Part 61 (1/2)

echo teAm The pilot's voice crackled in my ear jack.

”Coming up on it.”

Bunny pulled the door open and I peered out at the shattered

gray landscape.

”Oh, what fun to be back,” muttered Bunny.

He'd done a couple of tours each in Iraq and Afghanistan

with Force Recon before he was scouted for the DMS.Whenever he mentions Afghanistan, it's by the name ”that f.u.c.king place.” Iraq is ”that other f.u.c.king place.”

Not a lot of love.

But I knew the other side. Bunny had bonded pretty heavily with a bunch of villagers. Even one or two who worked in the opium fields. Most of them weren't bad guys, and for the most part, they'd have been happy if the Taliban were all eaten by rats. But the Taliban provided work. Granted, sometimes it was forced labor, but there was a paycheck, and for a lot of these villagers that was the only paycheck they'd seen in years. Bunny, like a lot of soldiers, didn't heap blame on the blameless. He just hated the G.o.dd.a.m.n country.

Can't blame him.

I was out of the Army Rangers when 9/11 changed the world. I was a street cop with the Baltimore PD, working on getting my detective's s.h.i.+eld. However, since taking charge of Echo Team, I've been here three times. Short missions, but when you do what we do, short is long enough.Top and Bunny were with me for two of those road trips, and I did one solo gig that still gives me nightmares.

I tapped my earbud to get Bug on the line. He was back in the DMS main headquarters at the Hangar on Floyd Bennett Field, but he was wired into a network of surveillance databanks, so he was on tap to give us real-time intel.

”We're two klicks out,” I said. ”Status update?”

”Same as before, Cowboy,” he said, using my combat call sign. Bunny was Green Giant, Top was Sergeant Rock. ”One strong signal and three intermittent beeps.”

”What about hostiles? Who's making trouble in the neighborhood?”

Bug snorted. ”Thermal scans show a lot of heat up there.You have a couple of villages in the lowlands and a s.h.i.+tload of fourlegged critters.A bunch of two-legged signatures, too, but no one's flas.h.i.+ng me their Junior Terrorist Club badge. CIA says that the locals are heavily infiltrated by the Taliban, so don't take chances.”

”Not a chance,” I said.

The pilot slowed the helo and we spent a little time doing visual recon as he made a careful circle of our landing zone. Bunny had the minigun locked and loaded in case somebody stuck an AK barrel out of a cave mouth. He was sweating and his eyes looked jumpy. An RPG could come out of nowhere and it would probably hit us. We all knew it.