“Neat.” Spencer’s face looked far younger when he was all eager like this, and if he too was plagued by what if whispers in his brain, he sure wasn’t showing it.
“You ever see a Seahawk refuel in the air? You’ll get to see that here. It’s pretty cool.” Bacon forced himself to focus on the mission at hand. At the airfield, he went through the preflight checklist with the LT, making sure that Spencer had his night-vision equipment and everything else he’d need. The helicopter crew seemed as jazzed as the team, everyone buzzing with the adrenaline of a mission about to start.
They had a long helicopter ride, one with a mid-air refueling, which, as always, was both nerve-racking and super cool. Right when he was starting to get impatient, the helicopter dipped low, hovering above the speck in the ocean that was their ride. He really wished they’d had more chopper practice with Spencer—he didn’t like the wobble in his gut as they transferred to the boat. Last thing they needed was for him to fall. Well that and for Bacon to start caring about Spencer more than he should. He shouldn’t be any more nervous over Spencer than he would over a green teammate. But luckily Spencer handled it as he did almost everything else, with the sort of competence like he’d been doing this for years, along with the rest of them.
Then they were on the boat, helicopter darting away, leaving them to the boat crew and the next phase of the mission. The boat crew didn’t waste any time, hauling ass across the choppy sea toward the coordinates where they’d launch the smaller boats. The decoy fishing boats were already on board and ready to go. Night fell over the dark, seemingly endless ocean, and the swimmers on Team Alpha were away without a hitch.
Bacon couldn’t quite calm the queasiness in his gut, though—it had nothing to do with the turbulent water and everything to do with knowing that things could go sideways at any moment. They transferred to the fishing boats far from view of any land, and as the island finally came into view, the feeling worsened. Other small fishing boats dotted the shore, reminding them that it wouldn’t be just them and the tangos on this island. Innocent lives had to be protected at all costs.
They motored around to the backside of the island, which was more desolate, but still the risk of discovery remained as they headed to shore. In groups of two with very precise timing and stealth, they headed into the inky darkness of another tropical night, muggy weather weighing them down every bit as much as their equipment.
Waiting for the go signal, he and Spencer were the last two away, and as they headed for the cover of the tree line, their headsets were filled with chatter of Team Alpha starting to reach their coordinates. Unlike at the practice island, here the hike was longer and hillier as they needed to get deeper into the jungle before climbing to a vantage point where they might be able to survey the island below them and see flashes of Team Alpha carrying out the mission objective.
“I think I see them,” Spencer whispered urgently as they reached the top of the bluff. Sure enough, they had a view of a distant encampment of some kind—dim lights in an otherwise still night. He listened to his comm set as Team Bravo was still getting set and in—
Boom. In the distance, an explosion rocked the quiet island.
“That was too soon,” Spencer said right as Bacon cursed low. He was right. Timing was off for it to be the plan being carried out. Then right as he was about to try to rouse Riddles on the radio, another boom sounded, this one much closer, just down the trail they’d come from. Fuck. That tingling sense that things were about to go wrong had been right.
“Bacon?” Riddles’s voice crackled in his ear, and Bacon switched his set to talk.
“Yeah? What’s happening?”
“We’ve got company. Your orders are to follow Plan Delta. Team Bravo is providing support for Team Alpha, which is engaged in a firefight. Be advised that you are ordered to Plan Delta, no matter the contingency. This channel will be going silent as—Fuck.” Riddles’s curse echoed in his ear before the channel did indeed go silent. Repeated attempts to rouse him didn’t work.
“Which one was Plan Delta?” Spencer asked in a low, almost inaudible whisper.
“One they didn’t tell you about.” The LT had briefed him on this contingency the other night while Spencer had been in his room. His tone was every bit as grim as he felt. “We’ve got a long hike in front of us—gotta make our way to the southwestern tip of the island and not go back the way we came. There will be a hidden motorboat waiting for us. We take that to the rendezvous coordinates and await extraction.”