Chapter Five #3
I didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. Not with the image of that cellular trail camera fixed in my head—the lens aimed directly at the main drive, the zip ties still shiny where they’d been cut.
Not with the knowledge that Jackson was at that farmhouse alone, with ten acres between him and the nearest neighbor.
Not with the memory of his voice on the phone—level and controlled as he’d laid out the operational details, but with something underneath it that had made my chest tight. Concern, maybe. Or fear he wasn’t willing to name.
“Team One, you are clear to entry point,” I said, forcing my attention back to the monitors. “Guard rotation in three minutes. You have a ninety-second window.”
“Copy,” Harker said. “Moving now.”
On the screen, the blue dot advanced toward the warehouse door, then paused—Harker checking the lock, Nguyen covering the approach. Thirty seconds passed, then forty-five, then the dot moved again, disappearing into the building as Harker picked the lock and slipped inside.
“Team One is in,” I said, switching to the secondary channel. “Team Two, you are clear. Guard moving away from your position.”
“Team Two moving,” Rivera confirmed.
The middle monitor showed two green dots advancing toward the service entrance—Rivera and Torres using the cover of a maintenance cart to approach unseen. They reached the door in perfect synchronization, Torres keeping watch while Rivera worked the lock with practiced movements.
“Team Three, hold position,” I said, tracking movement at the container yard. “Two guards approaching from the east. Estimate sixty seconds to clear.”
“Team Three holding,” Sterling said.
I switched back to the primary channel, where Harker and Nguyen were moving through the warehouse with methodical precision. “Team One, guard at position seven is stationary. Approach from the north, use the storage shelves for cover.”
“Copy,” Harker said. “Moving north.”
The takedown happened in near silence—three teams moving simultaneously, three locations secured in the space of ninety seconds. I tracked each position on the monitors, calling out movement patterns and frequency shifts with the same flat precision I’d used a hundred times before.
“Team One, target secure,” Harker reported, his voice carrying the slight tension that came with a successful extraction. “Two guards in custody, warehouse secured. No casualties.”
“Team Two, target secure,” Rivera added. “Apartment clear, dealer in custody. One guard with a shoulder wound, nothing serious.”
“Team Three, target secure,” Sterling finished. “Yard clear, weapons cache located. No resistance, no casualties.”
I logged each confirmation, making notes on the operation timeline with quick, efficient movements. Target locations secured. Primary objective complete. No serious casualties on either side. Clean by any standard.
Clean enough that Sterling would sign off on my request for immediate extraction when he got back with the other team members. Clean enough that I’d be on a plane by noon, in Montana by morning.
As soon as the team returned, I powered down my board with practiced movements, each switch flipped in sequence, each monitor going dark at precisely the right moment.
It took three minutes to break down the communications setup—monitors disconnected, cables coiled, frequency jammers packed in their padded cases. Another two to secure my personal gear—laptop in its sleeve and phone in my pocket.
By the time Sterling finished the verbal debrief on the other side of the room, my bag was packed and by the door, ready to move the moment we had clearance to extract.
“We’re wheels up in ninety,” Sterling said, looking at each of us in turn. “Military transport to Frankfurt, then commercial to Chicago then Billings, HALO jump from there. We’re on the first flight out.”
Which meant Montana by morning. Which meant Jackson by noon.
I nodded once, not trusting myself to speak, and shouldered my bag with a single motion. The team moved with me, falling into the same formation we’d used a hundred times before—Sterling on point, Rivera and Torres covering the flanks, me bringing up the rear with the communications equipment.
Outside, the morning had fully arrived—weak winter sun breaking through the cloud cover, the street already filling with early traffic.
We moved through it without attracting attention, five men in civilian clothes carrying bags that might have contained anything, headed for an extraction point three blocks east.
Nobody looked twice. Nobody asked questions. Just another morning in Minsk, another day beginning like any other.
The flight out of Belarus was long and unremarkable—a military transport with bench seats and no windows, followed by a commercial flight with too many passengers and not enough legroom.
I slept in two-hour stretches and spent the rest of the time staring at the seat back in front of me, running Peterson’s operational patience through my head.
