ChapterSeventeen
Paul jolted awake at the sound of stomping boots. There was a rumbling noise in the hall outside the ballroom. A moment later, the door burst open. He squinted in the darkness to see who was entering. He found it hard to focus and wanted to rub his eyes, bleary with sleep and pain, but his bound hands prevented it.
All he could do was wait to make sense of what he was seeing as the mercs pulled something into the room. A moment passed before it did.
Four-wheeled garden cart. But there weren’t garden tools in the green-sided metal wagon.
No.
Motherfucker.
No.
A SEAL.
The cart came closer, and even in the dark room, Paul could see the blood. The wound on the left shoulder, at the edge of the SEAL’s body armor.
The merc pulling the cart stopped in the middle of the floor. He lifted one side of the cart and dumped the body unceremoniously to the floor.
The SEAL groaned.
He’s alive.
Across the room, the other trainers stirred. All four were alive, and now, at last, awake and no longer willing to hide that fact.
Smith, a medically trained Special Operator—SO—let out a curse and turned to the mercenary commander who’d followed the man with the cart into the room. “I’m a medic. Let me treat him.”
The commander was silent. Would he ignore the request?
Finally, the masked man said, “You make a move to try to escape, and we’ll slit the throats of every one of your bound comrades.”
“I just want to stop the bleeding. Give him a chance.”
The commander gave a sharp nod. “You may bandage him.”
“I need my first aid kit,” Smith said, nodding to the packs that were piled by the ballroom’s cold fireplace.
The merc looked to his commander, who nodded.
No one was doing anything without express permission from the boss. Paul figured they were afraid of the guy, given the looks they gave his back.
With permission, the minion grabbed the large first aid kit and set it by the SEAL, then he released SO3 Smith from his handcuffs. “I need an assistant.”
“No. Just you,” the masked merc said.
Smith set to work, talking to his patient, who he identified as Collins. If Paul remembered correctly, the guy was a PO3—Petty Officer Third Class—and relatively new to the teams.
Smith tried to ask the barely conscious man questions—whispering as he removed the petty officer’s body armor and combat uniform to reveal a gaping wound just above and to the left of his heart.
The sound of a fist slamming on a table drew everyone’s attention to the merc commander. “You work in silence, or you do not get to bandage him at all.”
There went any hope of getting information from the SEAL about what was happening in the forest. Not that the man was capable of answering questions, but it had been worth a try on Smith’s part.
Smith prepared a shot under the watchful gaze of the minion holding a gun on him. “It’s so he can sleep.” He administered the shot, and the minion took the needle and vial.
Collins’s moans stopped as he slipped into a painless sleep, and Smith cleaned the wound, probing for bullet fragments.
Paul wondered if Smith had managed to pocket a syringe and drugs when the merc’s attention had been on his volatile boss.