The Complete Delta Force Warriors

Chapter 5

5

“Now it gets interesting.”

“Interesting,” Teresa did her best to match the Master Sergeant’s wry tone. In the last sixteen minutes, she’d: beat up on a ham-handed Air Force grunt, performed a HALO parachute jump through the heart of a squall, spent a few minutes unsnarling herself from the splendidly hard-bodied Master Sergeant—a task she’d found herself curiously reluctant to hasten—and taken down five heavily-armed house guards without having to kill any.

“Interesting” didn’t begin to cover it.

This was the kind of mission she’d dreamed of for years. Military parents bred military kids and it was finally her turn. It wouldn’t last. By tomorrow she could be back at MSST which was far more about training and being ready than action, but for now she’d dive in headfirst.

Again, a careful scan of the grounds from the guard-house door.

No action.

They swept across the yard to the main house.

Their target obviously wasn’t a man prone to worrying. He maintained only minimal guards with only one at a time on night duty patrol. She and Hal had planned for much more security when they were designing the mission.

The front door was locked. Rather than breaching it, Hal signaled her left as he circled right. No hovering. No protecting the “fragile female.” In the Master Sergeant’s world you were either a soldier or you weren’t. It was like a breath of fresh air. No man except her dad had ever believed in her like that.

Side of the house was clear.

At the rear, the only person she encountered was Hal coming around the other way. There were two more goats sleeping in the protection of the narrow space between the stone-and-mortar house and the compound’s concrete rear wall, but Hal stepped by them so carefully they barely woke. A powerful soldier who could move so lightly; he was oddly beautiful to watch—part dancer and part walking death.

There was no door, but there was a window. Locked.

Through the glass they could see the clear heat signature of a couple lying together in a bed. She and Hal shifted to another window, smaller and higher.

“I’ll boost you up,” Hal knelt and cupped his hands.

“No. Me.” She had an idea, saw the opportunity, and didn’t give him a choice. She knelt quickly with one knee in the slush and the other raised. With her boot firmly planted, her knee would make a solid step for him.

He shrugged, stepped on her knee, balanced a moment to spread tape on the glass. He waited for a renewed blast of wind from the storm and punched it with a gloved fist—the tape prevented any shards from falling to shatter loudly on the interior floor—then he reached through and unlocked it. In moments his weight was gone.

She called up softly, “You in the shitter again?”