Breaking Rules (Delta Force Strong #2) - Elle James Page 0,3
to the ground and ran into the dark.
In the bed of the truck, women and children scrambled to get their feet beneath them, some of them whimpering in pain, others sobbing in fear.
“Mac?” Rucker said into his mic.
“All clear at the warehouse. Dawg got the main gunners. We cleaned up another. Anyone left standing bugged out.”
“We stopped the truck,” Rucker said. “Like you said, anyone left standing bugged out.”
The men gathered around the truck and checked the status of all the people inside. Other than a few bruises and scrapes, they were intact. Shaken, scared and tearful, but alive.
“You gonna make the call?” Dash asked Lance, their radio guy.
Lance nodded. “On it.” He placed the radio call to the helicopters. Moments later, two Black Hawk helicopters landed near the warehouse.
Within the next few minutes, Dash, Lance, Blade and Dawg climbed aboard one of the choppers.
Rucker, Bull, Tank and Mac stayed behind to drive the truck back to the forward operating base where a team from the Intelligence unit and representatives of the local Afghan government would meet them and take the women and children to a temporary shelter.
At least that was what they were told. Dash wasn’t sure what to believe. As little as the men of the Middle East thought of their women, he couldn’t be sure of their treatment.
Dash buckled his safety harness and leaned back. The mission hadn’t gone according to plan. The American traitor, who had been coordinating the sale of humans into slavery and the sex trade, was still free to continue his nefarious operation. They’d been so close. Dash knew close was only good if you were throwing hand grenades.
Lance clapped his hands together and grinned, always the optimist. “We should be back in time for the tail end of the USO concert. I’m going to see if I can meet Sunny Daye in person.”
“Won’t she be surrounded by bodyguards?” Dash asked.
Lance shrugged. “Probably, but I’m good at finding my way around obstacles. A couple of bodyguards won’t slow me down.”
“I hear they have strict rules,” Dawg said. “You can be court-martialed for breaking them.”
Dash grinned. Something about rules made him want to break them. Especially if they didn’t make a whole lotta sense. “More than likely, we’ve missed the concert. She’s probably already packed up and left the base for her next stop.”
“The woman has to sleep sometime,” Blade noted.
Dash leaned his head back and let the vibration of the rotors lull him into a state of half-sleep.
It was after midnight when the chopper made it back to the base. Well past curfew for those who weren’t working the night shift or standing guard at the gates or on perimeter.
Dash was ready for a shower and his rack.
The stage that had been erected earlier that day was gone from the exercise field. Trucks stood in a line ready to head out in the morning.
“Damn. They break down fast,” Lance remarked as the helicopter pilot slowly lowered the aircraft to the ground.
“They don’t mess around,” Blade said. “Too bad we missed the show. I would’ve liked seeing Sunny Daye perform. I hear she puts on a good show.”
“Yeah, me, too,” Dawg said. “You think we can convince the CO to schedule a mission close to her next stop?”
“I wish,” Dash said. “Right now, I could use a sandwich and a shower…in that order.”
“I’m hitting the shower,” Lance said.
“Don’t hog all the hot water,” Dash warned. “On second thought, maybe I’ll get that shower first.”
“You’ll have to race me to it,” Lance said, unbuckling his safety harness before the chopper touched the ground.
As soon as the aircraft landed, Lance and Dash were out the door, racing for their quarters.
Dash could care less about getting to the shower unit first, but he needed the adrenaline rush to clear his head after their failed mission. Whoever it was negotiating the sales of those women and children knew how to cover his own ass. He’d come prepared with his own protection and got away because of it.
It burned in Dash’s gut that they hadn’t caught the guy. How many more lives would he destroy before he was finally brought to justice. And it fired Dash’s ass that the man was apparently American.
If Rucker’s girl, Nora Michaels, hadn’t been caught in one of his raids and escaped, they wouldn’t have known that much. She hadn’t seen his face, but she’d heard his voice and accent before she’d escaped with the little girls he’d stolen from an orphanage. The man