CHAPTER 54
Luna
“Man I hope we’re right about this,” I say to Allie, watching dots move on the screen.
“We usually are, and I had you double check our assessment. It makes sense that this is Volotov senior’s weekly route. He keeps a sample of his shipments for quality assurance, but only from one location that matters to him. The one on the Sound.”
“Correct,” agrees Penny. The petite brunette is sitting in the chair in front of us, pulling up information in real time, switching camera angles and rerouting satellites.
She’s a bit robotic but I’ve maybe never been more impressed with a desk jockey in my life.
And for an “office worker” I bet she’s a hell of a shot, especially given how meticulous she is and the “office” we’re in.
We’ve landed our giant spy jet back in the northeast, but closer to Manhattan than Quinn’s HQ outside of Boston.
Penny can get clearer, faster images if we’re on the ground and within a few hours distance of the op.
Even though we’re not even in New York, still, I’m itchy all over, like I can feel Van nearby. In danger nearby.
“Four. Ten minutes to position,” I hear a soldier say over the comms.
“Three, in position,” another says.
“Two, five minutes,” that sounded like Collin.
“One, in position. Holding,” that was him.
Van.
My heart goes absolutely berserk at the sound of his deep voice.
I glance around but everyone else is calm, sure. This is probably their 1000th rodeo. I’m the newbie here, not this crew and definitely not Van’s crew. They’re waiting to corner Volotov under a bridge on his way back to his fortress in the city.
“We’ve created a traffic jam on the Crosstown. Thirty minutes out.”
I watch in awe as they—as we, I guess—manipulate swaths of traffic.
By crashing a semi on CT 15, traffic diverts to I-95.
We’ll create another redirect, a construction zone, and push Volotov onto a frontage road.
There, the Irish are waiting to intercept.
We watch the dots move and listen to our drivers relay positions and updates every few minutes.
“Pulling Utility vehicle into position,” says the second diversion team. Finally. Every second takes a damn year to tick by. Marlon is next to me on the floor, shaking. I’m outwardly calm, but he can tell I am distraught.
“Cones in position, traffic moving South,” says another voice on the line.
Everything moves exactly according to plan. We watch red and green dots on one screen, street cams on another and satellite overhead on two big screens at the top of Penny’s station.
I like to watch the latter, because I feel like I can see everyone.
Van, Quinn I mean, has a Hummer tucked under an overpass.
On two nearby corners, he has his big, black, bulletproof SUVs.
There’s a fourth truck, a pick up with a mounted gun, further down the overpass.
All four of them are waiting to converge on Volotov when he exits off the frontage road.
If we zoomed much further out, we’d see our people paired up with Quinn’s teams all along the Sound and into Boston, on guard, just in case.
At the edge of the screen, I see movement near the pick up truck. I watch, holding my breath. It’s possible it’s a road crew, a random civilian just…no. No, it’s too big.
“Is that us?” I ask, pointing to the vehicle.
“No…” Penny does some typing.
“Incoming,” Van’s voice cuts through the tense silence. He’s calm but it’s a question. For us, his overwatch.
“Negative,” Penny replies, “It’s registered.” She turns to me to explain, off the comms, “It’s a routine armored truck that takes back streets. Banks often do that, stay off highways.”
Van clicks comms once in confirmation.
Allie and Penny go back to Volotov’s red dot and the traffic patterns we’re trying to achieve. But I see another vehicle pull into satellite view. A garbage truck.
One unexpected truck approaching my husband, I can handle.
Two I cannot.
“Abort. It’s a trap,” my voice cracks.
Van is down there, a sitting duck. Who knows how many more armored vans or garbage trucks or whatever the hell are about to close in on him.
This is all wrong. I know it. And I shouldn’t be up here watching it happen.
My fingers itch for a trigger, my thighs feel naked without my knives strapped on.
“I see the garbage truck, but—” Penny starts.
“While we’re pinning down a fucking decoy, they’re pinning down Quinn! Call it! Abort!”
“This may be our only shot at Volotov’s vehicle,” Allie answers me, totally calm. “We want him, but more than that we want to see the product sample he has with him.”
“I’m telling you, Volotov is not in that Escalade and neither is the damn product!
We got it wrong. Tell him and send in another team to help him!
” Allie starts barking orders at everyone to begin assessing the situation as if I’m correct.
They scan, listen, watch. Someone runs a stupid algorithm to calculate probabilities.
“Allie, send in more men!”
