The Military Wife (A Heart of a Hero, #1)(89)

“As always—”



Noah cleared his throat. Bennett opened his eyes, no longer in North Carolina but North Africa. A pang of something resembling homesickness washed through Bennett, leaving him feeling hollowed out. It was a strange sensation considering he’d never really had a home until Sarge adopted him. And even then, he’d left Mississippi with no urge to look back. Not enough good memories to outweigh the years of bad.

Noah skimmed the rest of the letter with a tender smile on his face. As much as Bennett wanted to know what else Harper had written, it wasn’t for his eyes.

A rustle of men shifting and gathering gear rolled through the room. It was time. Harper’s funny, mundane vignette from home would be followed by violence.

A few jokes could be heard bandied between men, usually the younger ones with something to prove or nothing back home to lose. Mostly it was silent except for the noise of the choppers. The minutes before a mission were fraught with a nervous excitement.

This was what they’d trained for. The hours and days and weeks spent learning to sight an enemy through a gun scope. The grueling physical challenges they’d faced during BUD/S. But no amount of training could prepare them for unknown variables that entered the field. The unpredictable nature of man could send things straight to hell.

The village they targeted looked like a hundred other places scattered throughout North Africa. Bennett closed his eyes and strolled through the memorized map in his mind, noting places where a sniper could hide or an ambush might originate from. Even with their night-vision capability, night raids could turn chaotic in a heartbeat.

Bricks and stone of varying shades of the surrounding sand blended the houses into the hills that formed a backdrop. They came in at low altitude over the flat stretch of desert leading up to the village. A narrow road cut a dark gash through the land.

Darren signaled their approach. Bennett took several deep breaths. He was in charge of clearing the leader’s house, hopefully with him in it. His heart played ping-pong, but from experience he knew as soon as he was on the ground instinct would trump any nerves.

They unloaded and formed two lines, moving fast and keeping down. The helicopters took off to await extraction. A woman screamed. Muffled words snaked through the night. The first gunshots came from on top of one of the houses—erratic and not well aimed.

Bennett ignored the fire and concentrated on locating the leader’s stronghold. His insides crackled. It wasn’t nerves. The Navy had trained the nerves out of him and taught him to harness the adrenaline pumping through his body. His senses heightened and reacted to every stimulus—sight, sound, smell. The smallest clue could be the difference between success and failure, life and death.

The pops of gunfire overlay the yells of men. Hide. Death. Gun.

On the ground at night, with chaos around him, everything looked slightly different from the map. More ominous and not as easily discernible. He stopped at the corner. The shuffle and vibration of five other men hitting the wall behind him barely registered.

If the intelligence was correct, the leader’s house was around the corner, and Bennett expected it to be protected. Or did the leader think a village full of human shields enough protection? Bennett kicked rocks out into the middle of the street. Bullets thudded into the ground, kicking up dirt and rocks. The angle of impact suggested one or two men were on top of the buildings.

Bennett motioned behind him, and like a choreographed dance, they moved in synchronicity, each with a role. Bennett stayed focused on the door while the others laid down heavy fire into the rooftops.

Motion at the far end of the street drew his attention. His night-vision glasses tinted everything in an eerie green. Bennett raised his gun and sighted a figure. It was a kid in jeans. Or what Bennett would have considered a kid. Eighteen or nineteen.

The kid had a gun and it was trained on him. Bennett fired. The kid hit the ground and didn’t move. It had taken only seconds, but those seconds would haunt Bennett like so many others.

Bennett shot the door latch and shouldered it open, dropping to a squat to surveil the area. Noah was doing the same over his head. A man rushed them from an open doorway at the end of a short hall. Noah took him down.

“Clear the hall and the downstairs,” Bennett barked to the men behind him.

A set of stairs led to a second floor. Bennett climbed them, took them two at a time with his gun trained at the top. Noah was on his heels. A spate of gunfire sounded from the back of the house, but Bennett stayed focused. He trusted the rest of the men to do their jobs.

Darkness enveloped the top of the stairs. He paused, his breathing loud in his ears. The whine of a child punched through the silence. The noise was quickly muffled, but it came from his left. Bennett gestured to the door with his gun barrel. Noah nodded and joined him on the other side of the door.

Bennett shoved his shoulder against the thin wood and a cracking sound accompanied the swing open. Two women scooched back against the wall, hands covering their faces. Mattresses on the floor lined the wall. At least two children huddled against the women. No sign of weapons.

To be sure, he strode forward and used his foot to search around the women and in the covers. The women scurried out of his way like animals trying to escape the clutches of a predator. A sick feeling turned his stomach. He ignored it.

“Stay down. Stay down.” Bennett barked the orders to the women unsure if they understood. He made one last scan over the room, identifying nothing threatening.