Without Law 18 by Eric Vall (most difficult books to read .txt) 📗

“Fair point.” Paige nodded.

“Tav?” Bailey asked, and she bit her lip. “What are we going to do?”

I glanced back to the road where the white flag was still waving. Paige was right, technically I was supposed to take their surrender, but that was the last thing I wanted to do.

I had to quell my anger, though, and remind myself that these assholes could still be useful. Even if I wasn’t about to let them surrender, it would be stupid to kill them now without at least interrogating them.

I pulled my walkie up to my mouth and radioed the ship.

“Minji, come in,” I said.

“Tav, we’re here,” the Korean woman said quickly. “Is everyone okay?”

“Everyone here is fine,” I told her. “And you all?”

“We’re good,” she said. “I see the white flag.”

“That’s why I’m radioing,” I told her. “I need you to come to shore.”

“Right,” Minji replied. “I’ll be right there.”

I hung the radio back on my hip and turned to the girls who all stared at me with wide, expectant eyes. They were waiting for me to speak, but I wasn’t sure they were going to like what I had to say.

“I don’t want to let these assholes surrender, either,” I explained. “But they are, and it would be stupid of us to take a kill shot when we could interrogate them instead.”

“Tav’s right,” Anna sighed. “We should see what they know.”

“Fine, but I call dibs on stabbing them in the dicks if Tav decides we can kill them,” Tara said with an eye roll.

“Why?” the redhead asked, and she narrowed her eyes and shook her head. “Why are you always trying to stab people in the dick?”

“Because a guy’s dick is, like, sacred to them.” Tara shrugged. “I want to fuck them up in the worst way possible, and that’s literally every guy’s worst nightmare.”

“You know what, that is a very good point.” Anna nodded. “You got me, I’m on board. Let’s stab ‘em all in the dicks.”

“What if they’re girls?” Bailey asked.

“Then we’ll stab ‘em in the vagina,” Tara said.

“You might be on your own with that one,” Anna said. “I don’t know if I could do that.”

“Don’t be such a pussy,” Tara countered.

“I’m not,” the redhead replied. “I just don’t want to be a pussy stabber.”

“Yeah, let’s leave that up to Tav,” Paige said with a laugh, but Tara and Anna just looked at her seriously. “What? Not funny?”

“A bit crass, don’t you think?” Tara asked.

“What!” Paige screeched. “You’re the most crass person ever!”

“Yeah, I know, we’re just fucking with you,” Tara laughed. “It was funny.”

“Girls,” I said to get them to focus.

“Right,” Tara sighed. “I guess we should go apprehend these assholes before we interrogate them.”

“That’d probably be a good idea.” I nodded.

The soldiers were still waving the flag, but I didn’t trust them totally, so I readied my weapon and made my way toward the road. Hammer and his SEALs joined us on the way there, and we all had our weapons at the ready.

“Show me your hands!” I yelled, but then I remembered they probably wouldn’t understand a damn word I was saying. Where was Minji?

The white flag went down, and for a second I thought they’d tried to trick us. We had enough firepower here to take them down even if that had been the case, but it wasn’t. To my surprise, several men walked out from behind the vehicle with their hands raised above their heads. I wasn’t sure if they had actually understood what I’d said, or if that action just seemed like the next logical step, but I kept my gun raised at them just in case they tried anything. I wouldn’t put it past these assholes to try some form of suicide bombing, so I watched them carefully as they walked out from behind the vehicle.

One of them was shirtless since he’d taken it off to use as the white flag, and they were all incredibly dirty and bloody. Some of them had worse wounds than others, but they were all fucked up in some way or another, and I was astounded they were even still alive after the blast they’d just gone through.

“You think this is for real?” Hammer whispered at me from the side.

I studied the men once more, and my gut told me they weren’t looking to fight any longer. They were all dirty and broken down, and while part of me wished they’d continued to fight, I could see why they wouldn’t want to. The rest of their battalion was dead, and they were hurt, so it probably seemed useless to try and fight at this point. Besides, they had to know that we’d find them if they tried to stay hidden or run. We’d already proven we were a force to be reckoned with.

“I think so.” I nodded.

“Alright,” Hammer agreed, and he nodded to a couple of his men. “Get some rope from the jeep.”

“Yes, sir,” Rivers said as he holstered his weapon and took off behind us.

“I already called for Minji,” I informed Hammer.

“I see her coming up on the raft now,” the SEAL said, and I looked out to the water to see that he was right. Minji was halfway to shore already.

I did a quick count of the men in front of me. There were six soldiers, each more beat up than the last. The shirtless one had a massive gash on his forehead and blood running down his face.

All of the men had small bloody scrapes and cuts all over their face and hands from the howitzer blast and all the rubble it shot everywhere. A couple of the men had larger gashes, like the shirtless soldier, one had blood dripping down his leg and a limp