Chapter 24 #2
Across the room, Theo smirked. “I was starting to think you was immune to her, Rowe.”
Scout, ever the silent observer, didn’t say a word. But the corner of his mouth twitched, just once, before he smoothed his expression back into neutrality.
Fucking bastards.
I should have been ready for this shit to happen.
He leaned forward, bracing his hands flat against the table, his knuckles whitening just slightly, and slammed every inch of command he could muster into his voice.
“You done?”
The shift was immediate, like a switch had been flipped, and finally the bastards he called his team settled down, offering silent nods of agreement.
“Good.” His voice dropped into his go-to quiet, lethal tone that brooked no argument.
“Because this isn’t a joke. What’s happening with her,” he nodded toward the door, “is important, and if one of you assholes does something to make her run from me before I figure out what that means, I’ll stab you in the balls in your sleep. ”
“Playtime’s over, boys,” Gael said, his voice calm, but the underlying command was unmistakable.
Rowan didn’t look back. He didn’t need to. He could feel his brother the way he felt the weight of his weapon at his hip—an extension of himself, a certainty in a world where little else was guaranteed.
“Cross,” Rowan said, his gaze flicking to the laptop centered on the table. “Lay out what Mercier sent us, now.”
“Yes, sir.” Theo set his mug down, pulled the laptop toward him, and cast its screen onto the monitors on the wall. Jagged and unforgiving mountains stretched across the frame like the spine of some ancient, sleeping beast. The terrain was rough, and Rowan knew exactly where he was looking at.
“Fucking fabulous, the Satan’s sac of the Middle East.” There were few places he hated operating in more than the Af-Pak border.
The satellite feed zoomed in, the grainy resolution sharpening just enough to reveal the outline of a compound nestled in the folds of the mountains.
Rowan’s gaze locked onto the structure, his mind already dissecting it, breaking it down into weaknesses, entry points, exits.
This was the kind of op that could go sideways faster than a greased pig at a county fair, and they all fucking knew it.
“Alright, listen up.” Theo’s voice cut through the last of the bullshit like a blade. “This is what we know.” He tapped a key, and the image split—one side the compound, the other a face Rowan hadn’t seen in years.
Mikey Wilson. Guess now I know why Gallus pinged us for this one, don’t I?
The man looked like hell. Bruises darkened his jaw, his left eye was swollen nearly shut, and a cut bisected his eyebrow.
But it was his expression that got Rowan.
Mikey didn’t show an ounce of fear or even resignation.
Just a cold, hard focus, like he was already three steps ahead of whatever fresh hell was coming his way.
“Wilson was taken three days ago during a recon gone bad near the Khyber Pass,” Theo said, pulling up a timeline.
“Taliban or ISIS?” Gael asked.
“Neither. One of the cartel’s growers has got him stashed in this lovely little hellhole—” Theo gestured to the compound, “—run by a mid-level lieutenant named Rafael ‘El Sombra’ Mendoza. Guy’s got a rep for being paranoid, which means he’s got layers of security, and he’s not the type to keep his prisoners in one place for long. ”
“So we’re on a clock,” Gael replied. “Wonderful.”
“Always.” Theo moved his laser pointer to a bullet point further down the mission brief.
“But this one’s ticking louder. Mercier’s intel says they’re moving Wilson in the next forty-eight.
If we don’t get him out before then, he’s gone and will either be dead or buried so deep in the cartel’s network we’ll never find him. ”
“What’s the play?” Colson asked, leaning forward. His fingers drummed against the table, restless.
Rowan exhaled through his nose, then pointed at the screen. “We hit them fast, we hit them quiet, and we get the fuck out before they know what’s happening.”
Theo pulled up a blueprint of the compound, overlaid with thermal imaging from a drone pass earlier that day.
“Four guard towers, all manned. Two at the main gate, two at the back near what looks like a supply depot. Walls are reinforced, but not impenetrable—standard mud brick with rebar. We can breach with explosives, but we’d be announcing our arrival with a fucking fireworks show. ”
“No,” Rowan said. “We go in like a fucking mouse. No need for booms or C4 unless we’ve got no other choice.”
“Then how?” Valley asked, frowning. “Those walls are twelve feet high. We climbing?”
“Not we,” Rowan said. “You and Scout. You’re our eyes on the inside.
