expletives. Now wasn’t the time. If they lived, then he’d want to know what the fuck was going on. Details. An explanation that made sense. The truth.
The sound of tires eating their way up the side of the hill carried over the sawing of his breath and the pounding of his heart. He ran every fucking day, but not at this pace. Not on sand that shifted and slid beneath his feet. It was going to wear him down, probably before the cartel caught up. And that scared the shit out of him. They weren’t known for their hospitality.
To his left, he caught a glimpse of Cutter and Walker sprinting, as he and Trees were, for their vehicle, which stood a few hundred feet in the distance. Behind him, the sounds of the engine grew louder. Next, he heard an explosion, followed by a whine and a whoosh.
An explosive landed in the soil half a football field in front of them, kicking up sand, rocks, and brush. Zy squinted and covered his eyes as he approached the brown cloud of dust, then tried to outrun whatever came next. It would take the crew behind him less than a minute to reload and launch again.
“We’re fucked!” Trees shouted beside him.
“We’re almost there,” he tried to encourage his buddy.
But deep in his heart, Zy feared his buddy was right; they were fucked.
The engines roared closer as the second explosion filled the air. Zy craned his head over his shoulder—and saw the fucking grenade coming straight for them.
“Drop!” he shouted as he rolled to the sand, trying to avoid the explosive’s arc.
Trees hit the deck. Cutter started to do the same, but Walker either didn’t hear or intended to be the hero. At least until his spotter tossed him down with a tug on his arm.
The grenade hit the sand not twenty feet from them, too close to their vehicle for comfort.
“Go, go, go!” Cutter demanded.
They all raced to their feet in an all-out dash for their Jeep. If they couldn’t reach it and hit the gas in the next sixty seconds, they were toast.
Finally, they managed to reach their open-air vehicle and dump all their contents in the back. Over his thudding heart and everyone’s furious breaths, he heard the tick, tick, ticking of a silent clock in his head, counting down the moments to impending death. It blended with the snarl of engines closing in as they tore off the camouflage covering and all hopped in, Cutter taking the briefest glimpse to ensure they’d all piled in before he stomped on the gas and the vehicle lurched forward.
Zy’s ass barely touched the seat before they began tearing through the desert, jockeying their way toward the public road, which was at least ten miles away.
“We’re not going to fucking make it,” Walker spit. “You should have let me shoot the son of a bitch with the RPG.”
“We didn’t have time.”
“The fuck we didn’t! No one made you mission commander, Bryant, and you don’t have the first fucking clue what shots I can make.”
“Stop whining and fire back at these assholes. That’s the only way we’re getting out of here alive.”
Zy whipped his stare around. In between the clouds of dust their race through the desert had kicked up, he saw something that made his blood run cold. “They’ve got a mounted fifty-cal!”
“Motherfucking son of a bitch,” Walker cursed as he jerked out his Glock. “Don’t ever stop my shot again. And if I die, I’m going to haunt your ass.”
There was no way anyone was hitting the enemy vehicle with that weapon at that distance. “Are you out of your mind?”
Walker glared at him like a bug to be squashed. “You got a better idea, new guy?”
Zy didn’t, and that sucked, so he closed his mouth, drew his own weapon, and sent up a prayer.
The sun inched up the horizon, and Cutter wisely drove east, straight into the blinding light, fishtailing the back tires to kick up as much dust as possible. They had no other way to obscure their position.
If they got out of this alive, it would be a fucking miracle.
Then came the sound he goddamn dreaded—another bang, followed by another high-pitched howl. Then a flash, followed by a deafening sound as the explosive landed inches from the back right tire, where Zy sat. Then fire ripped into his shoulder and across his back seconds before something bashed in the side of his skull.
Pain exploded. Darkness tunneled his vision. As