"Hold your fire! Goddammit, hold your fire." The SEAL leader, Lieutenant Devon Robbins, was pressing in his earpiece, incredulous at what he was hearing. Around him the team was on the ground, in firing position, keeping the terrorists up the hill pinned down. Next would come the assault. "Roger, Alpha Leader, I copy. Does anybody know what's going on with this whole fucked-up op?… I copy."
He looked around. "We just got aborted."
"What the fuck do you mean," the SEAL next to him, John McCleary, said. He was slamming another clip into his MP5.
"The team is extracted. Now." Robbins could scarcely believe his own words.
"You have got to be fucking kidding," came the radio voice of Lieutenant Philip Pease. "We've got the assholes. A couple of grenades from the blooper and then we take them. They're history."
"Hey, I just report the orders, I don't give them," Robbins replied. "Immediate egress. That's the word. Who the fuck knows?"
"But what about the choppers? Nichols is coming in with the Apaches."
"Goumes says they're scrubbed, too. Everybody's on hold. Nichols just about ate the fucking radio. He's going apeshit."
"Well, the hell with Gournes," came a third voice, through a black pullover. "Maybe we had a 'radio failure.' The fuckers are pinned down. Let's just go ahead and take them down. The whole op is blown. Now they're going to know we're coming in."
"They probably figured on it anyway," Robbins said, clicking on the safety of his MP5. "But who the hell cares. We're out of here. Flint, you've got the rear. Use it. I'm on point. Let's hit the beach. In five. Pass it on." He switched on his radio. "Listen up. Anybody not in a Zodiac in five mikes swims."