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The sun didn’t rise until 0800 in Latvia this time of the year, which meant daylight was around the corner, making it minutes until the sun was fully fucking aroused, showering light down over us.
The port near our target location was already too crowded for us to blend in and enter that way. I’d had no time to locate a helo for us to make a fast-rope entrance, not that it would’ve been the best option anyway. No chance we could make a HAHO insertion happen, let alone find a suitable plane to jump from. That left us with a risky on-foot ground approach.
Griffin was on overwatch on the building across the street as our lead sniper. Easton was our radio comms guy. Teddy, a former EOD once attached to SEAL Team Three, was our lead breacher. The rest of us, along with Dallas, were two seconds away from hitting the closed-down and abandoned clothing factory one kilometer from Riga Port Terminal.
We were suited and masked up in black. Nothing identifiable other than the color of our eyes. NODs—night vision—weren't needed with daylight on our asses, and there was only one entrance for us to breach.
“This is Alpha Two,” Griffin came over comms. “You’re all clear from my vantage point. Over.”
“This is Alpha One, roger. Out.” I motioned for my team to move into positions, then took a knee, readying my M4. “Breacher up.”
Teddy began wrapping small pieces of det cord around the doorframe of the entrance while we kept eyes on the parking lot and neighboring empty buildings for movement.
Fuse lit. A small bang. And Teddy had us in so we could move on target.
Entering first, I looked around, finding no immediate threats. I patted Dallas’s head, giving him the go-ahead to move ahead of me. The camera attached to his brain bucket—aka, helmet—was sending a real-time signal of video footage to the screen strapped to my wrist.
Dallas stayed ahead of me, and every time he cleared a room, the team flowed in behind and checked again, doing a secondary sweep.
No working security cameras visible in the hall or rooms from what I could tell. And aside from mannequins and trash on the floors, there were no signs of life.
The silence on level one had me on edge, worried Alyona had played us and we were walking into a trap—or even worse. That we were too late and Diana was already inside one of the hundreds of containers on one of the dozens of ships docked at the port.
I lifted my fist to hold position the second Dallas signaled to me he heard something. He stopped at the bottom of a metal staircase, ears up and tail moving. I directed the team to stack up and move into formation.
As we crept up the steps, I spotted the door up top open like an invitation. They were more than likely waiting for us after hearing the breaching charge go off.
Once up top, I opted not to send Dallas in ahead. Too risky. Instead, I ordered him to hold his position, then brought my back near the doorway in preparation to round the hall.
Clearing a tight corner with a rifle meant needing to remove the buttstock from my shoulder pocket. I punched it up over my shoulder to reduce the length by a foot, and the second I moved around the bend, I re-engaged to the normal position and fired at the first tango in sight.
My team followed me into the dark hall. Using my scope to paint the targets with a red laser, and the suppressor to conceal the flash and reduce noise, I took out the next target that appeared in the hall.
We peeled off every tango one by one as they emerged into view on that level, taking them out before they had a chance to return fire.
A moment later, my gun jammed, so I let the combat sling around my body catch it and went for my secondary, the pistol holstered at my side. I double-tapped the guy coming at me from the nearby room, then went inside, and my heart fucking stopped at the sight.
There were at least thirty terrified people huddled together on the floor.
Human trafficking pieces of garbage and their buyers were behind this, and all the other rooms over all the years, and the anger burned in my stomach right up into my throat.
But Diana— “She’s not here,” I said as I dialed in on that horrible reality.
“The other rooms are clear,” Teddy said on approach.
“Alpha Two,” I began over comms, “package is not here. No jackpot.”
“This is Alpha Two, that’s a good copy. Preparing for plan two,” Griffin announced, which meant we were heading for the port.
I went back into the hall in search of one of the masked tangos, hoping someone was still alive. Locating a moaning asshole holding his side from a gunshot wound, I lifted him toward my face by his vest, snarling, “Where. The. Fuck. Is. She?”
24
DIANA
My vision was blurry, more so from the drugs than the loss of my glasses, but . . . where were we going now?
Up until a few minutes ago, I’d been in a room full of other people, none of whom spoke English. The stench of our sweat and fear had soaked the walls and bled right into my pores.
