Soft breezes and golden sunlight made no impression whatsoever on the dark-haired man moving through it all. His attention was reserved solely for the things or the subtle traces of things that could kill him, or his companions. Snipers, trip-wires, and mines, to name only a few. And of course movement of any kind, whether it was on the ground, the horizon, or in the trees. There wasn't much that escaped the Cajun's notice.
They were only a couple miles out when there was suddenly a slight difference in the cadence of the footsteps behind him. A quiet murmur followed, and he knew Hanley had dropped back to confer with Saunders, who was rear-guard. He wondered if they felt it, too. No, he was sure Saunders did, could tell even without the last minute ammo increase. Caje was tightly attuned to every possible shade of the man's mood, and knew he sensed it. Something so slight as to be imagined, but there.
Impending doom.
Hanley slowed his stride slightly. He motioned Kalgren and Philips past and matched pace with Saunders. The sergeant walked alongside him for a few seconds, then turned to walk backwards, carefully checking their back trail, stepping slightly to the right when Hanley tugged him to that side to avoid a rotting stump. He turned back around.
"Something's bothering you. What is it?" Hanley asked, without preamble.
They both scanned the terrain before them, and Saunders again glanced back. He shook his head. "I don't know… I can't put my finger on it." He looked briefly at the officer. "What can you tell me about S-2's mystery, Lieutenant?"
Hanley made a face. "Not much to tell. The Brits lost a patrol in that area. No bodies found, no equipment, nothing." He looked ahead to his scout, and at the woods alongside. "Then, three days later, a crew laying wire for the 329th. They found them, though." He spoke without turning, his deep baritone low and soft. "Every one of them."
He ducked his head under a branch that only brushed the top of Saunders' helmet, and looked over at where the sergeant was quietly processing what he'd been told. Saunders turned again to walk backward, Thompson held ready, and Hanley knew that even now the unconscious self-assurance in the sergeant's unique, rolling gait had nothing to do with having someone guiding him unnecessarily around tree stumps.
Saunders was a man easily underestimated. Much of the time he looked like an unmade bed—one that had been dropped from an airplane, spattered with blood, and dragged through a hedge backward. But beneath the mud, blood, and ragged uniform of a buck sergeant was a compact frame, strong and durable, and within that frame beat the heart and mind of a natural-born strategist. One with the reflexes of a veteran frontline soldier, in his prime and armed to the teeth.
Not for the first time, Hanley was struck with how frightening it would be to have to fight this man, if he were on the other side.
Saunders looked forward, then around. "So for whatever reason, they're interested in that area."
Hanley knew where he was going with this; he'd gone there, too. They were both quiet for a moment, watching their surroundings. "It would seem that way."
Saunders faced him briefly, his voice low but intense. "Lieutenant, what makes S-2 think we have any better chance than the others did? Based on what we know, 'small and quiet' isn't working! A five-man patrol? We need to go in in force, or call in a fire mission and sift through what's left."
Hanley slipped his finger out of the carbine's trigger guard to flex his hand and scratch at where the sweat had trickled down the side of his neck. With Saunders he didn't always have to verbally adhere to the 'support your superior's orders as if they were your own' tenet. They both knew he would.
"That's what I told them. But how big a force? And if they are watching that area, why? We need intel, Saunders, no matter what we do." He spared him a quick, searching glance. "You know that as well as I do."
The sergeant sighed and checked their six, frustrated with himself. "I know. I just—"
At that moment Caje stopped, and instantly both Hanley and Saunders froze in unison and held their collective breath, ready to drop. After a careful minute, the scout waved the all clear and continued on.
They moved on but didn't relax. "He's nervous." Hanley observed.
"He should be," Saunders muttered.
"Look, it's not as though everyone that wanders through there gets it. The Brits looked for their people, and our recovery team found the Comm guys and left. And we're forewarned." Even as Hanley spoke, he himself could hear how weak it sounded. "I wanted more men but we're short-handed, and this is what we've got. We've done this before. We go in, we look around, we leave. Piece of cake."
They would soon be entering the target area, and Hanley moved forward to step past Philips and walk alongside Kalgren.
Did he actually say that? Saunders thought. He scanned endlessly, watching more carefully now for the telltale reflection of light off glass, and checked behind them.
Did he really say that out loud?
Hanley moved up beside Kalgren and, still walking, gestured to bring Philips up, too. "From this point on no talking. Not even a whisper, unless it's important. Stay alert and no shooting unless we're fired on, or you're told to. Spread back out."
Kalgren nodded and ranged out; he was already stepping like a scared cat, careful and precise.
The lieutenant turned to where Philips was almost vibrating with terror and excitement, and changed his tack. This was a kid whose primary concerns, probably less than six months ago, were who he'd take to Homecoming and whether Dad would lend him the car on Saturday. If he was a source of frustration, it wasn't his fault.
"I know you're scared, Philips, we all are. But calm down, and pay attention," Hanley hissed. "Listen to me and to your sergeant, and it'll be okay. Got it? Calm down."
Philips broke his gaze away from Hanley long enough to look back at Saunders, then turned his wide eyes back to his lieutenant, and Hanley sucked in his breath. He'd seen that expression so many times now, and it just ate him alive.
That look would be the thing that ruined him.
As if he needed any more damage, it always reminded him of an incident from his youth, when he'd been just nine years old and riding in his father's Packard, in a rural area. They'd come upon a deer that had just been struck by a car. He never could remember his father or sister there; only shimmering heat and bugs and the dawning pity of a young child. And a farmer coming forward with a rifle.
Young Gil hadn't understood then how things were, and the old man knew that.
"We can't leave her to suffer, son. Only cowards do that. Look away, now."
He hadn't. He'd looked into the doe's eyes. They were rimmed white with terror, and had held something even his child self had recognized: resignation. As though she and the farmer were reading from the same manual. Gil had jumped; the sound of a round being chambered had seemed so loud to him, then.
It was always the same look.
Philips was still staring at him. "Go on, spread out."
Look away, now.
Hanley did a full sweep before he checked ahead to his scout, and before his mind even grasped the reason for it his instincts suddenly dumped adrenaline into his system. Caje had abruptly paused and now stood tensely, his head canted slightly to one side, and Hanley realized the bird and insect sounds that had been part of the fabric of existence just five seconds ago had stopped.
He saw Caje throw out a hand in the signal to drop at the exact same moment he heard the loud, frantic clatter of the Thompson and Saunders yelling from behind him.
"HIT IT!"
Hanley spread half a clip into the woods on his way to the ground, and suddenly the air was full of high-velocity lead from both sides of the trail. Vague shadows moved through the trees and he mindlessly spat out a mouthful of muddy grass and fired at them until the empty clip ejected. He clawed another from his belt and jammed it in.
And just like that, they were fighting for their lives.
