Page 293 of Rangers Last Promise
“No.”
“It was meant for all of us.”
“Yes.”
“Miller changed our extraction route.”
“And led you into the valley.”
“Where seventeen men were waiting.”
“Seventeen men and me.”
Eight entered the valley.
Seventeen were waiting.
I understand now.
The seventeen weren’t the men inside Site Seventeen.
They were Harlan’s kill team.
“What went wrong?” I ask.
Vance laughs softly.
“You Rangers refused to die.”
Grant did.
The rest of us didn’t.
Because Grant held the line long enough to let us move.
Because he kept firing after the first bullet hit him.
Then the second.
Then the third.
My throat closes.
“Who shot him?”
“I did.”
Mara rises.
I catch her arm.
She doesn’t look at me.
Vance steps from behind the stairs.
His pistol is pressed against the side of a deputy’s head.
I recognize the young man from the perimeter.
