The Women's War by James Patterson

Author:James Patterson [Patterson, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Thrillers, Military, Crime, Suspense, General
ISBN: 9780316503358
Google: qm_SjwEACAAJ
Amazon: 0316503355
Publisher: Little, Brown
Published: 2017-02-06T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

The meth lab at location two was a roaring inferno. We had served breakfast and lunch. We had finished the easy part.

Word would have already gotten to the ranch hands at location three, dinner, by the time we were en route, a thirty-five-minute journey. Enemy trucks were already on the way to intercept us along with that small plane creeping up on our rear.

Corporal Kagawa was bleeding like crazy, which meant his body defied my official orders to coagulate, but he found enough strength to clamp down on his wound on his own. Rita didn’t want to let him be the one to do it, but I told her she had to.

Why?

Because the kid needed to feel like he had something to do. Even if he was doing a worse job than she would. His body needed the feeling of responsibility so that his immune system could fight harder inside him. The potential stress of him knowing he was depriving Rita of her combat assignment would’ve probably eaten him alive.

“Two klicks and closing,” said our pilot. “Firing on your mark.”

“Copy that, Condor Two. On your flank. Evasive will be down and left.”

“Down and left, affirmative. Will mirror.”

The two pilots were agreeing on what path of rapid evasive maneuver they would each take in the event they were both surprised and had to scurry. Two helicopters accidentally touching in any way is about as desirable as getting dental work done in the middle of a rodeo. A helicopter is the most delicate contraption ever invented, and it operates amid a hurricane of force—let’s just say it’s super damn jealous of other helicopters.

“Firing away.” Once again the pilots unleashed the Hellfire missiles, and the world in front of me exploded. We had crushed the entire crop into a massive cloud of heat and fury. We had won.

That was my thought for about a fraction of a second. Then came a rather strange problem.

“Horses,” said Kyra.

“What?” I said.

“Horses, ten o’clock,” Rita was pointing to the center of what was a large, quickly shrinking doughnut of fire.

I looked down and saw it. We were set to bank hard back toward the hillside and get the hell home, we were officially done—but there were three horses in the middle of the burning field.

Protocol says you can’t risk soldiers to save animals. But my crew was rabidly fond of horses.

“Can’t leave ’em, Coll,” said Kagawa.

“No way,” agreed a couple of other troops, including Rita.

There was a path through the circle of confusion that would allow the mare and her foals to head directly out of the fire. But the three animals were absolutely terrified and unable to recognize salvation. To be honest, if I were down there at ground level, I doubt I’d see it either. Those poor things would have to gallop across a football-field’s worth of flaming cocaine before they could be safe.

Why in God’s name someone tied three horses in the middle of a coke field I’ll never know, but the reason really didn’t matter.

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