Chapter 14 #2
"We draw them out." Raven's voice is calm and measured, the voice of a woman who's been turning this over and has already made her decision. "They're looking for me. Alvarez knows I'm the key witness against him, and Harlan knows I've been asking questions about the ranches. We use that."
"Use it how?" Beckett's eyes narrow.
"I walk into town. Let myself be seen. Let them take me.
" Her expression doesn't waver. "They won't kill me immediately.
They'll need to know how much I've uncovered and who I've shared it with.
That interrogation window gives you time to follow them back to wherever they're operating and take the entire network down at its source. "
The kitchen goes very still.
I don't move. I don't react. I watch Raven lay out a plan that would put her in the hands of people who've already tried to kill her once, and I wait for the room to catch up to what she's proposing.
Knox breaks the silence first. "That's a suicide mission."
"It's the only approach that gets us what we still need," Raven says, and her voice doesn't rise or sharpen.
She's not arguing. She's briefing. "We've got video evidence against Harlan and encrypted emails tying him to Alvarez.
But we don't have the cartel's operational center, and we don't have hard proof connecting Alvarez to their leadership.
If I'm inside their operation, I can get you both. "
"By letting yourself get kidnapped." Beckett's voice has gone flat.
"By giving them what they want on terms I've chosen, not theirs.
" Raven looks at each man in turn, making eye contact and holding it.
"I wear a wire and a tracker. The team follows at a distance they won't detect.
When they move me to their coordination point, you come in with overwhelming force.
We dismantle the entire network in a single operation. "
Hawk tilts his head from his position near the window. "They'll search you. First thing they do is strip you down and check for surveillance equipment."
"Then we use technology they won't find with a pat-down.
" Raven doesn't hesitate. "GPS tracker sewn into clothing seams. Micro-transmitter concealed in a button or embedded in jewelry.
I've run undercover operations in hostile environments before.
I know how to carry a cover and I know how to sell it. "
The room turns to me. Every man in the kitchen is waiting to see how I'll respond to the woman I claimed in front of all of them two days ago volunteering to walk into a cartel's hands.
I let the silence stretch. Let them sit in it. Let Raven see that I'm not reacting emotionally, not refusing out of instinct, not losing my grip on the operational picture.
When I finally speak, my voice is level and stripped of everything except the command underneath it. "I have conditions."
Raven's eyes lock onto mine, and I catch the flash of surprise before she buries it. She came into this expecting a fight. She expected me to shut it down.
"We control the timing." I hold her gaze. "We control the location. We control every variable we can identify before you set foot on that street." I turn to Torque. "How fast can you source a GPS tracker and micro-transmitter built to survive a hostile search?"
Torque considers for a moment. "A day, maybe two.
I've got contacts who supply military-grade surveillance equipment to private contractors and agency operations.
Tracker sewn into a jacket lining, transmitter embedded in a watch or a piece of jewelry.
Nothing exotic. Just professional-grade hardware that won't fail under pressure. "
"Get it done." I turn to Cipher. "I need you monitoring every channel she's carrying. If she goes dark for more than thirty seconds, I want to know about it."
"Understood. I’d recommend drones, too," he answers. "I can follow from the air."
"Done. Rook, you're on overwatch. I want sniper positions mapped and supplied along every likely transport route. If this goes sideways, you take the shot."
Rook nods once. He doesn't need more than that.
"Hawk, rapid response. If she needs extraction, you're the first one through the door."
"Copy."
My attention shifts to my brothers. "Knox, Beckett. Counter-surveillance. I want every cartel observation point in this county identified and accounted for. Nothing moves without us seeing it first."
Knox's jaw works for a long moment before he speaks. "Are you serious? You're actually agreeing to this."
"I'm agreeing to a controlled operation with parameters I can accept," I say.
"We don't have the resources to storm every cartel staging point at once, and we don't have the time to wait for federal coordination to catch up.
Raven's assessment is correct. This is the fastest path to their operational center, and it's the only one that gives us a shot at taking down the full network. "
Raven's eyes sharpen, and the way she reads me in this moment is the way she'd read a fellow agent laying out a tactical plan. Not a man making a decision with his heart.