Patient surveillance operations didn’t stay passive forever. That was basic tactical thinking—the kind they taught in the first week of selection, the kind that kept you alive when things went sideways. You identified the threat, you assessed its capabilities, you moved before it could.
Which meant someone was planning something.
Someone with training, with patience, with a clear target in mind.
Someone who’d watched the ranch long enough to identify the pattern—the morning ride along the eastern fence line, the afternoon work in the greenhouses, the evening checks of the property boundaries.
I turned that thought over, examining it from every angle, looking for the flaw in the logic, the piece that didn’t fit.
There wasn’t one.
Just the cold, clear fact that Eleanor Peterson had people watching the ranch, and those people had the training and discipline to wait for the right moment.
Somewhere over the Atlantic, I pulled out my phone and typed to Jackson: “En route. ETA before dawn your time.”
I didn’t explain the HALO. Jackson would figure it out when I landed on his grass—would hear the distinctive sound of a parachute opening, would see the dark shape dropping out of the night sky, would know without being told that I’d moved heaven and earth to get there.
Would know, maybe, what that meant.
I hit send and put the phone away, then went back to staring at the seat back, counting the hours until touchdown. Six to Frankfurt. Eight to Chicago. Three to Billings. Then the flight to the ranch, the approach to the farmhouse, the moment when I’d see Jackson again.
It would have to be enough.
* * * *
We jumped into Montana in the dead of night—high altitude, oxygen masks until the drop altitude, then chutes opening low over a dark stretch of valley pasture well east of Black Butte Ranch’s main drive.
I’d chosen the insertion point on the flight over, specifically to stay outside the ranch’s natural sight lines and clear of whatever camera positions Peterson’s people might still have running on the property.
The C-130 had approached from the north, flying with running lights off and radio silent, following the topography rather than the established flight paths.
Twenty thousand feet up, the air was thin enough that breathing required concentration, cold enough that the heated flight suit barely took the edge off.
I’d checked my gear three times before stepping to the ramp—main chute, reserve, oxygen system, radio, the SIG in its thigh holster—then taken my position in the stick with the rest of the team.
Sterling had gone first—always did, that was the deal—followed by Rivera, Torres, then me bringing up the rear with the communications equipment in a padded case strapped to my chest. Five seconds between jumpers, enough to avoid mid-air collisions, not enough to lose visual contact.
The green light had come on. Sterling had stepped off the ramp without hesitation, his body disappearing into the darkness beyond the plane’s running lights.
Rivera followed, then Torres, then Harker, and then it was my turn—one step, two, and then nothing but air under my boots and the roar of the wind in my ears.
Freefall was its own kind of precision—body position dictating speed and direction, small adjustments changing your entire trajectory.
I’d fallen into the standard stable position automatically—belly to earth, arms and legs spread to maximize surface area, head up to maintain visual contact with the other jumpers.
Around me, the team had done the same, five dark shapes falling through the night in perfect formation.
At ten thousand, I’d checked my altimeter—still falling, still on course, the pasture I’d selected as our landing zone just visible as a darker patch against the surrounding terrain.
At two thousand feet, I’d pulled—right hand reaching for the ripcord, the familiar jolt as the chute deployed, then the sudden silence as the freefall ended and the controlled descent began.
Around me, four other chutes had opened in sequence—Sterling first, then Rivera, Torres, and Harker, each canopy catching the starlight as it filled with air.
The ground had come up fast—as it always did on a HALO—the dark shape of the pasture resolving into individual features: tall grass bent by the wind, the silver thread of a creek cutting across the eastern edge, the darker line of trees beyond.
I’d flared at fifty feet, killing my forward momentum, then hit the grass in a clean PLF roll—feet, calf, thigh, hip, shoulder—the impact traveling up my body in a sequence I’d practiced a hundred times on drop zones across three continents.
I’d collapsed my chute in four practiced pulls—gathering the lines, bundling the canopy, securing the whole package with the straps from my harness. Around me, the team had done the same, five operators moving through the familiar post-jump routine with the efficiency of long practice.