“Yes, go for all. Copy.”
“Copy,” Rake said. “ETA fifteen minutes. Be ready.”
For as long as we had known each other, it still impressed me when we were able to complete a job without incident. When a job flowed perfectly, it was like a synchronized dance that we had practiced for weeks. I could only hope assignments would go so smoothly once I started my new company.
The CEO at Resolve Oil was going to be eternally grateful that we had gathered up his remaining employees and their families. I would make sure to send him a detailed assignment breakdown and introduce myself to him. We had met through assignments before, but I couldn’t take the chance that he wouldn’t recognize my name when I approached him later about the new company.
Ana and Roane gathered all the remaining employees and their families and had them waiting by the stairs. The men went first and cleared the bottom floor and then I let Ana and the remaining children come down. It was perfect timing too as we were all downstairs when Rake pulled up with the first SUV and Sandbag was in the second one. Baller was back at our safe house monitoring radios and would give us the best route to the airport.
“Ana, in the front with Rake. Get all the women and children into your SUV. Roane, I’ll ride with you and we will go first to clear the way for the women.”
“Yes, Sir,” Roane replied.
“This way,” Ana said as she motioned for the women and children to get into the second SUV.
They all climbed in, and Ana ran around to the front and got in. I had my eye on her the whole time and motioned for the men to get into the first SUV. If there were rebels out there, it would be best that the men and I engaged them so the women could take a different route and get to the airport. I wasn’t going to take any chances with the women and children, or with Ana.
“Go, go, go,” I said to Sandbag as we pulled out.
There was a sense of relief that we had everyone loaded into the SUVs and there hadn’t been any noise from the house across the street. The time of night probably helped, but then again, the people in the house could have been hiding out like we were. There was no way to tell.
Our SUVs moved slowly through the streets trying not to make too much noise. Ideally I wouldn’t have had them both moving at the same time, but we needed to get everyone to the airport and there hadn’t been any signs of rebels, so I thought it was the best move.
The dark, night air was thick with anticipation as we turned one corner and found a car sitting in the middle of the street. It wasn’t unusual to find a car abounded in the street when it had stopped working, but it was unusual to find a car that was totally blocking the road in both directions.
“Baller, any intel on this parked car two blocks away from office?” I said into the radio.
“No intel. Can you take a side street?”
“Rake, take the street to the right of us, we will have to back up and go that way.”
“Copy that, Nitro; we are turning now. Will wait for you around next corner.”
“Copy that; be there shortly.”
I looked back and watched as Rake’s SUV turned down the road behind us. Sandbag started to maneuver our SUV and then we heard shot ring out.
“Ambush!” I yelled into the radio. “Get them out of here, Rake.”
Then I heard several shot from behind us. There was gunfire coming from every direction, and I didn’t know if they were just shooting at us, or if they had eyes on Rake and Ana’s SUV and were shooting at them as well.
“Sandbag, I need you to get us out of here,” I yelled as he pressed the gas pedal and pushed the car that was in the middle of the street out of our way.
“Copy that, boss, we are pushing our way through.”
“Rake, get everyone to the airport; we will meet you there. We’ll draw their fire,” I said into the radio.
By this point, the men in the SUV with me had their windows down and were returning fire in the direction of where we thought the rebels had been hiding. It was dark out still and we couldn’t exactly tell which floor of the building they had been on, but we could tell which building it was.
With three of us returning fire, we hoped that a few of the rebels had been hit. Taking out rebels didn’t really matter to us though; all we cared about was getting everyone to the airport safely and without incident.
Unfortunately, we had already had an incident, now we just had to worry about getting everyone to the airport safely. I could see all the guys in my SUV were good and didn’t appear to have any injuries.
“Rake, did you guys get out of there all right? Over.”
The silence on the other was deafening. I messed with the radio channels and tried it again. Rake just needed to say he was on his way to the airport. That’s all I needed to know.
“Rake, come in. Are you in route? Over.”