It’s the weekend! Still working on my to do list. Plus we’re still trying to nail down which actual day we can stop living in a hotel and move into a house again. And there is something called Rust and Dust days which we must investigate.

So to entertain the interwebz, behold, a snippet of the special ops thingie.

Shoot to Thrill

Gabe was used to the truism that no plan survives contact with the enemy. But no plan surviving contact with a hostage, that was new.

“Houston, we have a problem,” he transmitted. He uploaded the digital photo he’d snapped of the slender dark-eyed, light-haired woman who wasn’t supposed to be there and waited for identification.

It didn’t take long for the satellite uplink to give him what he needed. Name, Dr. Miranda Gray. Missing from an international volunteer relief organization for two months. The doctor specialized in nasty viruses. If she’d been grabbed for her expertise that would explain her presence at his target, a suspected bioterrorism site held by a radical terrorist group deep in Central America.

He didn’t have to wonder if she’d cooperated. The way she’d rendered her guard unconscious said it all. Dr. Gray had an interesting bedside manner. The guard outweighed her by probably eighty pounds and had the advantage of both reach and height on her. Her knowledge of anatomy more than compensated.

“You’re not supposed to take on the bad guys,” Gabe muttered, more to himself than to the woman he had under surveillance. “That’s my job.” More specifically, his current job was to destroy the target. The doctor’s presence threw a very large monkey wrench into the works. He’d have to extract her first, get them both a safe distance away before triggering detonation, and do it all without alerting unfriendlies to his presence.

Gabe was running through possible approaches when the doctor’s actions demanded his full attention. What was she doing? Moving at high speed, almost frantic but with hands that stayed rock steady, measuring out and mixing something that appeared to be charcoal and…

“Tell me that isn’t what I think it is.” Was she insane? If that was black powder, stirring it wrong could blow her sky high. He hoped to God she wouldn’t sneeze.

Conclusion; Dr. Gray knew exactly what her captors had in mind, and was hell-bent on stopping them. Getting out alive didn’t appear to be part of her plan, either. Then again, the very careful way she mixed the ingredients told him she wasn’t suicidal. Just desperate and determined.

Gabe abandoned planning and went into motion.