Free Target Engaged by M. L. Buchman Page B

heard of. And the colonel knew exactly who she was.
    Because they were in the lead, the two of them reached the building’s double doors first, and they each held one wide for the others to enter ahead of them.
    Kyle managed to drift back to being last man through the doors to remain close to the two of them. He overheard the Colonel speaking to Carla once more.
    â€œIt may be scant comfort, but it was a blindside takedown in the dead of night. There was nothing your brother could have or should have done differently. I did make sure that the shooter’s life lasted only seconds longer than his.”
    Carla’s voice didn’t find its way out until they were inside the building and gathered in the high, dim concrete hallway with six doors spaced down its length.
    â€œThank you, sir.”
    The Colonel merely nodded and led them toward the first door on the right.
    Kyle wished circumstances were different and he could hold her for a moment. Not because of all of the heat that even thinking about her sent coursing through his body, but just to give her a moment of stability. Wasn’t gonna happen here, so he held the door for her and she entered the room blank-faced.
    She gave him a nod of thanks, but he didn’t think that she recognized him at the moment.
    * * *
    Carla stumbled to a halt.
    This was not what she’d expected. No classroom of desks. No training mats or weapons store. Beyond the heavy steel entry door off the hallway, she and the other trainees now stood in your average American living room.
    There were couches, chairs, a desk, and a kitchen at the far end. Even end tables with knickknacks and bookshelves with books. There were also a half-dozen dummies. Two were sitting on couches, three on stands like clothing-store mannequins, and the last leaning against a kitchen counter. They were dressed in a variety of clothes, and they were all armed.
    â€œLook at this room,” Colonel Gibson ordered in that deceptively quiet voice of his. “Study it. Think of it as a problem. How would you attack this room and take out the six bad guys”—he waved his hand at the armed dummies—“without hurting any of the civilians in it?”
    There weren’t any civilian dummies, but there were chairs, sofas, plenty of places they might be.
    The seven of them prowled the room. There were no windows, so the only point of entry was the door, and it was heavy steel. They discussed lines of fire and angles of attack. She liked that she didn’t feel too far behind on tactics, despite being the only one who wasn’t Special Forces or Special Operations trained.
    One thing they agreed on—it would be a total bear to take this room, and the collateral damage in the form of dead hostages was going to be high.
    â€œNow…” The Colonel called for their attention once more. Even as he spoke, the trainees were still scanning the living room, creating strategies.
    Carla would have to think later as to how she felt about Colonel Gibson. The man who had killed her brother’s killer. She’d never thought to find out anything about her brother’s death. Yet on her first day here, she’d met this senior officer who had been there in the field with Clay as he died. Delta had been there and still called it unavoidable. Was it truly, or was there a failure of The Unit’s abilities to protect and react to—
    â€œRearrange this room to make it more difficult.” The Colonel interrupted her thoughts. “Make it so that every line of attack you have just thought of would fail. Make it so that the collateral loss of life would be near a hundred percent, no matter what strategy the attacking rescue force might use. Then have a seat as a hostage and we’ll discuss it.”
    So, they were the hostages. That clarified the scenario, made it easier to change it from bad to awful.
    They shifted a couch and put a bad guy crouching behind the arm with his