41. Rhett
RHETT
The dawn is cold and colorless. The valley still sits in shadow, quiet in the deceptive way places get before men start dying in them.
I’m lying prone beneath a screen of spruce and deadfall, with my rifle braced, and my radio against my shoulder.
It feels natural and familiar, except for the part where I’m constantly aware that Wren is two ridges back at Novak’s forward command post, close enough to hear the operation unfold, but too far for me to put my hands on her if things go sideways.
She’s with federal agents, well outside the projected engagement zone, but ready to help interpret the terrain in real time. She’s effective, but she’s also scared.
I saw it in her eyes before we left her there, though I don’t think anyone outside of my brothers and me would notice.
While agents with rifles and armor moved around her, she had her eyes fixed on the topo map, pointing out drainage that could distort radio reception and old game trails that Turner might have widened into escape corridors.
Her head was up, and her shoulders were square, but when I stepped close, I saw that her pupils were too wide, and her mouth was pressed flat.
“Listen to Novak,” I told her quietly.
She looked up at me. “Don’t give me orders because you’re scared.”
“I’m giving you orders because I’m scared,” I said.
Just for a second, the hard line of her mouth eased. “Then take my orders: Come back.”
I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to drag her a million miles away and keep her there until this is over. I wanted things I had no business wanting, but I only touched the inside of her wrist with two fingers to feel her pulse beneath her skin. “We’ll be back.”
“All three of you,” she said, and it was also an order.
Boone stepped in, his medic bag already over his shoulder, pressed his mouth to her forehead, and said something I didn’t catch.
Cade stood behind him with a lethal quiet that meant he was already halfway into the work. He touched the back of Wren’s neck and squeezed.
I cupped her jaw and kissed her once, hard, but brief. A claim and a vow.
“Go end this,” she said.
Now, with the sun rising over the valley, I intend to do exactly that.
Static clicks in my ear. “Forward command to all elements,” Novak says. “Check in.”
The DEA assault team answers first in their units: Alpha One, Alpha Two, and Bravo set.
Then Cade’s voice comes through, “Smoke set.” He’s on the east ridge, tucked into an overlook with a scoped rifle and enough elevation to see the staging area’s northern edge.
He picked the position, and Novak listened because he’s smart enough to recognize a man who understands the terrain better than a satellite image.
“Mouth set,” Boone says. He’s with the DEA entry team near the lower drainage.
I key my radio. “Prime set.”
“Copy,” Novak answers. “All elements hold for final confirmation.”
The sound of engines breaks the dawn’s silence. There’s a diesel truck already sitting near Turner’s prefab command structure, then another comes in from the west, then another.
Turner comes out of the command structure like a man stepping onto his porch to greet business partners. His posture reads entitlement, like he thinks these mountains belong to him because he found a way to profit from them.
“Forward command,” I murmur. “Visual on Turner. Center clearing. Gray jacket. Moving toward incoming vehicles.”
“Copy, Prime,” Novak says. Less than a minute later, he comes back. “Prime, Dr. Hollis confirms the western vehicle route matches the corridor she flagged from displacement data. Likely secondary access connects to drainage south-southwest of your position.”
Wren was right.
“Copy,” I say. “I have eyes on the lower spur. No movement yet.”
“Smoke has two armed men on north berm,” Cade says. “One behind engine block. One in timber pocket left of structure.”
Alpha will be exposed if they advance too far without knowing the exact angle. “Alpha, Prime,” I say. “Adjust ten meters east before crossing the dry wash. North berm has interlocking view on your current route.”
“Copy. Adjusting east.”
A short time later, Novak’s voice comes across with the order to execute, and the assault begins with a flashbang that cracks open the morning.
The sound slams through the mountains in a black burst as DEA vehicles surge from their concealed spots on the logging road below. Agents advance in pairs, rifles up.
Turner’s men react like the professionals we suspected they are, and gunfire snaps from the berm, from the timber pocket, and from behind one of the SUVs.
Alpha drops into cover behind the dry wash as Bravo angles in from the south. Boone moves in with them. “Mouth with Bravo,” he reports. “Contact front. Two behind black SUV. One elevated near fuel tank.”
The fuel tank sits beside the command structure, half screened by plywood. A man is tucked beside it, using the metal as cover like a desperate man.
“Smoke,” I say.
“Seen.” Cade’s rifle cracks from the ridge and the man near the tank drops out of sight. “Fuel tank threat down,” he says.
The DEA hits the clearing from two sides, and one of the cartel representatives, who gets trapped between their own vehicles and federal rifles, bolts toward the treeline. A DEA agent tackles him before he can reach cover, and another agent is on them a second later, knee planted, cuffs out.
“Forward command to Prime,” Novak says. “Dr. Hollis identifies an old culvert below the south road bend. Possible concealed movement route. Can you confirm?”
I shift my aim south and scan through the optic. I don’t see anything at first, then a branch moves, and it’s not the wind. “Confirmed,” I say. “Two armed near culvert. Low crawl toward Bravo’s flank.”
Boone’s voice cuts in. “Mouth copies. Bravo, watch your right. Drainage, drainage.”
Rounds snap from the culvert, and a DEA agent grunts over comms like a man hit hard enough to lose his breath.
Wren’s voice breaks through in the background at command. “Who was hit?”
“Mouth moving to wounded.” Boone’s voice is all business. “Cover right. I need cover right.”
He breaks from behind a stump and slides down into the drainage with two DEA agents laying fire over him. He’s too exposed.
My hands tighten around my rifle. “Smoke,” I say.
“On it.” Cade fires once, and a man near the culvert jerks backward. He fires again, and another threat disappears into the ditch and doesn’t come back out.
“Right flank clear,” Cade says.
Five long seconds later, Boone gives a report on the wounded agent and says he’s moving him to hard cover.
I can’t help but think of Wren, who has to stand and listen to Boone treat another man while he’s under fire. She’s probably wondering if anyone has eyes on Cade, or on me.
She’s frightened but still doing useful work. She’s furious but disciplined. She’s our woman.
The fight tightens around the command structure, where Turner’s defenders fall back in organized increments, one covering while another moves.
“Prime,” Novak says. “Thermal drone shows three heat signatures moving inside the structure. One exiting rear.”
Wren identified a potential escape corridor on the maps two nights ago, after finding a break in the vegetation on Cade’s recon photos. Now, it looks like Turner’s using it.
“Smoke,” I say. “Rear exit.”
“Two coming out. One matches Turner’s build. Two escorts,” Cade reports.
“Can you take the escorts?”
After a pause, he says, “Negative on clear shot. Too much cross movement.”
I’m already moving. With my rifle tight against my chest, I slide down the back side of the ridge. I keep my breathing slow as the world narrows to slope, timber, road, and the expected line of a fleeing man. “Prime moving to intercept,” I say.
Novak answers immediately. “Prime, hold position. Federal units can—”
“Negative. I’m closest to the spur. If Turner hits the road, we lose him.”
“Do not engage beyond containment unless fired upon,” Novak barks back.
“Copy.” I don’t tell him Turner won’t get past me because some things don’t need to go over comms.