The one thing Shane had not counted on was the heat. At 4 p.m. - or 16:00 as Deakins kept reminding him - when they had left the Blackhawks, it had been 104 degrees. After five miles of jogging through the desert with 25 pounds of body armor, Shane had been about ready to pass out.
"Here," Deakins passed Shane a bottle of water as they huddled under a sand-colored canopy about a half-mile from the compound. They had been camped underneath for a few hours and still had another two hours or so before they would begin moving toward the compound.
Shane drained the bottle and pulled out another so he could rehydrate before the assault. "Thanks. I think I probably lost about 20 pounds just getting here. Maybe we could market that as a new exercise regime, I don't know, 'the desert workout.'"
Deakins chuckled and said something, but other than that bloody nickname, it was rather unintelligible to Shane's ears. It took him a minute before he translated it as "Y'all's a strange dude, Spooky."
"Yeah, I've been told that once or twice," Shane replied.
"So what's so dang important 'bout this fella?" Deakins asked. "Captain said y'all knows him."
"You could say that," Shane said. "He's my . . . well, he was my brother-in-law."
"An in-law? Ain't y'all s'posed ta hate them?"
Shane tried not to laugh. "We've had our moments, trust me." He grew somber. "But Steve's a good man. Saved my life more than once. If he's in there, we've got to get him out. Get him back to his family."
"He's got kids?"
Shane nodded, and pictured Stephanie with one of those smiles that melted his heart. "A beautiful little girl. She's just one. She deserves to have her father."
"Whaddya 'bout y'all?" Deakins asked.
He had to take a moment to figure out what that meant. "Me? You mean do I have kids?" When Deakins nodded, Shane answered. "Two. A little boy, Andrew. He just turned five. And my daughter Eve's 19."
"No way. Y'all ain't old enough ta have a kid that old."
Shane laughed. That's what he thought, but the paternity tests and birth certificates didn't lie. Eve was his daughter, and she was definitely 19. Then Shane remembered something. He had to unlatch his body armor to reach his shirt pocket, but he managed to pull out a small photo and passed it to Deakins. "There," Shane said. "That's Eve and Andrew, and the baby Eve's holding, that's Stephanie, Steve's - our target's - little girl. That's from last Christmas."
"Wow," Deakins said as he looked at the photo. "Tha' daughter o' y'all's smokin'. Know plenty o' grunts who'd-" He stopped when he saw the look on Shane's face, and sheepishly returned the photo. "Um, sorry."
Shane decided to turn the tables. "How about you? Any kids?"
Deakins grinned, reached into his vest pocket, and fished out a tattered photo. It was a snapshot of Deakins, his wife, and two towheaded kids, a girl and boy. "Ginny's six and Darrell's three," he said.
Shane passed the picture back. "They're handsome kids. Looks like they got that from their mother's side of the family."
"Insteada this ugly mug?" Deakins laughed at the joke. He took another look at the photo and then put it away, before he grew serious. "Better do one last check of y'all's weapons. Sand'll git in 'em."
They both fell silent and spent the next hour or so checking their equipment. Deakins had been right about the sand. Enough had clustered around the bolt carrier of Shane's CAR-15 that the rifle would have jammed if he had not cleared it. With the rifle now clean, Shane double-checked his M9 pistol. It seemed fine. Then he and Deakins ran through an audio check with the other teams and verified that their night-vision equipment was fully operational.
"This is a hell of a lot of work for what should be a 10-minute raid," Shane muttered, eliciting a laugh from Deakins, who said something about hoping nobody scuttled the mission now.
Shane realized his heart was pounding. A voice in the back of his head asked what the hell he was doing there. What had possessed him to play soldier with a bunch of Green Berets?
Not that there was anything he could do about it now. It was far too late to change his mind. That was confirmed when he heard Nowicki's voice come through his earpiece, giving the order to move out.
As Deakins pulled off the canopy, Shane looked into the nighttime sky and pictured his family back in Salem. They were in the library of the Salem house. Eve was playing with Andrew, while Kim watched as she sipped tea from one of the porcelain cups. More than anything, that was where Shane longed to be.
"Y'all's ready?" Deakins voice intruded into Shane's thoughts and the mental image disappeared.
He nodded at Deakins. Then he began the brisk jog toward the compound with the soldiers, muttering, "As ready as I'll ever be."