Free Backlash: Prequel to The Wildblood Series by S. A. Hoag Page A

Green and Shan both donning helmet and face shields.
    True to his prediction, a handful of roughly dressed men came hurrying up the same trail they'd taken.  They barely glanced around at their surroundings before rushing onto the blacktop, certain their prey had taken flight.  The car sitting there startled them.
    Team Three was no one's prey.  Wade stood behind the front quarter panel of his car, giving orders.  “Drop your weapons; we have you covered by snipers and close-quarters shooters.”  He casually held an Uzi.
    “Bullshit,” one of the Nomads, a large, unshaven blond man of about forty, carrying a myriad of facial scars, challenged him.  He was armed with a small caliber handgun; a weapon nonetheless.
    “Go ahead,” Wade told him.  “Call me out on this.  You'll die surprised.”  Even as he spoke the words, he knew that was exactly what they were going to do – fire on his team.  He swung the Uzi up.
    The Nomads fired, almost at random, shouting wildly.  Three went down immediately, including their apparent leader.  One ran and two more dropped to their knees, hands up in surrender.
    “If there are more, that was a call for help,” Green pointed out.
    “Watch them,” Wade directed, bolting after the fleeing Nomad.
    “Shoot them both if either even twitches,” Green told Shan.  “I'll search them.”  He checked the dead first.  It took him a couple of minutes, tossing guns and  various knives as he found them.  As he finished, there was gunfire somewhere up the game trail.  Presently, Wade came back, alone.
    “I'll make this easy for all of us,” Wade told the remaining pair of Nomads.  “Tell me what I want to know.  We drive you out to the badlands and let you go and you go east or south.”
    “What if we got nothing to tell you?” one of them ventured.
    “You've killed at least five of my people.  I take it personal, just like you were the one pulling the trigger.  Lie to me, refuse to talk, I beat you until you do, because I can do that.  Trust me.  You wouldn't be the first or even the tenth.  That's my job, that's why I'm out here.  After you talk, I shoot you in the head and this is all over, for you.”  Wade leaned close, intimidating.  “I know all about the helicopters.  I want to know where you got them and how you managed to fly them around.  I want to know where it is, right now.  If you have misplaced loyalty to people who've left you here to die . . .” he shrugged.  “It's all the same to me.  I'll be home in a warm bed in the morning and you'll be in a shallow grave.”
    Neither Shan nor Green had anything to say; they kept watch.  Wade stepped back for a few words with them. 
    “Captain,” Green acknowledged, suspicious that Wade wasn't bluffing.
    “Officer Allen, I'd prefer if you take my car and go watch the access road for our reinforcements,” Wade told her.
    She squinted at the fading fire beyond the trees.  “No, Wade, I can't,” Shan told him, quietly enough Green barely heard it.
    “Are you sure?  One of them will talk.  It could get bloody here and I don't want that blood on your hands.”
    “It's your call,” she told him.  “If I left and more of them showed, that would be my responsibility; leaving you without backup.”
    “Never a word, not even to Mac.”
    She tilted her head, signaling she understood.  “What if he knows anyway?”
    “It would be intangible,” Wade reassured her.  “If he questions you, send him to me.”
    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
    “I know you can sleep in a car,” Wade said.  “You've got a little more than six hours before first light.  Get to one of the pull-offs at Twin Bridges, get some rest.  That's an order.”
    “Who?” Green asked.
    “Both of you.  I'll be sending other officers up there as we clear the area.  We're taking that last helicopter tomorrow.”
    “Where's Mac?” Shan asked, genuinely exhausted.  If she had anything to say to him about the events of the night, it