Page 8 of Her Devoted HERO

Dex looked around the table at his team. Everyone was grinning at the same thing. Gray had managed to distill a detailed plan to kill the world’s third most dangerous terrorist and rescue four hostages into four sentences.

“What?” Gray asked.

“Nothing. I just wonder what you’d tell us to do on D-Day?” Hunter said.

“That’s easy. I’d say, ‘take the damn beach.’” Gray grinned.

“When do we go out?” Aiden asked.

“Just have to call for our ride,” Gray answered as he picked up his phone.

***

It was three o’clock in the morning. The moon was waning, so they didn’t have a lot of light, which was perfect. They had their night vision goggles. They had memorized the layout of the camp. Seven tents. Four clustered together, one well away from the others to the west, and two clustered together on the east. They had it planned. Three men would take the west side of the camp, four would take the east. There were three trucks parked haphazardly, they would be used for cover.

They had their coms so they could communicate.

“Guard sleeping in front of the far west tent,” Aiden whispered. Dex saw the man was holding an AK47 across his lap, and his head was resting on his chest.

“Guard on eastern tent eliminated,” Hunter whispered.

“Going in,” Griffin said even softer. Dex knew that meant he was slipping into one of the two tents.

Aiden gave Dex the nod, and he ghosted behind the sleeping guard, putting his hand over the man’s mouth as he yanked the rifle out of his hand. Then Dex pulled out his knife and punched it into the man’s heart holding him tight until he went slack.

“Guard on western tent dead,” Aiden whispered.

Dex followed Dalton as they took the larger of the two tents. Aiden headed to the smaller tent. Slipping in silently, Dex was assaulted by the smell of garlic and body odor. Dex and Dalton were on the two inhabitants before they could roll over. Once assured that they were targets, they were easily dispatched.

“Two down,” Dalton whispered.

“Two more down,” Aiden panted through his mic. He sounded out of breath. Dammit! Dex prayed there wasn’t a problem.

“One more down at east tent,” Gray said softly. “No sign of any of the Anders. Meet up at the south side of tents.”

“Affirmative,” Aiden growled. Dalton gave Dex a look, and they headed out of the tent searching for Aiden. He moved toward them. Slowly.

Dammit!

Dex searched him and finally saw it. Aiden was favoring his left side.

“How bad?” Dex asked.

“I’m a go,” Aiden said through gritted teeth.

Dex looked at Aiden and took him at his word. He wouldn’t risk their mission for pride.

When they met up with Gray and the others, they looked at the remaining tents. There was one that was significantly larger than the others with trucks parked in front of the entrance.

“We’ll start there. Aiden sit this out―”

Seven sets of eyes turned to the tent on the left of the large one. A beam of light had just flashed across the interior.

“Dex, you’re with me,” Gray said. “We’re going to shut this shit down. Hunter and Wyatt take the southeast tent. Griff and Dalton take the northwest. Then we’re all going to take the large one. That has to be the Anders’ location. Aiden, keep an overall watch. Notify us if there is a problem.”

With one forward motion, Gray sent his men into silent action. Dex noted that the flashlight kept bobbing around the tent. Whoever had control of it, sure wasn’t being careful. Maybe they thought they didn’t have to worry since it was three in the morning. But in his opinion, they were stupid. That just meant they needed to be more careful because stupid meant that they were dealing with even more of a wildcard.

Gray took the right side of the tent, and Dex took the left. As he came to the tent, he heard muffled sounds. His Arabic wasn’t all that great. Hopefully, Gray would be able to understand what was being said. But as he got closer, he realized English was being spoken.