Specter, the smallest and fastest member of the team, took the door. “I’ll give you a head start and catch up.”
Johnson was propped up. Silhouette pulled a plastic cap off a syringe with his teeth, and jabbed the needle into Johnson’s belly. Johnson’s vision blurred as the pain in his gut intensified. Tightness wrapped him again, but this time it was cold. Freezing. He was turned around and around, wrapped tightly in a translucent blue plastic, each revolution adding to the chill.
They’re freezing me.
“Nighthawk, evac on the aft deck in two mikes. Exfil will be hot. Repeat, exfil will be hot. Over.”
“Copy that,” Nighthawk—whoever that was—replied. “We’ll be waiting. Out.”
Johnson felt himself lifted up. When he saw the hall again, it was from Shadow’s shoulder.
“Let’s move,” Silhouette said. And they did. The journey on Shadow’s shoulder was rough, made worse by the pain in Johnson’s gut, which had slowed some, but nausea was sweeping through him. He left a trail of puke behind them. He watched the puke as the goggles tried to colorize it, and he noticed blinking lights along the walls. Bricks of C4 had been planted on the walls, their detonators blinking readiness.
“On my way,” Specter said through the comm. Ten seconds later, gunfire. Fast and continuous.
Then they were outside. The ship’s exterior was no longer silent and still. The violent chop of rotor blades filled the air with thunder and kicked up mist from the ocean below. Spotlights lit up the deck.
Gunfire grew loud behind them, spilling from the still-open deck hatch. “Almost there,” Specter said. “Very hot.”
Johnson felt himself tossed into the helicopter, his body temperature dropping by the second, robbing consciousness. The pain in his gut was almost gone, along with the rest of his feeling. He watched as the BlackGuard opened fire from inside the chopper, shooting at some unseen enemy. Then, Specter dove inside, held fast by Obsidian. The helicopter rose up and peeled away, giving Johnson a momentary view of the Darwin, its upper decks alive with hundreds of moving, unidentifiable black spots.
And then, with a bright flash, the Darwin exploded, erased forever. As the roar and pressure wave shook the helicopter, Johnson rolled onto his back and looked up at his teammates. Only Shadow looked back, his squinted eyes revealing a smile. “Now you’ve seen scary.”
1
Maine
“Stop moving,” she says.
“I’m itchy,” I tell her.
“You didn’t roll through poison ivy again?”
“Four leaves, shiny green. No way.”
“Poison ivy has three leaves.”
“Shit.”
A faint scratch, barely a whisper, silences us. Collins, whose fiery hair and personality are hidden by full-body camouflage, lowers her goggle-covered face to the ground, blending in with the leaf litter that surrounds and covers us. I lower my head, too, knowing that concealment is the only course of action. If our enemy is within a hundred yards, something as small as passed gas would give our position away.
So we wait in silence. I can hear Collins breathing through the earbuds that let us communicate over distances without having to shout. While the scent of damp earth and decaying leaves seeps through my facemask, I picture our future together. It’s totally inappropriate, both because I’m kind of in the middle of something and because my face is in the dirt, but I find it hard not to think about. I picture her in a wedding dress, red hair in curls, orange-brown eyes blazing. My mind’s eye travels south to her... No, I think. The wedding dress I’ve conjured is far too revealing, so I mentally censor the image to something more conservative. These camo fatigues are a little tight, and I don’t want to relive the last day I ever wore sweat pants in high school.
“Pervert,” Collins whispers.
“What?” I say, too loud. “How did— Get out of my head, woman.”
“You’re adjusting,” she says.
I freeze. Without realizing, I’ve reached down and shifted my boxer briefs. I generally prefer straight boxers, but that’s not always comfortable when in the field. A good sprint can leave a guy feeling like Sugar Ray Leonard discovered a new punching bag.
“What was I wearing this time?” she asks. “Bikini? Lingerie?”
I turn toward her, seeing only the side of her facedown head. “First, kudos on the confidence. How do you know I wasn’t thinking about a Kardashian?”