor asked, glancing up over the top of his glasses.

“Actually, I’m not. With the new job, there just isn’t time to come all the way into the city. But Sunderland has a great gym. And I’ve memorized the moves by now. So it’s easy enough for me to work out on my own.”

“Well, I suppose that’ll have to do,” the doctor said, still scribbling in the chart. “Just be careful not to push too hard. Do you need something for the pain?”

“No, I’m good.” Simon shook his head as he shrugged into his shirt. The pain meds only dulled his brain, slowing his reflexes. And in his line of work, that wasn’t an option. Besides, he prided himself on being tough.

“There’s nothing dishonorable about managing pain,” Weinman said, correctly reading Simon’s train of thought.

“Look, I said I’m fine.” Simon blew out a breath, forcing a smile. The doc was only trying to help.

And if Simon were truly being honest, he’d have to admit that sometimes, in the middle of the night when the pain threatened to overwhelm him, the pills were his only ticket to oblivion. But he’d seen what had happened to men he’d fought with when the meds had taken control. And he wasn’t about to let himself go down that path. No matter how fucking much it hurt.

“It’s up to you.” Weinman shrugged, closing the chart
and rising to his feet. “But if you change your mind, I’m only a telephone call away.”

“Good to know. But I’ll be okay.”

“All right then. We’re done.” Weinman paused, his gaze assessing. “Until next time.” Leaving the words hanging, he turned and left the room, and Simon blew out a long breath.

The bottom line was that he knew he was on borrowed time. His injuries had been severe enough to force him out of the SEALs. And sooner or later, they were probably going to mean an end to his career with A-Tac, at least in the field.

But for now, he was determined to carry on. He was a soldier. Pure and simple. And just because he could no longer be a SEAL, he didn’t have to settle for some piddly-ass desk job. A-Tac was as good as it got when it came to working counterterrorism. And he was lucky to have found a home there.