Caught In The Crosshairs. Elisabeth Rees

and Gomez were deep in conversation.

      “All I’m saying is we have to be careful,” said Gomez. “None of us in Tenth Group ever met this woman before, and as soon as she gets assigned to our mission, we get set up. It’s quite a coincidence, don’t you think?”

      “I don’t think Sergeant Hanson is a rat,” said Dean. She heard his chair scrape on the floor and the sound of his heavy footsteps on the wooden boards. She flattened her back against the wall, hiding in the shadows. She heard the faucet running and the click of a kettle. She breathed out.

      “Hanson says she had a chance to take out the sniper who took a shot at you,” said Gomez. “Why’d she let him go, huh?”

      “That wasn’t part of the mission objective, Gomez. She followed protocol. You can’t blame her for obeying the rules.”

      “It just doesn’t add up, sir.”

      “Sergeant Hanson is a good, loyal soldier. I don’t think we have any reason to mistrust her, but she certainly will compromise our situation. She’s not one of us. She’s infantry, not Special Forces, and we’ll have to keep her safe until we know what threat is out there. It’s a problem we could do without right now.”

      Cara’s head fell to her chest. A problem?

      “Can’t we just take her to the nearest base and leave her there?” asked Gomez.

      “I need to know exactly what we’re dealing with before any of us goes back to base. Moore has already terminated Sergeant Hicks. He may have his sights set on taking us all out, especially as he’s got help on the inside.”

      “So what do we do now?”

      She heard Dean sigh heavily. “We find out who we can trust before we go back in. We can’t risk being set up again. I’ll make contact with Fort Carson tomorrow. For now, we keep Hanson safe and make sure she’s well enough to travel. I’ll go check on her.”

      Cara froze in the hallway, eyes darting back and forth. She sprang forward and raced for her bedroom door, just managing to get her hand on the frame when the kitchen door opened, flooding the hallway with light.

      “Hanson,” called Dean. “You’re awake.”

      “Yes, sir.” She could not bring herself to call him by his first name. “I was just coming to find you.”

      He held the door open wide. “Come sit with us. You need to eat.”

      He ushered her toward the kitchen table, laden with used coffee cups and scribbled notes on pieces of paper. She sat, and a bowl of hot, chunky soup was placed in front of her. She ate eagerly, not bothering to look up or make conversation. She realized that she was famished.

      When she had finished, Dean placed a mug of steaming coffee on the table and she warmed her hands on it, surprised at the way they trembled slightly.

      Dean laid his hands on the table, palms down. He looked at her, unblinking, and she met his eyes, saying nothing, allowing the silence to sit uneasily between them. He seemed to be trying to read her emotions, but she did her best to give nothing away. The way he studied her face unnerved her, and she felt her guard slipping. He seemed rock solid and unshakeable, and in her debilitated state, she was irresistibly drawn to his strength. But it was a dangerous path to tread—she normally worked alone, depending on no one but herself. She couldn’t allow that to change, no matter how much her attraction to him grew.

      “Gomez and I have been piecing together all the information from last night’s mission,” he said, looking at her shaking hands. “Looks like someone on the inside tipped off Major Moore and he was able to plan an attack, hoping to take out our entire unit.”

      Her eyes flickered over to Gomez before asking, “Who?”

      Dean shrugged his shoulders. “Operation Triton is top secret. Very few people know about it.”

      Gomez eyed Cara suspiciously. “What can you tell us about the sniper in the hills?” he said.

      “Not much,” said Cara. “He was a long way away.”

      Dean rested his arms on the table and leaned in her direction. “What was he wearing?”

      “Looked like regular clothes—jeans, sweater.” She cast her mind back. “And a red bandanna around his head. But no ghillie suit, no camouflage, no real attempt to hide properly.”

      “Not a trained sniper, then?” Dean offered.

      Cara shook her head. “No trained sniper would be so sloppy.”

      Dean put his arms behind his head, his muscles flexing. “But his shot was good. He hit the ground right next to me. Another couple of feet and I’d be dead. It was certainly someone who can handle a rifle.” He lowered his voice before adding, “Someone like Chris Moore.”

      He rose from the table and stood by the window. “Major Moore would like to see us all dead, I’m afraid. He’s fighting a war against America and all military personnel are targets.”

      “With all due respect, sir,” said Gomez. “We haven’t been told anything about the terrorist organization that Moore is working for. Isn’t that a bit odd?”

      “It’s highly classified,” Dean said, turning to face them. “The military wants to keep it all under wraps.”

      Cara watched his face intently as it darkened. “We’re in deep now,” she said. “We need to know what we’re dealing with.”

      Gomez shot her a sideways glance. “She’s right,” he said. “Whatever happens from here, we should know what we’re fighting for.”

      Dean leaned back on the counter and looked between them for a few moments before speaking. “Do you remember the explosion that happened last year at Fort Bragg?”

      Yeah,” Cara said, “it was a faulty munitions batch. I read the memo about it.”

      Dean shook his head. “It wasn’t faulty munitions that caused the explosion. It was a bomb, planted by someone who knew the base well. It totally blindsided us. A group called the United Free Army claimed responsibility shortly afterward. That’s when we decided to put Moore undercover, infiltrate the UFA and shut it down from the inside.”

      “And they managed to turn him?” said Gomez, shaking his head. “If they can turn a man like Moore they gotta be strong. He’s not a man who’d break easily.”

      “That’s what I thought,” said Dean, lowering his voice. “But they got to him somehow. Maybe he saw something in their ideology. Maybe he’d had enough of fighting in wars thousands of miles from home, wars that never seem to end....” His voice trailed off.

      Cara looked up into his face, sensing the rawness of his pain. Just what had stolen his friend from him and left this wide, empty void? She voiced her thoughts.

      “What exactly is their ideology, sir?”

      Dean cleared his throat. “Their aim is to get the military to pull out of all overseas wars. They think the government is neglecting its own people to look after foreigners abroad. Until we withdraw troops from all overseas conflicts, the UFA says that every military installation and every serving soldier is a legitimate target. The bomb at Fort Bragg is just the first.”

      “How on earth did they infiltrate Fort Bragg?” Cara said. She’d only been there once, but it was the most heavily fortified base she’d seen in her life.

      “Good question, Hanson,” Dean said, raising his eyebrows. “They had a man on the inside but we don’t know who. Truth is, we have no idea how many personnel they’ve turned. They actively target disgruntled and angry soldiers, usually ones fresh back from tours of Afghanistan, where they’d seen American soldiers caught up in roadside or suicide bombs.” He closed his eyes. “Or worse.”

      Cara also closed her eyes, images flashing of things she had seen fitting this description. It was a subject