“Are you sure the SEALs are with them? From the satellite images, their camp is a cluster of small cabins. What are the chances they’re all living in the same space? Or that Chastain’s widow is staying in the same one with them. As a mother with young children, she’ll want her privacy.”
Eric nodded absently. The men could have been staying in different cabins. But it didn’t matter. If Mrs. Chastain and her kids had been able to escape into the tunnels, the frogs could have too.
“We’ll just have to wait them out. Eventually they’ll surface to find food or water. When they do, we’ll move on them. If Mackenzie and his men are in the tunnels, we’ll take them out at the same time as we hit Chastain’s family.” He relaxed and smiled across the table at her.
He saw the flash of regret cross Esme’s face and reached for her hand, squeezing it comfortingly. His wife had a soft heart. While she understood that the deaths of Amy Chastain’s children were for the greater good, an absolute necessity, she didn’t like it.
For her sake, if there had been a way to kill the SEALs without involving the two boys, he would have taken it. He didn’t derive pleasure from the slaughter of innocent children either. But the SEALs had gone to ground, and there’d been no other way to flush them out.
So for the sake of the millions of lives he’d be saving in the future, he’d see Amy Chastain’s sons die in the now.
And he’d bear that black mark on his soul with no regret.
But then he froze. His whole plan rested on the kids exiting the tunnels at some point. But what if they didn’t need to? Mackenzie’s men were seasoned veterans. They’d have prepared for a retreat. Stocked for it. They’d have food and water stored in the tunnels. His best bet was to call in another air strike. Hit the bastards with a lot more firepower, enough to blast a twenty-foot hole in the ground. Make sure they never emerged from those tunnels.
Of course, it was also highly possible, probable even, that the boys would remain in the safety of the tunnel, while the men snuck aboveground to clear the camp of intruders. They were SEALs after all. Trained warriors with years of battle experience behind them. They weren’t going to wait belowground while their enemies destroyed everything.
They’d join the fight. Or even take the fight to Eric’s crew.
He swore beneath his breath and reached for his phone. Last time one of his teams had tangled with Mackenzie and the rest of those bloody sods, they’d paid for it with their lives. Every last one of them. He’d lost an entire team, along with their chopper, and those bastards had escaped without a scratch.
True—he was using a different contractor, one who’d provided his own team, but it wouldn’t hurt to remind the man of the results from the first skirmish with this group.
Or what the consequences would be if it happened again.
* * *
Chapter Thirteen
* * *
CLEARLY, LACK OF oxygen hadn’t damaged Faith’s mind.
Torn between relief and rankling irritation, Rawls blew out a frustrated breath. She’d awakened with her intellect fully intact, along with her stubborn refusal to consider anything that didn’t fit neatly into her scientific mindset.
The discovery that Kait had completely healed her—sweet Jesus, even retrieved her from the dead—had kicked off a full-blown chorus of hallelujah in his head. The euphoria had lasted right up until Faith opened her mouth to contradict everything he’d told her. It was the first time in his life he’d wanted to kiss a woman and shake her simultaneously.
A steady glow appeared ahead, intensifying the closer they got. Cosky and Kait melted into the brilliance.
Looks like they’d officially reached the rendezvous point.
“Hot damn.” A transparent shape slipped past him and approached the hub at full-speed ahead.
Just . . . perfect . . .
Rawls scowled.
His ghost—as Faith insisted on calling it—had returned immediately after the healing. It had been remarkably docile since its reappearance. Holding its tongue and antics in check. Of course, Rawls hadn’t taken any chances. He’d removed the ammunition from the SCAR PD assault weapon and the Glock 17. Pachico might have succeeded in manipulating the rifle, but he’d find it a lot more challenging removing the rounds from Rawls’s pocket and inserting them into the guns.
Erring on the same side of caution, he’d hung way back from Cosky too. Effectively creating a lengthy barricade between his transparent troll and his teammate, or rather his teammate’s weaponry.
At least for the time being.
Dread building, he paused, watching as Pachico abruptly stopped as well. The time had come to admit to his hitchhiker and warn everyone. Now that Pachico had mastered the ability to lift and point weapons, it was only a matter of time before he figured out how to compress the trigger. Trapped, as they were, in such a small space, someone was bound to pay the price.