Falcon: The Quiet Professionals Book 3 (14 page)

“What about Falcon?” Hawk asked.

“Eagle, you have eyes on this?” Tony turned just as the ceiling tumbled inward.

“Holy crap!” Hawk stumbled backward as the dust seemed to reach for them. “What about Falcon?” He turned back to the carnage and his hands went to his helmet.

“Ddrake might be able to find him.”

“But he’s buried several feet belowground.” The veins at Hawk’s temples bulged. “How do we get him out?”

“Easy,” Tony said. “We’ll find him.”

“If he’s alive,” someone from the SEAL team muttered.

Hawk dove for the man.

Tony intercepted him, hauling him into a reverse bear hug. “Easy, Hawk. Easy. We’ll find him.” He looked to the mouthy SEAL. “Alive.”

“How?” Hawk demanded.

Emptiness. Darkness. Heaviness.

Sal hauled in a greedy breath—and got a mouth full of dust and dirt. He coughed, only then realizing he couldn’t move. Each breath hurt, heavy in the darkness. He blinked to clear his vision but there wasn’t anything there. Nothing to see. Only darkness.

Hands wrapped around his head, he tried to drag his finger toward the coms. But his forearm was pinned, a weight forbidding movement. He grunted—and that made him cough again. His ribs hurt. His lungs hurt.

“Falc—” His own name caught in his throat and threw him into another fit of coughing. His eyes watered, burning in the dusty, airless space.

Airless.

How much air did he have?

How long before this tunnel in the middle of the desert became his coffin?

Panic beat against his chest.

Calm down. Calm down
. Elevated breathing meant he sucked in more air. Which meant he could run out if this place was completely blocked.

“Falcon to Raptor,” he said around a raw throat.

Silence was the only reply.

Sal sagged under the oppressive realization that he could very well die down here. If Raptor couldn’t find him… if they couldn’t dig their way through…

And would that be a bad thing?

He’d die in the line of duty.

Nobody would be the wiser to who he really was.

Defeat thickened the air, making it harder to draw a breath that wasn’t painful. Really, suffocating to death… it wasn’t all bad. He’d simply go to sleep and never wake up.

His parents would never know about Vida. Neither would her parents know his guilt in her death.

I’m not guilty. Cassie is
.

Her face hovered behind his eyelids like a tormenting ghost.

Why? Why had things been so screwed up with them? Things had been good for a while, but then things changed. Time brought Vida to the base. Reminding Sal of his responsibility. His promise.

He’d been beaten by his own doing. Just like now.

I’ll die here
.

Pulling in several ragged breaths, he lay there. Unable to move a limb. Barely able to breathe what little oxygen remained.

It was wrong.

He
was wrong.

It’s not Cassie’s fault
.

He burned the thought as soon as it ignited in his brain.
“You’re the best man I’ve ever known.”

Cassie had said those words to him more than once. And like an idiot, he believed them. Wanted to believe them. Wanted to be what she saw in him.

Then he broke her heart.

To keep a promise.

A promise he hadn’t wanted to keep. Grief pushed against Sal’s resolve. What kind of coward leads a girl on with a promise of marriage then falls for another woman, and yet still keeps that promise, breaking the heart of the woman he’d fallen in love with?

You are some kind of screwed up
.

Right now, he just had to get out of here. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think about these things anymore. Didn’t want to die with those thoughts on his brain.

With those regrets burned into his heart.

Sal wriggled his other arm. Hope jolted through him when it gave a couple of inches. He reached, straining… his fingers digging around the rocks. Scraping his knuckles. Never thought moving his hand would take such a Herculean effort. If he didn’t get help, he was dead.

Surprise ripped through him. How many times had he silently wished he could just die? And yet—here’s a perfect opportunity. But Sal refused Death’s offer. With his fingers, toward the ear mic. Pressed it. “Falcon to Raptor.”

Nothing.

Darkness swam in his vision and leapt at him, dragging him into the deepest, darkest abyss. Just as he deserved.

Rubbing his beard, Tony glanced at the rubble. The tunnels had snaked out from the center of that main structure.

“Hey.” Riordan pointed toward the rusted-out truck. A depression there gaped back.

Tony clapped the SEAL’s arm. “Thanks.” He walked toward the gate. “Eagle, you have eyes on this?”

“Copy that,” Eagle replied, his tone grave.

“I want you to trace a path approximately fifteen meters from the structure.”

“Roger that.”

“You’re looking for a depression. Some of the tunnels caved in. If we can find one that—”

“Got it,” Eagle said. “Sixteen meters due north of the structure. Left five feet.”

