But Sierra Three took some of the clean bandaging from his shoulder wound, tore it free, and handed it up to Zack.
Hightower took some tape from his med pouch and positioned Three’s gauze over the hole in Gentry’s back to stanch any more bleeding. It was a perfunctory job, just marginally better than nothing. “You’ll make it. When we get to the Hannah, we’ll get you fixed up.”
“Cool,” said Court. He wasn’t that worried about it, though it hurt like hell.
Hightower’s satellite phone buzzed in its chest pouch. The device was blackened with dirt and soot and oil and blood, but at least it was still functional. Sierra One had pulled off his headset while attempting to revive Sierra Two, so he just pressed the speakerphone button.
“Go for Sierra One.”
It was Denny Carmichael. There was no “Hello.” No “How are you?”
“I just got a call from the White House. They say the U.S. ambassador to Sudan is asking if there is some sort of Agency involvement in what he is describing as, and I quote, ‘a Black Hawk Down incident up in Port Sudan.’ How am I supposed to respond to that?”
Zack smiled, his head back on the headrest and his eyes closed. His face was black from filth and red from the blood that had smeared to nearly every square inch of his body, except for where his eye protection had kept the mess away.
“Well, sir, if I were you, I’d say that it looks like State’s intel sucks as bad as CIA Sudan Station’s intel. We’re forty miles south of Port Sudan.”
“That’s not the point, is it? Do we have, or did we have, a Black Hawk Down incident?”
“Absolutely not. You didn’t outfit us with any Black Hawks to go down.”
“Don’t get snippy with me, One. Did you secure Oryx?”
“He’s secure.”
“Have you extracted him to the Hannah?”
“Negative. But that’s the next item on my to-do list.”
“Sierra Six has him?”
“Uh, negative. Six is with us, what’s left of us. I lost a couple of operators to enemy fire. Thanks for asking about my guys, by the way.” Court turned to look at Hightower. It was shocking, even after all that had happened in the past several hours, that Zack would snap at his superior like that.
Denny’s response showed his focus was on Nocturne Sapphire, not on the health of the team members of Whiskey Sierra. “Who is with Oryx right now?”
Court Gentry answered while driving. “Oryx is secure. He’s not going anywhere.”
“Why are you and he not in the same damn place?”
“Whiskey Sierra was compromised. I came back to help. I did not put Nocturne Sapphire in jeopardy.”
“And if you had been killed?”
“I transmitted the location of Oryx to the Hannah before I set off.”
Denny’s anger and frustration were evident in his voice. “It is not the job of the men on the Hannah to extract Oryx from the Sudan. The Hannah does not have operators of your supposed caliber, Six, although I can’t possibly express to you how disappointed I am with your decision-making abilities in the past week! You should have gotten Oryx out of the country before going back for the others.”
Court began to respond, but Zack grabbed the phone and pulled it up close to his mouth. “I’ve got one hundred percent casualties! Two KIA! We just spent almost four hours battling an infantry force several hundred troops strong, with supporting air assets. Infantry and air that was not supposed to be there. And our local support, support that was supposed to be there, didn’t fucking show!”
“My information from Sudan Station is that they did show, albeit a few minutes late.”
“Sudan Station may have paid four hundred grand for a donkey cart full of rejects to each fire a magazine up an alley and then run away, but other than that, we didn’t get a goddamned bit of assistance.”
There was a significant pause. Court expected a little contrition, but none was forthcoming. “Nevertheless, you should not have allowed yourselves to be compromised. And Six should not have gone off mission to extract you from your own mess. You knew the risks.” There was an annoyed sigh audible over the satellite transmission. “Now . . . pull yourselves up by your bootstraps and continue on with Nocturne Sapphire. I will do what I can to negotiate the political fallout over here. That is all.” The line went dead.
Zack dropped the phone into his lap. It rolled down his legs to the floor. He was too tired