“I know.”He doesn’t let go.
“Reid—”
“Not yet,” Sully growls low with quiet.“We’re not ready.We go now, we compromise the approach and we get her killed.”
“They’re hurting her,” I say again, because I don’t have anything else.
“Yes,” Reid says, and his grip on my arm doesn’t ease.“Which means they don’t have what they want yet.They need her talking, Cole.They will not kill her until she talks.”
I stand in the tree line with my teammates restraining me, Tessa’s scream still ringing in my skull, and I make the hardest decision I’ve made in my life.
I relax my body.“You got thirty seconds,” I say, knowing that’s unreasonable.
“Two minutes,” Sully says, letting go of his hold on me.“We do this right.”
I release a long breath and put everything I’m feeling into a box that I must close up tight.I become who I was trained to be, because that’s what she needs from me right now.Not the man who loves her but the operator who’s going to save her.
“Josie,” I say.“Patrol cycle on the south guard.”
“He’s at the far end of his pattern,” she says immediately.“You have approximately three minutes twenty before he’s back in play.”
“Reid, south guard is yours.Sully, access road.Simultaneous on my mark.”I look at both of them.“Silent.Clean.We don’t alert the interior.”
They both nod.
“I’ll move to the cabin on your confirmations.Stack on the front.Sully comes around to the back after he’s secured his man.”I look at the structure through the trees.“Josie, the moment Reid and Sully are ready, I need you to loop the cabin’s exterior cameras.”
“Already working on it,” she says.“I’ll have them on a thirty-second delay.They’ll be watching old footage.”
“Dozer,” I say.
“Right here,” he says from Miami.
“Thank you for the suits.”
A pause.“Bring her home, Cole.”
I look at Reid.I look at Sully.Two of the best operators I’ve ever worked with, and I’ve worked with the best.We don’t say anything to one another, but it’s understood that they’re putting their lives on the line for someone I love.
They both nod to me and then dissolve into the dark, moving with the fluid silence of men who have done this in places far more unforgiving than a Cascade foothill property.I watch them go and then I move toward the cabin, low and fast through the tree line, closing the distance in the darkness.
Forty seconds is a long time to wait, but then Reid’s voice comes over the comms.“South guard is down.”
Another eighty seconds is an eternity, but I breathe a sigh of relief when I hear Sully’s voice.“Access road clear.”
“Cameras still on loop,” Josie says.“You’re blind to them.”
Now it’s showtime.
I run low to the cabin wall, trusting my teammates are approaching from their directions.I press my back to the exterior siding, listening to the muffled sound of voices inside just barely audible through the structure.I can’t make out words.
I creep to the front door, test the handle with two fingers.Unlocked, or close enough that it won’t matter.The wood looks thin.
Reid appears at my left shoulder, breathing controlled, rifle up, and then Sully ghosts around the south corner of the building.He holds up two fingers, then points toward the rear.
He’ll take the back door on my breach through the front.I nod and he disappears.
I look at Reid and he lifts his chin.I’m ready.
