PART 3
Now I stood alone with forty-eight ounces of water, two field rations, and three bullets.
Most people would have calculated how long until they died.
I calculated how long until Webb sent somebody to make sure.
Forty minutes.
That was all it took.
A dust cloud rose from the west.
Three vehicles.
No visible markings.
Tight formation.
Direct line toward my position.
Of course.
Webb hadn’t just abandoned me.
He had handed me to a cleanup crew.
I climbed down from the ridge and checked the last piece of equipment he didn’t know I had.
It was hidden inside a scope assembly that officially did one thing and unofficially did something else entirely.
Nine years earlier, Colonel Diane Ostroski recruited me into a classified electronic warfare program.
She placed a matte-black device in my palm and said,
“This is not a weapon.”
I looked at her.
“Then why does it feel like one?”
“Because everything that changes a battlefield feels like one.”
I had carried it on thirty-seven operations.
I had never activated it.
Until now.
I pressed myself against the shaded side of a sandstone wall as the three vehicles slowed below.
A drone hummed overhead, sweeping for my heat signature.
Men stepped out with rifles.
The commander stood near the lead truck with the relaxed posture of a man who believed the day had already been decided.
Poor thing.
He had no idea he was late.
I flipped the safety cover with my thumb.
No fireworks.
May you like
No dramatic countdown.
Just one small click.
