CHARLIE ONE
SAMI A. ABRAMS
CHAPTER 1
FBI Secure Remote Command Node, Undisclosed Location
Tuesday on the East Coast– 1850 Hours
Code Name: Raven
Jade Mitchell—code name Raven—sat motionless in front of her forty-nine-inch curved monitor. Charlie Team’s four thermal signatures on her screen never wavered. The glow of the display cast long shadows across her dimly lit office walls. Her hands hovered above the keyboard despite the chaos crawling beneath her skin. A familiar sensation, but not unusual under those circumstances. Outside in the open—yes. Behind her computer, tucked inside her house—not so much.
She closed her eyes and blew out a long breath. Charlie Team, minus Xander, their pilot, had entered the area and made progress toward the objective.
Jade forced her shoulders back, adjusted her headset, and switched her attention to the target. “Charlie One, comms are live. I’ve got what I assume is Echo Team’s five thermals in the southeast quadrant of the compound. Grid Lima-Seven. No movement for the last three hours.”
“Copy.” Charlie One—Liam’s voice—came through steady and familiar. Liam McKnight didn’t rattle. Not in war zones. Not in blackout zones. Not even when the only intel came from someone like her—a voice behind a screen. Not a face on the ground.
“Raven,” he said again, quieter this time, “you sure about this?”
She leaned her head back and stared at the ceiling. Was she sure? Not entirely.
The data wasn’t conclusive. But honestly, it never was in her line of work. The contractor code she’d flagged had looked like a glitch. That’s what they told her—whathetold her. The man had the clearance to bury reports like hers in review limbo. But why? She knew what she saw. Someone had tampered with experimental soldier tech. The evidence proved the person had hijacked the communication encryption, making the wearable systems that should have been untraceable, visible to anyone with the special code.
Then a week ago, Delta Force’s Echo Team vanished mid-op. Not even a distress ping.
She scraped her teeth over her bottom lip. It had taken all of her skills, but she’d found them. “I’m sure enough.”
“Raven?” Charlie One’s tone questioned her sincerity. The man whom she’d never met knew her better than anyone else ever had.
“Fine. I’m positive.” Truth was, she’d never been more certain of anything. This wasn’t a random mission failure. This was deliberate. Someone wanted those men off the map. But the why continued to elude her.
When no one on the STRIKE—Special Tactics & Reconnaissance for Intelligence, Covert Engagement—Task Force listened, she contacted BlackKnight Security, aka Charlie Team, when she’d discovered Echo’s location. Charlie Team,an off-the-book black ops private security company formed by Liam McKnight himself, hadn’t doubted her for a second. They’d grabbed their gear and jumped on a plane.
“The heat signatures are clustered and stationary. My guess? Restrained. Possibly unconscious.” Jade focused on the task. “Structure’s primitive. Stone foundation, partial roof collapse on one side. No automated defenses, no electronic surveillance. It’s a ghost site.”
“Copy. Any guards?” Liam asked.
“Negative. But the compound’s been active. Supply trucks came in two hours ago. Staged like they want it to look deserted.” She hesitated. “You’re being baited.”
“Good thing I brought a blade.”
The faintest smile tugged at her lips. Typical Liam. But it didn’t erase the weight in her chest.
This mission had no backup. No official satellite oversight. No extraction team. Only the team’s own pilot, Xander Maddox—Charlie Five. And Liam’s crew—Dax, Boone, and Rafe—along with her voice on a secure uplink.
If things went sideways, no one would come for them. No one except her knew they were even in country. And then there was the missing Delta Force team.
She swallowed hard. “I should have fought harder for an official rescue.”
“They didn’t listen, and we refuse to let Echo rot in some hole. We both know waiting for the bureaucracy gets people killed.”
Guilt sucker punched her. She should’ve escalated her concerns. She’d waited when someone buried her flagged report. And then again, when her gut screamed that something was off, she didn’t push harder.
Now, Echo Team—Five elite operatives—were off-grid, and she was ninety-nine percent sure they were locked inside that crumbling stone prison.
Alive and probably broken. But not dead. At least not yet.