Good. That's exactly what she needs to see.
"When?" Rook asks.
"Torque sources the tech first. Then we map positions, run a full rehearsal with contingency protocols for every scenario we can anticipate. When I'm satisfied we've accounted for every variable within our control, we execute." I pause. "That means days, not hours."
"That gives the cartel time to move more assets out of the area," Raven says.
"It gives us time to do this right." I hold her gaze and let the weight of what I'm about to say settle before I deliver it. "You walk into town without full operational support behind you, you die. We do this on my timeline, or we don't do it at all."
She meets my eyes for a long count, then gives a single nod.
I scan the room. "Everyone clear on assignments?"
A chorus of affirmatives.
"Then get to work. We reconvene here tomorrow, first light, for a full operational briefing. Dismissed."
The team moves out with quiet efficiency.
Rook and Torque head for the door first, already talking logistics in low voices.
Hawk follows, pausing to check the tree line through the window before stepping outside.
Cipher packs his equipment with care, casting one last look at the frozen frame of Harlan walking out of the Pritchard barn before he closes the file and shoulders his bag.
Knox lingers near the counter after the door shuts behind the team. Beckett stays beside him.
"You sure about this?" Knox keeps his voice low enough that only the three of us can hear it.
"No." I meet my brother's eyes without flinching. "But it's the right call."
"The right call gets her killed if one variable breaks the wrong way."
"Every variable going wrong is what we plan for," I say. "That's the point of preparation."
Knox holds my gaze for another beat, then nods and heads for the door. Beckett follows without a word, and the cabin empties until it's just Raven and me standing on either side of the kitchen island.
She's still watching me with an expression I've seen on operators who've just had a risky proposal approved against their own expectations.
"You didn't fight me on it."
"No."
"I expected you to."
"I know." I move to the counter and pour coffee from the pot Cipher made earlier. "You made the right call. I'm not going to override sound tactics because the risk makes me uncomfortable."
Her eyes narrow. "But you don’t like it."
"I don't like any of this." I set the mug down and meet her gaze. "But we're not running on what I like. We're running on what works within the window we've got."
She studies my face for a long moment, and I let her look. Let her see the control, the calculation, the absence of panic. This is who I am when the mission sits above everything else, and she needs to see it clearly, because in a few days she's going to be trusting her life to it.
"A few days," she says. "That's tight."
"It's enough." I check my watch. "You should eat. Tomorrow we start rehearsals."
"Jesse." She doesn't move. "Thank you."
I look at her across the counter. This woman I've wanted for a decade, who walked back into my life at the worst possible moment.
She's proposing to hand herself over to people who want her dead because she looked at every option available and chose the one that gives us the best chance of ending this.
"Don't thank me yet," I say. "We haven't pulled it off."
"We will."
Her certainty should steady me. Instead, it sinks into my gut with a weight I can't shift, because the last time I felt this sure about an operation, I buried two men I'd trained with and carried the third out on my back.
She heads for the shower, and I wait until I hear the water running before I pull out my phone and step onto the porch.
Morning sun is climbing high over the hills, painting the landscape in sharp relief. I dial Carmichael's private line and wait.
He picks up on the second ring. "Jesse."
"I need additional assets." No preamble. Carmichael has never needed it. "Operators who aren't on the team manifest. Experienced, discreet, and capable of working independently without coordination from the primary unit."
A pause. Keys click in the background.
"How many?"
"Three, maybe four. Small footprint." I scan the tree line, more out of habit than concern. "I need them positioned in Fredericksburg without the team's knowledge. Separate chain of command. Separate objectives."
"What's the operation?"
"Raven is proposing to use herself as bait to draw out the cartel and locate their operational center. The team reviewed the plan this morning and agreed to run it. Execution window is three to four days."
The silence on the line stretches longer than any pause Carmichael has given me before. When he speaks again, his voice has dropped a register. "You want shadow assets as insurance."