Capture & Surrender (Market Garden, #5)(8)
Heads shook, and no one raised a hand.
Geoff went on. “And guys, I’m not f*cking kidding when I say that masks stay on at all times when you’re inside the yellow tape.” He pointed a gloved hand at the yellow ribbon that marked the outermost boundary of the field. “You want to fool around without masks on? Get off the field. If the refs or myself catch you without a mask for any reason, I don’t care if you’re sucking a dick or putting your contact back in, I’m banning you from the field for the rest of the weekend.”
The teams fastened on their armbands—blue for one team, red for the other—and huddled on opposite sides of the ready area to strategise.
Frank, Mike, and Geoff put on their bright orange armbands, and similarly coloured tape on their masks, shoes, and the backs of their gloves. All the other guys kept themselves as subdued as possible, but it behooved the refs to be able to identify themselves without taking fire. Pinned behind a bunker by a shooter mistaking him for an opponent, a ref’s safest bet was to raise a hand or stick a foot out and let the orange tape correct the error.
“I’ll put a tenner on Chris getting the new guy on his back within the hour,” Mike said as he checked the laces on his boots.
Geoff nodded. “I’ll throw twenty in. Yankee’s all mouth.”
Frank suppressed a smirk as he wrapped orange tape around his ankle. “Twenty quid and a round of beers says you’re wrong.”
“How wrong we talking?” Mike asked. “Chris doesn’t get him? Or the new kid turns the tables and pins him?”
“Twenty says Chris doesn’t get his hands on Stefan.” Frank peeled off another strip of orange tape from the roll. “Twenty more and a round at the Lion says Stefan puts him on his back or his knees.”
Geoff laughed. “You really buy into this kid, don’t you?” He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. Fingers moving nimbly in spite of the plated gloves, he pulled the cash out of the fold. “All right, then. Twenty. Pony up, lads.”
They all pulled out the agreed upon money and folded it inside Mike’s toolkit along with a scrap of paper on which Frank had scribbled “round of beer @ Lion.”
“You’re going to be buying those beers, Frank.” Geoff clapped his shoulder. “Trust me.”
“Oh yeah? What makes you say that?”
Geoff gave a sharp sniff of amusement and slid his gaze towards Stefan, who was still huddled with the rest of the red team. “See that gun he’s got?”
“Yeah. You were pretty impressed with it.”
“Aye. But that’s the gun tech talking. Toy like that? He’s got his strategy tied up in gear. Boys with guns like that don’t know a damned thing about anything except how to shoot. Not a bloody clue about strategy or not getting shot.”
Frank raised an eyebrow. “He’s ex-Army, you know.”
“Mm-hmm.” Geoff patted his shoulder, then picked up his mask. “If he was any good, maybe he would still be Army.”
Frank chuckled. Stefan may have a pretty toy to play with, but Frank suspected the kid knew his way around a battlefield. Particularly when the stakes included getting his hands on that former pilot’s cock. Frank, for one, was looking forward to Stefan kicking arse. Or, alternatively, Stefan getting his arse handed to him, as long as Frank got to watch. The game could really go either way to please him, as long as the end result encompassed sweat, dirt, and camo.
“Right.” Frank put on his mask. “Let’s have some fun.”
Geoff headed to the teams to explain the first scenario, while Mike and Frank headed onto the playing field. This first setup was easy enough. Put the teams with their flags on opposite sides of the playing field, and whoever got the enemy flag first, won. This sometimes turned into Last Man Standing, when the guys were having too much fun shooting at each other and attempting a capture to think of any objective.
The first game was either cautious and probing as desk workers stretched their legs for the first time in a week, or rowdy and boisterous as people let go of a week’s worth of pent-up stress. This one might fall into the second category, thanks to the addition of a new guy. People would be keen to see him in action.
Frank moved to the edge of the field. Teams tended to split up, and if two guys teamed up for a flanking manoeuvre, he intended to be there and close enough to watch. The uneven ground offered some protection from stray paint, too.
Mike gave the signal with a hand-wound siren, and Frank could feel even his own blood pound. Stalk, kill, capture or be captured. Something beautiful and primal about it that wiped away all of life’s other concerns. Out here in the forest, none of that mattered.
As predicted, the blue team split up. Two stayed behind to protect the flag, and the others formed teams of two and flanked, one from the left, the other from the right, advancing swiftly. Frank couldn’t see the other team yet, didn’t hear a shot fired, either, but moved sideways, ahead of the team flanking along the far left.
A lone red shooter creeping along the edge of the field turned his head towards Frank. Stefan in his American camo with his tricked-out gun. Behind the mask’s tinted visor, Frank imagined the eyes of a hunter.
Frank moved backwards, staying out of the way as he watched the reds advance.
There! A flash of movement between the tree stumps, the hiss and pop of balls fired, and the splat as they hit a tree near Frank, cool spray landing on the exposed skin of his neck. He swiftly moved further back. Providing Stefan with some ref-shaped moving cover was not what he had planned, and taking balls for him was not on the agenda either. He hunkered down behind some fallen logs, the yellow boundary tape close enough to reach if he extended a hand. From there, he watched Stefan move carefully, silently, before he took cover behind a tree to squeeze off a few shots at the advancing blues.