there’s too much at stake. The longer this goes on, the more anxious she’ll get, the more likely she’ll make a bad call. You said she reports to someone higher-up?”
“She runs al-Thawra, but al-Thawra reports to Denniston and the senator.”
“Then that’s where the bad call will come from. Bad decisions always come from bosses who aren’t on the ground, aren’t reading the conditions.” He punctuated his words with the bottle. “They want a black-and-white outcome, no matter the cost and screw the circumstances.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Personal experience?”
He scoffed like she’d asked an intimate question. “Human nature. They’ll be telling Hamid to find you before this gets out of control. Minefields aren’t put in dead ends. They’re designed to stop the enemy getting somewhere—they’re laid in shortcuts, thoroughfares.” He shook the last drops of water onto his tongue. “Which means this patch of scrub leads somewhere useful and they know it. It’s not just some oasis.”
“No kidding it’s not. Maybe it leads up into those hills?”
“Hills?”
“There.” She pointed. “Silhouetted against the stars.”
He squinted. “Yep, that’s where they’ll expect us to go.”
He flipped onto his belly and scooted to the far end of the rock. “Man, I could kill for NVGs.” He shouldered his rifle, let off a burst and ducked back under cover.
“What are you doing that for?” He couldn’t take on a couple of dozen soldiers.
The return gunfire surged. “Confirming we’re still alive.”
“If they think we’re dead they might stop shooting.”
“Hamid won’t believe we’re dead until she spits on our bodies. I want to make her nervous, impatient. Staying put and strafing this scrub to keep us pinned—or, better, kill us—is her best strategy. I don’t want her choosing the best strategy.”
He slid into his firing position and let off another round. She shoved her fingers in her ears, though they were already ringing like church bells. As he rolled back, she could smell his adrenaline—sharp and tangy and spiced with scorched metal.
“Aren’t you worried about giving away our position?”
“Not the way these shots are echoing. And there’s enough scrub to mask the muzzle flash. I’ll give it a rest now, anyway. Hear that?” His teeth gleamed. She could no longer figure out where one surge of fire ended and the next began. “The sweet sound of panic. We’re relatively safe here, and sooner or later they’ll figure that out. Meantime, I have a plan.”
“Which is...?”
He looked above their heads. Checking the stars? “I’ll tell you, if it works.”
“Flynn...”
“Hey, the last one worked, didn’t it? Kind of?” He flattened against the rock and pointed along the ridge in the direction of the village, as near as she could tell. “You see any more rocks we could shelter behind?”
“Yeah, maybe a hundred feet away. Man, they are not letting up.”
He dragged the backpack toward him, unzipped it and pulled out the open MRE.
“You’re eating?” she said. “Now?”
“Gotta keep up the energy. Here.” He slapped a bar of something onto her lap.
“You have it. My stomach is flipping around so much the food might bounce right out.”
“Eat the bloody thing. You don’t look like you’re carrying a lot of reserves and I’m not having you flaking out on me.”
In the darkness, her glare was wasted. She fought through a sickly sweet granola bar, a nibble at a time. Oh, for a fresh, crisp apple. At the thought, saliva poured into her mouth. Flynn laid into something that smelled like curry. At a time like this. As they ate, the gunfire became sporadic then eased off, leaving them cloaked in silence. She stashed the bar’s wrapper in her pocket, wincing at the crackle.
Flynn scooted to his vantage point and beckoned her over. They lay on their bellies, shoulders touching.
“What’s that superhero vision telling you?” His murmured words vibrated right through her.
She blinked, hard. “Nothing,” she whispered. “Wait, something’s moving. A person. More than one—maybe half a dozen, entering the gully.” Crap.
“Spread out or in single file?”
“Spread out.”
“Good.”
“Was that your plan?”
“They’re doing what the bastards who buried these mines hoped. The mines are laid out under the theory that soldiers spread out. You go in alone, or single file, odds are you’ll get out alive. A whole unit spreads out, chances are one will set off a mine that catches his buddies with shrapnel, so it lowers everyone’s odds. It’s a numbers game, like the chance you’ll be the one picked by the shark at the beach.” He fell silent. “Maybe a little more likely than that.”
“You’d think they’d know that, living here.”
“They’ll be following orders—bad ones, and they’ll know that and resent it. You can’t do a grid search in single file. I bet they’re praying to Allah.” He caught her eye. “Or God, or Buddha, or their mothers.”
“They’ve stopped shooting, at least.”
“Merde. They might be flanking us.”
Her neck prickled. She rolled onto her back, peering into the trees on the plateau while he watched the other direction.
“You cover our backs,” he said, creeping behind her. “Don’t fire unless you have to, but don’t hesitate, either. I’m going to create some chaos. On my say-so, we pull back to that other rock.”
She flipped the catch to full-auto as he’d shown her. God, she hoped he was wrong about them being flanked. She adjusted her grip and forced her breath to settle. It was just like on the range, shooting at targets. Except targets didn’t shoot back. She widened her eyes as if they were satellite dishes. The bigger the disc, the more it picked up, right? Movement wasn’t always immediately obvious—like before, seeing the soldiers among the trees, sometimes you had to sift through layers of darkness to catch it.
Gunfire burst out next to her. She jumped, her pulse rocketing. Flynn again. A shifting noise as he changed position. He fired again. A boom split the air, rocking the ground. Oh man. That was no gunshot.
A throaty scream echoed up the gully. Light flashed, right up to the plateau, illuminating the unmistakable figures of two men, dressed in camouflage, walking straight toward her, rifles panning left and right.
Her throat dried. She flattened, holding in her stomach—as if that
