Samuel

“Got you,” he heard someone murmur, looking over to see one of his team members—Nate Carson, a former Air Force pararescue jumper or “PJ”, as they were known—aim his index finger at the frozen image on the laptop screen, pantomiming getting off a shot.
And so they had, or at least were as close to it as they had been in months, the big man thought as he laid down the yearbook, pushing his way past Carson as he made his way to the door of the tent. Their best intelligence on Hassan's location since their abortive raid in late March, having come through just the previous day. And now all they awaited was the all-clear from Washington. For the politicians to make up their mind, as ever.
The desert heat of the Sinai struck him full in the face as he stepped through the flap. Dry, choking heat—impressive even by the standards of east Texas, where he'd spent the majority of his childhood, before leaving home at the age of 18 to join the Corps.
Seemed like he'd been spending his life in the desert ever since, as the Marines—and now the Agency—sent him to one desolate waste after another.
North Camp was located some twenty kilometers south of the Mediterranean and not far from the border with Israel—a six hundred plus-acre compound that served as a forward operating base for the Multinational Force & Observers, the international peacekeeping force based in the Sinai ever since the Camp David Accords of '78.
And now, for their team—through some special dispensation obtained by the Agency's seventh floor. All of it so far above his pay grade as to be beyond his concern.”
― Stephen England, Quicksand

“It was an impossible stand-off, so close together there in the darkness, barely ten feet separating them. No way for either of them to miss, Harry thought, staring through the sights of his 1911 at Massoud. The man had aged since the photo in his CIA “jacket”, far beyond his years”
― Stephen England, Lodestone

“Everything was quiet, Richards thought, hands shoved into the pockets of his worn jeans—a Glock 21 riding in a paddle holster on his hip as he gazed out across the FOB’s perimeter wire to the east, the stark, open desert stretching out as far as the eye could see, toward the Israeli border, barely fifteen kilometers away.”
― Stephen England, Quicksand

“Good reason. The trigger broke under his finger, recoil pummeling Harry’s shoulder as the thunder of a .308 reverberated through the hallway.
He saw the man’s head snap back from the impact of the round, but he was already traversing to the next target, shooting the second militant twice in the chest. Iron sights now”
― Stephen England, Lodestone