Page 21 of Her Fearless Warrior

“Sam Phelps needs a hospital. Now,” Mateo said. “So do you. You have a punctured lung, and if I had to guess, you have internal bleeding. We can operate on the aircraft carrier. I don’t know what can be done at the outpost.”

Elijah slumped and closed his eyes. Linc thought he’d passed out, but then he started to talk again. “Besides Phelps, who made it out?”

“Annie Trent, Leila Cloud, and Katherine Cole. We only have Annie, Sam, and you. We’re trying to discern where Katherine and Leila are,” Kostya answered.

At that news, Elijah opened his eyes. “And the others? Landry? Felix?”

Kostya shook his head. “Dead.”

Hopkins nodded.

“Lieutenant,” Mateo interrupted. “Sam needs surgery, or he’s going to die. Every minute counts.”

Kostya nodded. Both men looked over at Gideon, who was on his satellite phone. He was looking grim. When he hung up, he looked at Mateo and Kostya, shaking his head.

“No helicopters. Al-Assad’s men bought into the Black Hawk flying over their lands once instead of heading northeast, but they made it clear if our people did it again, they’d shoot it down.”

“Okay, I’ll do my best to get them ready for transport on the Humvees,” Mateo nodded before Kostya could even ask the question.

Linc looked over at his boss. His face wasn’t giving anything away, but his frustration was coming off him in waves. Nolan O’Roarke was their normal medic, and he’d given him to Night Storm for a mission because their medic had a broken arm and their back-up medic was too integral to their mission to do any kind of medical work.

Then there was the fact that their back-up medic was back in Virginia getting his ass kicked with the other members of Omega Sky in jungle warfare training. That left Mateo, with no back-up to care for two critically injured men to get to safety.

“Here’s the play,” Kostya hollered. “We don’t have enough room for everybody to ride to the Al Tanf Outpost. Mateo, you’re going to go with Phelps in the backseat of one Humvee. Is it going to kill him to sit up?”

“I don’t know,” Mateo admitted. “If the seatbelt tightens around his lower abdomen, I think that could.”

“Understood.”

“Ryker, you’re with Elijah. Cut the bottom of both their seatbelts. I’m driving you, Annie will be in the passenger seat. Jonas will drive the other vehicle with Landon in the passenger seat, then Mateo and Phelps in the back.”

The Omega Sky team nodded.

He gave Linc, Jase, and Gideon a hard glance. “Al Qaryatayn is less than six klicks. You should be able to pick up some kind of transport after it gets dark. Jase, I’m leaving Jonas’ new friend with you since you can speak Arabic. If you get intel from him, report it to me. Likewise, if I hear anything from Elijah, I’ll get it back to you.”

It was a solid plan. Linc liked it.

He watched as Ryker took Elijah with Kostya’s help, then Mateo took Sam with Landon’s help. Linc and Gideon ran forward and opened the doors of the vehicles, helping to get the injured men safely ensconced in their seats.

As they drove off, the rumble of Jase’s voice could be heard. Linc started forward, while Gideon went to the OKA.

“What are you doing?” Linc asked.

“I’m going to see if there is any fucking way I can track that phone. I’ll check in with Langley and see if that idiot CTO is there yet and what he’s come up with. Then I’ll check in with some of the other SEAL team computer techs and get them on the job, too.”

“And bloody seats seem like a good place to work?”

Gideon looked over his shoulder and shook his head. “There’s a back seat. But I am getting rid of the corpses. Can’t say I really want to be working with two stiffs.”

“I’ll help.”

Linc jogged over to the driver’s side of the small car and yanked the door open. He pulled out the driver. He’d been shot in the head. Looking in the back seat, he could see a mess that Gideon might not want to be working in.

After pulling the driver out of the car, he pulled off his shirt and found a fairly clean part and used it to wipe off the back seat. Linc looked up and saw that Gideon was doing the same thing with the passenger.

“Okay, I’m all set.”

“Good luck. I just sure as shit hope that they still have the phone with them.”