Flood Rising (Jenna Flood #1)

He rounded a corner and found himself in a large room, what might once have been a conference hall or a small lobby. In the green display of his night vision device, he saw the four shooters in black neoprene, looking like shadows, arrayed around a motionless form on the floor. He recalled that Mutant had reported contact and a kill just prior to whatever it was that had brought the mission, quite literally, to a screeching halt. His gut twisted with dread as he realized what the sound was. One more step brought him to Driver’s side.

The body on the floor belonged to a woman. She was older, perhaps in her mid-fifties, heavy set, with salt-and-pepper hair done up in a matronly bun. It looked like she had caught two rounds. One was centered just above her ample bosom, the other had gone through her left eye. Papa knew without checking that she was not one of the special targets, just support staff, an unlucky hired hand.

Probably a nurse, he thought, shifting his gaze to the squalling bundle pressed against her chest.

“Is somebody going to shut that thing up?” Rodent growled.

Papa glanced at him. Despite his justifiable anxiety about the noise, the shooter made no move to do what he had just proposed. None of the men moved, and the infant in the dead woman’s arms continued to scream.

Mutant’s first shot—the bullet that had probably stopped the woman’s heart—had missed the baby by scant inches. It had probably been a reflex shot. The orders to kill everyone had been explicit, so positive target identification wasn’t a concern. Even so, the shooter probably wouldn’t have taken the shot had he known she carried a child.

Mutant looked to Driver. “What do we do, boss?”

“You know the answer,” the team leader replied, and he turned to Papa. “No exceptions, right?”

Papa let out his breath. No exceptions meant no exceptions, but if there were ever to be an exception, this would be it.

“One thing at a time,” he muttered, and knelt beside the dead woman. He slipped the child free of the lifeless arms, and raised it awkwardly to his shoulder. The screaming seemed to intensify.

“Shhhh,” he whispered, patting the baby’s back and gently shaking it up and down. He had never married, never spent any time with children, but this was what people did in movies, so it was worth a shot. He continued patting and crooning for a few seconds, and miraculously, the baby quieted. “Okay,” he said in a low whisper. “Charlie Mike, boys. Finish setting the charges so we can get out of here.”

The three subordinate team members moved off, but Driver lingered. When the others were out of earshot, he asked, “What are you going to do?”

Papa continued to rock back and forth, still crooning softly, as he pondered the answer. There was no wiggle room in the orders. They weren’t supposed to leave anyone alive. Anyone. This unexpected development changed nothing. It was just a fluke that the woman had brought the child down to the research level. If they had been upstairs sleeping, none of the team would have even known about the child.

It wasn’t as if he needed to kill the child himself. He could simply leave it behind. When the explosives brought the building down, it would die exactly as it would have had they not known about it.

The problem was, they did know about it.

War was hell. Every shooter knew that. Even the most precise surgical strike carried the possibility for collateral damage—a nice polite term that meant dead women and children who had nothing at all to do with the targeted hostile forces. But it was a lot harder to pull the trigger or call in the air strike when looking one of those innocents in the eye. Papa knew of several instances where operators—men just like the shooters of Action Team Storm—had been captured or killed after their observation posts were discovered by local children. Hardened steely-eyed killers had sacrificed themselves, rather than kill innocents in cold blood to keep their presence a secret.

He looked at Driver. “Uncle Sam doesn’t pay you boys to kill babies. Or to live with the baggage that comes afterward.”

Driver seemed to grow lighter as the burden was removed from his shoulders, but he was still a professional. “What about the orders?”

Papa looked down at the child in his arms. Its cheek was pressed against his shoulder and it had dozed off. It, he thought. He didn’t even know if the infant was a boy or a girl, but it certainly wasn’t just an ‘it.’

There was only one answer to Driver’s question. “You let me worry about that,” he said, and turned away.

Ten minutes later, he rendezvoused with the four shooters at the designated rally point a kilometer from the compound. There had been no further encounters, and the rest of the demolition charges had been set without incident.

Even though he could not see their eyes behind their goggles, Papa could feel them looking at him as he walked up.

“What did you…?” Driver let the question hang, as if he feared that saying it aloud might give him nightmares for the rest of his life.

“I took care of it,” Papa assured him. His tone was neutral, as it had to be. The orders were, after all, very clear. There could be no survivors. “Blow it.”