to shift into a cougar and just take them out. He could maneuver a hell of a lot better on all this rubble as a cougar, for one thing. Leaping into the fray and tearing them to pieces suited him just fine.
He moved out of the shooters’ view, afraid that his friends were wounded or dead since he hadn’t heard any gunfire from any of them.
He came out from behind one of the partial walls and saw a man trying to sneak his way around him. Emerson shot him, then ducked back and headed in the direction of Condor and Kline. When he was a few hundred yards from their location, he saw the two shooters making their way to where he was going. He shot one of them, and the other hid.
Emerson listened. He didn’t hear any other movement, no gunfire. He prayed there were no others than the one he needed to eliminate and that he could reach his friends and get them out of here. But he knew if he tried to go for his friends, the lone gunman would shoot him down. Instead, Emerson went way around through the rubble, using the piles of bricks and cement and partially standing walls to hide himself. He moved like a cat, careful not to expose his position.
And then he was upon the guy, shooting him before he could get off a shot. Being shot once was bad enough, Emerson thought, as he considered his own wound. The pain hadn’t set in yet, but he was bleeding, and he knew he needed to take care of the injury. He hurried to Condor and Kline’s location. Kline had been hit in the shoulder. Condor had a head wound and was holding on.
“Smith,” Condor rasped under his breath and motioned to a section of building still standing.
“He’s here?” Emerson couldn’t believe the bastard would send them to their deaths and watch to see that it was done. He figured he would have waited like a coward to get word somewhere far from here.
“There.” Condor motioned to the building. “Get me out of here.”
“Yeah, buddy.” Emerson bandaged Condor’s head wound. “I’m going after him. I don’t want to move you or the others and have him shoot us while I’m doing so.”
“Yeah, just hurry,” Condor said.
At least the wolf had faster healing genetics like the cougar shifters. “You got it.” Emerson headed for the area that Condor had pointed to and he even smelled Smith’s scent, but then he came across tire tracks and heard a vehicle start up somewhere beyond the building.
Smith had to be fleeing, figuring Emerson would kill him! No one was left to deter Emerson from eliminating Smith.
Emerson took off running, trying not to sprain an ankle or break a leg in the rubble. He saw the dust-covered, camouflaged-painted Jeep, Smith’s head poked out the window and looking back, his black hair longer, his face unshaven, his signature ears sticking out, and his blue eyes wide—caught in the act. He jerked his head back inside the Jeep and tore off. Emerson immediately fired several shots, but he couldn’t hit Smith before the Jeep raced off down the dusty, dirt road, and disappeared around a bend, past some more bombed-out buildings.
Emerson ran back to where Condor was before Smith called in reinforcements and tried to finish the job. “Remember, you have your sixth-maybe wife to get home to so don’t you go dying on me.”
“Hell no. Smith sold us out. We have a new unsanctioned mission—eliminate Smith for the team. I’m not dying today because of that traitor.”
But this would be the last official Black Ops mission Emerson was going on.
Emerson called in a new pickup point. He had to. Smith knew the other one. Though Emerson realized the pickup point might have all been a ruse and no one planned to come for them—because they were all supposed to be dead. He told the crew that normally extracted them that Smith was a traitor and not to give him their new pickup location if he called them for it. Then Emerson lifted Condor in a fireman’s carry, Emerson and Condor both groaning in pain, and he urged Kline up. They went to get Gardiner and Robertson, both of them taking care of a couple more shooters that had shown up from out of the blue. Gardiner had been shot again, this time in the chest. Emerson checked for a pulse. The ranger was dead, damn it. Robertson was