“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 teammembers. 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 bya 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 tothe ranch, the approach to the farmhouse, the moment when I’d see Jackson again.
It would have to be enough.
* * * *