Tony pivoted. Hawk, Knight, and Riordan were already running toward him. They rushed around the wall. Halfway across the open rocky terrain, he spied the depression.

“Dig!”

“With what?” someone balked.

“Those things on the end of your arms,” Hawk bit back, the first to go to his knees and start clawing at the dirt.

“Move!” Riordan shouted.

Tony bent down, but someone caught his arm. He glanced to the side and found an elderly man with scraggly gray-white hair holding a shovel. Relief speared Tony. “Thank you.”

Another boy trotted up and passed off a shovel to Hawk.

Each
shink
of the shovel against the hard-packed earth gave Tony hope of finding Falcon alive. The sooner the better. He was short on time and air. He threw the steel into the dirt.

The ground gave way.

Tony stilled, staring into the dark hole that opened up.

Ddrake jumped in, barking. His paws rapidly dug through the dirt, exposing something.

“Boot!” Hawk pointed to the heel of an ACU combat boot. He grabbed at the rocks, rapid-fire digging.

Tony did the same, feeling the bump of shoulders as soldiers and sailors dug hard. “Falcon! C’you hear us?” He grasped the calf. Felt a twitch. He paused and glanced up the mound, imagining his buddy under there. “Falcon, can you hear me?”

Tony’s heart slowed when there was no response. He resisted the urge to look at the others. “If you can hear me, move your leg.” Hand clamped around the calf, he waited. Waited.

Nothing. The others shifted uneasily, unsettling rock and dirt around their feet.

“A recovery,” someone muttered.

“Shut it!” Tony refused to believe this had gone from a rescue to a recovery effort. He squeezed the leg and silently willed Raptor’s team daddy to respond.

Then… a flex.

“He’s alive!
Dig!
”

Shoulders rubbing with others’, Tony hauled the dirt in as big scoops as he could manage. Sailors and soldiers worked. When two of Falcon’s legs were exposed, he grabbed one. “Pull!”

Hawk had the other. They tugged. Falcon’s body shifted.

“Again!”

More hands clamped on to Falcon. They tugged him back. Drag straps on his pants now exposed, Falcon wiggled.

“Haul him out,” Hawk roared. “On three. One… two… pull!”

The tunnel rumbled its objection, surrendering Falcon to their efforts.

They dragged him free but he lay unmoving.

Tony checked him. “He’s not breathing!”

CHAPTER 11

G
et him up!” Hawk shouted.

Two SEALs climbed out of the collapsed tunnel and assisted the effort to get Falcon on terra firma. The team passed Falcon over the lip of the depression onto the ground. Beard and face coated in dark red dirt, Falcon lay death-like. Mouth open. Eyes closed.

Tony watched as Harrier ripped off Falcon’s tactical vest and started compressions. Hawk was there with the oxygen mask, squeezing air into the team daddy’s lungs.

“C’mon, c’mon, Falcon,” Hawk shouted. “You’re too mean and ugly to quit like this!”

Pump. Pump Pump. The compressions continued, Harrier never breaking rhythm.

Falcon coughed, his spine arching. His legs drew up as another spastic cough overtook him. He dragged himself onto his side, heaving to take in greedy breaths. On all fours, he barked out the dust. His limbs shook with the effort of pushing himself up.

“What’d I tell you? Help him up,” Hawk ordered.

Breathing hard, he shook his head, leaned back against the ground.

Tony knelt beside him. “Where do you hurt?”

Falcon tugged at the chin straps of his helmet and pushed it off. That’s when Tony saw the hole—a bullet hole, right over where the man’s forehead would be. A centimeter lower… “Dude.” He lifted it from Falcon’s grip. Turned it around and showed him. “You about met your maker.”

Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan
28 March—1930 Hours

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me
.

Cassie should’ve known this was too good to be true. She’d been asking for the last fifteen months to work this region, to be near Sal in the hopes of finding reconciliation. When the assignment came through, placing her here, she’d leapt without looking. And apparently, without thinking.

She knew better than this. Knew better than to believe they would do anything in her favor. How many times had they told her it wasn’t about her? That she was working for her country’s benefit and safety.

But this… this was going too far.

Phone in hand, she coded in.

“Cassie!”

She looked up and froze. Brie Hastings was running toward her.
I’ve been discovered
. “I thought you were outside the wire?”

“Had to come back for some things. D’you hear?” Brie’s face was flushed as she kept moving toward the front door.

The fervor in the woman’s face pulled Cassie to her feet, the phone almost forgotten. “What?”

“Raptor—they were hunting down a spook. Falcon got buried alive.”

Her pulse whooshed in her ears, her heart thudding against her ribs. “H–he’s dead?”