Raptor by John G. Hartness

Author:John G. Hartness [Hartness, John G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Falstaff Books
Published: 2019-05-20T22:00:00+00:00

17

It was several hour later as Raptor paced the briefing room, readying herself for her second ass-chewing in as many days. She snapped to attention when Duke strode in and slammed the door. “What the literal fuck is going on here, Raptor?” her boss asked.

“I have no idea who shot that man, sir. We were working to defuse the situation when—”

“I know about that. I’m talking about you drawing down on a bunch of unarmed civilians inside the mall. What the hell was that about?”

Sheila took a deep breath. “It was fucked, sir. We took down the targets, but there were two civilian casualties. The people in the mall were working themselves into a frenzy, and I thought that I could…” She shook her head. “I fucked up, sir. I didn’t want anyone else to die in that place, and I thought I could snap them out of it. I was wrong.”

“No shit,” Duke growled. He walked to the head of the dark oak conference table and sat down. He waved a hand at one of the other chairs, and Raptor sat. “Sheila, you’re a good soldier. A damn good soldier, and most of the time, you’re a good leader. But sometimes…sometimes I wonder if you’re not a little head-fucked from what happened in Korea. You’ve got a temper on you, and according to your file, that’s always been an issue.”

“Yes, sir,” Sheila said, thinking back to a DI at Parris Island who ended up with a broken nose after a disagreement about training methods.

“You cannot lose your shit in the field. You have to keep cool, do you understand? Not only are you and every member of your team too valuable as far as training, but you’re worth hundreds of millions of dollars in tech. We literally can’t afford to lose you because of a stupid error. And that’s what this was—a stupid error.”

Sheila studied the grain of the table. “Yes, sir.”

“But we suffered no losses, and you stopped what could have been a major terrorist attack with minimal civilian casualties. So, good job there.”

Raptor didn’t respond, thinking back to the blood flowers all over the shirts of the two teenagers who died in the attack. Minimal wasn’t none, and those dead faces were on her just as much as the deaths of the terrorists. “Are we calling them that, sir? Are they terrorists?”

“That’s what I’m calling them, and I don’t give a good goddamn what the jackasses on TV call them,” Duke said. “They attacked a place with nothing but innocent civilians, for no other reason than it was a relatively easy target. That sounds like a terrorist to me.”

“Yes, sir. Do we have anything on the sniper?”

“Not yet, but Whisper is tracking the frequency that your friend with the mustache was broadcasting on. Maybe that will turn up something.”

“Do we really think so? I mean, if he was in league with the sniper, why would they kill him?”

“I don’t try to figure out their motivations or their mommy issues, Raptor.

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