You’ll go in ahead of us, find Wilson, and get him prepped to move.
The rest of us breach at the south wall—” he tapped the screen, “—here. It’s the blind spot between the towers.
We hit the guards simultaneously, neutralize them before they can sound the alarm, then move in. ”
“And if Wilson’s not where we think he is?” Jericho asked.
“Then you do what we pay you for and you fucking improvise,” Gael deadpanned. “But you don’t leave without him.”
Rowan nodded. “Theo, you got eyes on the cartel’s comms?”
“Working on it,” Theo said. “I’ve got Grif and Rock’s comms dude trying to tap into their radio chatter, but so far, it’s been spotty. They’re using encrypted channels, but we’re close to cracking it.”
“Good. We need to know if they change plans.” Rowan turned to Scout.
“You and Valley will insert at dusk. Find Wilson, get him mobile. We breach at oh-three-hundred, when most of the guards will be sluggish, and the night rotation will have just settled in. We move fast, we move quiet, and we get the hell out before they know we’re there. ”
“Extraction?” Titan asked.
“Helos are on standby twenty klicks out,” Gael said.
“Me an’ Theo will figure out an LZ, but I’m thinking somewhere around here—” he pointed to a flat stretch of land just beyond a ridge, “—but if you find more shit than you bargained for, we’ll have a secondary somewhere near the wadi half a klick east.”
“What about the locals?” Colson asked. “This area’s crawling with Taliban remnants. They see us, they’re gonna want a piece.”
“Then we make sure they don’t see us,” Rowan said. “Brief says we have access to all the gear and birds we want. I say we go in blacked out. No lights or no comms, and we keep our signatures low and off radar.”
Theo pulled up another image—a grainy shot of Wilson, taken less than an hour ago.
He was alive, barely… but alive. “Mercier’s contact says Wilson’s been giving them hell.
They’ve been working him over, but he’s not breaking.
That’s why they’re moving him. They want him somewhere they can really dig in. ”
Rowan’s jaw tightened. He knew what that meant; hell, they all knew what happened to men who got taken by cartels. They also knew the kind of damage Mikey Wilson was facing wouldn’t just heal with time.
“Alright,” he said, leaning away from the table to grab a protein bar from the stash on the shelf behind him.
“Let’s work up a plan.” He glanced at the clock.
“We spin up in less than eight hours. Valley, Scout—you’re with me and Gael.
The rest of you, check our gear. I want everything checked and triple-checked; we got no room for fuckups. ”
The room emptied quickly, the men dispersing to their tasks with the efficiency that came from years of doing this dance. Rowan stared at the screen, at the compound, at the photo of the man who was running out of time.
Gael nudged him with his boot under the table. “You good?”
Rowan didn’t look at him. “Yeah.”
“Liar.”
Rowan exhaled, sharp and frustrated. “I don’t like this one.”
“None of us do.”
“It’s too clean.” It was bugging the shit out of him that he couldn’t put his finger on what made every single hair on his body stand to attention. “Like it’s too easy. Those fuckers don’t just leave a man like Wilson sitting in a compound this exposed unless they want him found.”
Gael was quiet for a moment. Then, softly, “You think it’s a trap?”
“I always think it’s a trap.” His fingers curled into a fist, then he forced them to relax. “Just as I always think if not us, then who?”
Gael shrugged. “You’ll watch your six, trust your gut, and get the hell out before shit hits the fan. You know I’ll come on the run loaded for bear if I need to.”
He nodded. “Yep.”
“And Rowe?”
“Yeah?”
“Make time for your girl before we pop smoke, ’kay?”
“Huh?”
Gael clapped him on the shoulder, “I’m just saying, for us, this shit is normal. For her, it’s virgin territory. Give her some idea of what to expect so she doesn’t lose her damn mind. Feel me?”
“Yeah.” It drove him up the wall when Gael made sense. But in the field of relationships, he was the twin with experience, so Rowan would listen to him instead of fucking shit up by trying to muddle through and making a mess of it.
“Theo?”
“Yes, boss?”
“Get me Mercier on the line.”
“Call or screen?”
“Screen. I want to know if that jackass is lying to my face.”
“Roger that.” There was a pause as Theo put the call through to their fixer. “He’ll be on screen in three, two, and go.”