“All the men we had on avail went to Boston to reinforce defenses,” she taps her ear, “Robbie, who do we have in Manhattan?” She listens. “Zander has a team but they’re fifty minutes out.”
No.
Van is going to get shot, again. He’s going to be outnumbered, surprised. He might die right now, today and I…I left him.
“We have us, here. How far by chopper?” I say, my feet already moving.
“We only have five soldiers here—”
“And me. How many minutes out if we take that thing?” I point to the black hawk I can see out the window.
“Twenty-five,” Penny answers.
“And the Volotov decoy is?”
“Twenty,” Allie nods once before she stalks toward the plane’s armory and begins talking into her watch as she taps on an ear piece.
“L-Team, Black bird four up in three minutes. Reinforcement Team Zulu en route. Fifty minutes. L-Team you are the calvary. Go! Go! Go!” I hear the chopper start outside the fuselage.
“Can I talk to him? Can you tell him we’re coming?” I ask her, feeling more panicked by the second. I promised Van I’d have his six and he’s about to get fucking ambushed! Damn it!
“He’ll learn the minimum he needs to know at the last possible moment,” Allie says.
“Wait, you’re going to just let him get ambushed?” I ask, my vision blurring at the edges because what the actual…
“Skulls Quinn is about to be surprised, yes. There are some scenarios we have to let play out in order to maintain our cover, not just for Quinn or for us but for thousands of hidden soldiers all over the world,” She’s still way too damn calm as she hands me a holster fitted with two guns in one hand and an iPad in the other.
I reach, but she doesn’t let them go. “You should stay here. This was your catch. Your save. Command doesn’t join the calvary, Luna.
You should continue to lead, give directions, see what else you can spot from above. ”
Every cell of my body repulses at the idea, “No. I should be with Van,” I take the holster and tuck the iPad under my arm, ignoring the disappointed look on her face.
I hear her say, “Luna is going with her team. I repeat, L-Team leader in bound plus five in—”
I don’t hear the rest as my feet hit the pavement at the bottom of the air stairs. With Van’s pinned vehicle in my mind and chopper doors open in my line of sight, I start to run.
·····
“Two minutes,” the chopper pilot says. It’s been agony.
Complete and total fucking torture listening to the live situation report in my headset.
I was right. Four more vehicles showed up, a laundry service, two cleaning vans.
Penny’s voice is robotic as she explains that shots are fired or a man is hit.
Allie’s voice is calm as she redirects nearby traffic and police interference.
But it’s clearly a bloodbath.
“Okay ma’am. Keep tight behind me when we land,” a solider, L2, because I’m L1—me, the moron who didn’t catch this ambush to begin with!
I’m L1, even though L2 just gave me an injection of pain reliever and caffeine and maybe adrenaline a minute ago.
I’m pretty sure Command is giving him orders for me.
He goes on, repeating the instructions one more time, “We’ll bank left with L3 and the other three, Kilo team, will bank right and cross the street.
We’ll use the overpass wall and hopefully surprise them from behind.
Calvary mission objective is to provide cover for the wounded and use all non-lethal means necessary to push the enemy to retreat. ”
“Wait, what?” I ask, shaking.
“No killing,” Allie’s voice answers in my headset. “Just like you did at the spa. Defend yourself but shoot to injure.”
“You think the Russian mafia isn’t shooting to kill down there?” I yell back.
“We are not the mafia. We value human life and leave the damnation to God himself. Copy?” Allie says. “Twenty seconds, Luna. Copy to engage.”
“Copy!” I say, getting up out of my seat so I can hop through the doorway as soon as we land. “But for the record, I think your rules are really stu—” my words are cut off when I jump down and hit the pavement way harder than I thought.
Shit! Ow! Damn it!
My hip hurts, but I can tell whatever cocktail I was just injected with is working its magic.
I can still run behind the men. We’ve landed above the action and about one block over.
Half our team is sprinting to the exit ramp across the intersection, we’re going to walk along the exit ramp wall on this side.
We can hear the shooting below. The whole area is deserted thanks to Allie and Robbie and whoever else changes the colors of the stoplights and scrambles the NYPD’s comms.
The gunfire rattles me. And I was rattled before we touched down. But Van is down there. I’m coming, baby. I’m coming and I’m sorry!
We reach the end of the wall providing cover and L2 looks back to me and L3 in front of me. He flashes some sign language I don’t understand and then throws—wait, did he just throw a grenade?
BOOM!