Gone

CHAPTER 96

Minutes later, I was roaring up the mountain road behind the runway on the back of one of the four-wheelers the Delta Force guys had wisely thought to bring with them.

As we were pulling into the front yard, AK-47 fire raked the dirt in front of us.

“Guess we didn’t get all of them!” I screamed as I dove off the vehicle and rolled behind a low stone wall.

The Delta Force guys seemed much less fazed by the turn of events. Instead of retreating, they sped even faster forward on the four-wheelers, pouring deadly-accurate fire into the window as they went. Some big Delta Force psycho, who I learned later had played right tackle for Georgia Tech, actually drove his four-wheeler up onto the porch and put his size-fourteen boot to the door’s lock.

Half of the door’s frame was actually ripped off as he caved it in. Then one of his buddies threw in something I’d never heard of before. Not just one flash-bang grenade, but a whole firecracker pack of them suddenly went off.

They poured into the house behind the deafening banging. I rushed in behind them, eyes scanning the corners of the rooms I ran past. There was a bar, red couches, rococo mirrors. My family couldn’t be here. This wasn’t happening. I almost got sick. It looked like a brothel of some sort.

“Bennett! Back here! Back here!” one of the Delta Force guys cried.

I burst into a room.

How can men be so evil? I thought, looking around. Just how?

There were children.

Crouching fearfully on stained mattresses were about a dozen twelve- or thirteen-year-old girls. Relief flowed through me as I put my light on their tragic faces and realized that they weren’t my kids.

Then the relief disappeared as my dread flooded back. If my guys weren’t here, then where the hell were they?