Gallus Mercier’s sharp and calculating face was just smug enough to make Rowan’s fingers itch to punch him in the nose.
The man’s dark eyes gleamed under the low light of wherever the hell he was holed up, a cigar smoldering between his fingers like he was some kind of goddamn Bond villain.
Rowan didn’t bother with pleasantries. “Talk.”
Mercier exhaled a slow stream of smoke, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Always a pleasure, mon ami.” His fake accent was thicker than usual, which meant he was either amused or lying. Maybe both; with that asshole, you were never quite sure. “You’ve got the intel. What else do you need?”
“How do I know your intel isn’t as fake as your accent is?” Rowan leaned forward, bracing his palms on the table. “Or should I hit up Gladiator and drag him out of Montana to drag your ass home?”
“Now, now, Salieri. There’s no need to go dragging my brother into this. He’s out of this hellhole, and his PTSD don’t need to be dragged back into this shit.”
“Tell that to Nemesis,” Rowan shot back. He didn’t give a shit that he was dropping Dalton Knight in the shit pile; he was a big boy and could handle Gallus Mercier any day of the week if he had to.
“What?”
“One phone call.” Rowan picked up his phone for emphasis. “Hell, I don’t even need to dial the fucking number, I can just hit speed dial, and Nemesis will connect me with Glad.”
“You, mon ami, are an asshole.”
Funny how the fucker’s accent changed slightly when he was called out on his fuckery.
“Damn straight. Explain why you’re the one calling this in.
Wilson went DEA after he got out. He’s not a contractor, and he’s not meant to be anywhere in that fucking region.
” If he didn’t get answers, then that was a problem that would need to be worked around the table before they spun up out of Stronghold.
“Spill it, because I’m not putting my men in the shit if I don’t have all the cards on the table.
Why’s this on my war-table and not an Agency op? ”
Mercier’s smirk didn’t waver. “Because the Agency lost him. Because El Sombra’s got friends in high places…friends who’d rather Wilson disappear permanently than talk.” He tapped the ash from his cigar into a crystal tray. “You know how it is. Some strings can’t be pulled without complications.”
Rowan crossed his arms and scowled at the man on the screen. “And you’re just so altruistic you had to step in?”
Next time I see Tiberius, I’m buying him a bottle of top-shelf stuff. It had to suck growing up with this dickhead.
“Hardly.” Mercier’s grin turned razor-sharp. “Let’s just say I’ve got a vested interest in keeping certain cartels from expanding their growing fields portfolio into the Middle East. Wilson knows things, useful things, and I’d prefer those things stay out of the wrong hands.”
Rowan’s gaze didn’t flicker. “You’re holding out on me.”
“Perhaps.” Mercier took another drag from his cigar. “But you don’t need the why to do the what. Get Wilson, bring him to me, and I’ll handle the rest.”
“And if we don’t like the rest?”
Mercier’s laughter was a low, velvet rumble. “Then you’re welcome to walk away. But we both know you won’t.” He pinned Rowan with a hard stare through the screen. “You’ve got a soft spot for lost causes, Seahorse, you all do. That’s why you take the jobs you do, and we both know it.”
He wasn’t wrong. Rowan pinched the bridge of his nose and blew out an annoyed breath. “Talk to me about our window.”
“Forty-eight hours. After that, he’s gone…and so is your window.”
Fucking awesome.
The screen went dark before Rowan could respond, leaving the war-room bathed in the cold glow of the monitors.
Theo let out a low whistle. “Well. That was informative.”
Rowan pushed away from the table, his chair scraping against the floor.
“Yeah. Real fucking helpful.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, the weight of the op pressing down on him like a physical force.
But beneath that, deeper and more insistent, was the pull of the woman in the kitchen waiting for him.
Theo stopped fiddling with his keyboards and scooted back his chair. “Go. Talk to Enya. We’ll handle the rest. I’ll have Gael call you if we need you for shit.”
Rowan didn’t argue. He didn’t have it in him.
Not when the thought of her, waiting and wondering what was going on, carved a path straight through his usual focus and discipline.
He moved toward the door, each step heavier than the last. How the hell was he supposed to handle having someone waiting for him to come home?
Don’t fuck it up!
Awesome plan. Go with that one.
For now, just for these next few hours, he’d have to let himself pretend the world outside this ranch didn’t exist. He could do that… he hoped.