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The decision was made and his LT phoned Washington and put the plan in motion. He was transferred from the bed to a stretcher, the meds helping to keep the pain at bay but not completely. Just jostling his shoulder, his arm in a sling and strapped to his chest to keep it immobile, hurt like hell, but he gritted his teeth. He was weak, but he could still shoot.
Once he was strapped in and secure, Tex walked with them to the entrance of the compound. To Twister’s surprise, Haitian security was still manning the gate, conversing with people who were asking for aid. The man who had shot and killed Dr. Casey had been found. He was a college kid angry at the loss of the president. The police kept him in one of the cells of the mostly intact jail, ready for prosecution by the Americans.
“Keep in touch with your progress, when you arrive, and when you’re headed back,” Tex said. “I want you all back here in one piece.”
“Is that an order, sir?” Flash asked.
“Damn right it is.” His face was flat and expressionless, but Twister knew he was being stoic for their sakes. “Don’t let me down.”
“Hoo-yah!” was their response as they started for the gate. One of the police officers stepped outside and cleared the way. The people stared, some of them glassy-eyed, others terrified, but there weren’t any hostile moves. Brawler’s vigilance was all-encompassing. He let Beast off the leash, and Twister recognized the German word for protect. Their K9’s ears immediately pricked, and he growled at a couple people he deemed too close. They backpedaled away from the dog.
Brawler smiled and all of them started to move faster until they were in a rhythmic jog. Turning his head, he was almost breathless from the amount of damage. It looked like a war zone. All he saw was rubble. The quake had shaken almost every structure into nothing but debris. Their homes were in heaps of slag, looking as if the mortar between the bricks had dissolved, and the buildings simply fell over.
There were very few people milling around. Most of them must have found shelter somewhere else. His teammates started down Bd du 15 Octobre, the main thoroughfare of Port-au-Prince. He saw bikes buried in debris, crushed cars, and wondered if there were people still buried in rubble. The prime minister’s refusal to give his consent for aid should be considered criminal.
His teammates kept up a steady pace, forced around obstacles. His heart lurched; he’d driven these streets, but the terrain was no longer familiar. Homes and shops he’d frequented were demolished as if a wrecking ball had swung wide and far. He was stunned by the flattened landscape.
This part of Port-au-Prince was just gone.
They passed a group who was lining people up on the side of the street, their still bodies hidden under a hodgepodge of coverings. Several women wept as they passed, never even looking at them. He felt their grief to his bones, and his need to help kicked in. But in this instance, he wasn’t able to lend any kind of aid. The last of the plasma was slipping into his body, but he was steadily losing blood.
He thought about his life then. Figured it was a common thing to do to wonder what it was like to die. He wasn’t afraid of it. He had resigned himself to it when he’d decided a military life was what he wanted. He regretted the grief his death would cause his family. His throat got tight. But he couldn’t regret a moment of his service. Not a moment. It was a privilege and an honor to serve with these men. But he did think he would have time for love, for a family, for a life beyond the teams. He wasn’t a defeatist after all. He’d thought about the future. He’d just never gotten around to having one.
His mind went to Shark, caught in the earthquake, captured by unknown combatants, alone with two vulnerable women, a baby, and two men he might not be able to trust. It scored his gut and tightened his chest. But he’d found something special with Maddy. Something that even Twister could see was beyond Shark’s scope of experience. Twister had to agree that Maddy was…outrageous, but she was kind, funny, caring, and sweet. He was lucky to have her. He just hoped he was able to let all his baggage go for her sake. Shark’s past didn’t bother him in the least. Everyone came from somewhere and some of those places weren’t great, but his buddy had turned his life around. He always had their backs.
He hoped they were all still alive, not wanting to think about losing them.
By this time fifteen minutes or so had passed, and they were now about halfway to the airport, turning right onto Rue Jean Phillippe.
That’s when Beast started to growl as several armed men stepped into the street, materializing out of the devastation.
They spoke in French. “Who are you?”
Brawler stepped in front of his stretcher and said, “We are American military, and we are transporting a wounded member to the airport. Step out of our way and let us pass. We don’t want any trouble.”
The lead man, a man with a red bandanna tied around his throat, his dark skin coated in dirt, grime, and fine white dust—sheetrock in the air from all the collapsed buildings—spat in the street. There was tension in his face, and Twister recognized it as entitlement. He also recognized that murderous look. They thought they ruled these streets now.
Brawler lifted his rifle to assault height, his finger slipping to the trigger. A SEAL never touched his trigger unless he was going to pull it. “Step out of the way, now. This is an emergency. If you don’t move, I will drop you where you stand.”
From their left, gunfire ripped across the street, and his teammates knelt behind some debris from a fallen building and leaned over the stretcher to protect him from the gunfire. The men scattered, but not before Beast took off after the one with the red bandanna.
Twister could see the action unfolding between concrete, rebar, wood, and sheetrock as bullets chunked away at their position, intermittent, taunting. “Northeast,” he said, gripping the stock of his weapon.
Beast might be a little bigger through the chest than most Malinois, but he could reach a speed of thirty miles per hour. The guy didn’t have a fighting chance.
Beast hit him in the back, knocking him to the ground. The guy was screaming as the big animal chewed on his forearm, giving him no chance to shoot him. He came up with a knife, but before he could strike at Beast, Brawler pulled the trigger and the guy dropped.
After that, the sporadic gunfire ebbed, stopped, and they resumed the trek after the guys switched positions to rest their hands and they each drank a bottle of water.
They were getting close as they turned left onto Av. Toussaint Louverture. This part of the city wasn’t as damaged as the section they just moved through. They were about ten minutes out, and his teammates, their harsh breaths heavy in the thick air, picked up their pace. It wasn’t long before they had to go right onto Bd Toussaint Louverture.
The dust kicked up by their boots floated away as they got closer and closer to the gate. When they reached it, the guards opened the gate and allowed them through. They jogged to a terminal near one of the hangers, set Twister’s stretcher down gently, then folded down onto the floor to catch their breaths and chug more water, enjoying the blast of air conditioning. It was clear the airport was up and running, probably on emergency generators.
Their uniforms were soaked through, but all of them were grinning.
They waited for about an hour and fifteen minutes before they saw the orange and white chopper coming in for a landing. Once again, they picked up his stretcher, but by this time, he was fading. He could barely catch his breath, and he was weak, dropping in and out of consciousness.
They loaded him on, and immediately a man leaned over him. “Hi, Petty Officer Reeves. I’ll be your flight attendant today,” he said with a smile as he removed his depleted bag of plasma and added another one. “We’re going to get you fixed up.”
