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The team went silent.
Joel looked down at his shoes, inhaled, and exhaled as he raised his head. The night before they left for this assignment, he and his wife, Sydney, had what was probably the most significant argument of their on-again, off-again relationship. Their “seesaw love,” as his sister often put it.
Back when he was an FBI agent, he’d gotten shot in the middle of D.C. after being caught in a turf war between the Serbian mafia and the Bratva. The way the case was handled left a bad taste in his mouth, so he took a hiatus from the Bureau. During that hiatus, Julien contacted him about an opportunity based on how well they’d worked together in North Carolina.
Once he learned what he would be doing and the purpose this new role would add to his life—along with the hefty payouts—he didn’t hesitate, which was how he ended up here. However, whenever he came home with a fresh wound or a blank look in his eyes that lasted days on end, he saw how it affected Sydney.
They’d been together, in some capacity, since high school. Still, no matter how long they spent away from each other, she never took off his ring—first promise, then engagement, and finally, wedding—and he was sure he would die with his on his finger. Everything he’d done in his life, since the age of sixteen, he’d done to keep her happy.
Whatever Sydney wanted, he gave her.
As an FBI agent, he wasn’t able to give her big ass houses and the luxury lifestyle she was accustomed to. Her father, Robert Donovan, was a legendary boxer whose name was spoken in the same vein as Ali, Sugar Ray, and Foreman. Her mother, Aida Louise Alcott-Donovan, had an Emmy sitting on their mantel next to her Tony Award.
Now, with this new career, he could give her everything he’d dreamed of giving her—everything Mr. Donovan had assured him he would never be able to provide for his “accustomed to a comfortable lifestyle” daughter. The middle-income, middle-class kid who fell in love with the pretty rich girl before she ever noticed him had measured up.
Finally.
But the more Benarld talked, the more a gnawing ache settled in his gut. His work with the FBI had made a difference for the nation in many ways for which he would forever be grateful, but this work gave himglobalpurpose. The guys he fought alongside weren’t his teammates; they’d quickly become his brothers. As long as they needed him, he planned to be there.
John’s finger landed on the map, pulling him out of his thoughts. “Here is Malanje,” John said. “And the reports are coming out of southern Kalandula.”
Dez leaned over the map. “That’s a good four hundred kilometers from here. What’s that, about a five-hour trip?”
“Yes. The plan is to rest up here and then head in later tonight to this encampment.” John’s finger moved less than an inch to the left. “This is where we received the first surveillance images of children in captivity.”
“Age,” Giorgio said.
John bristled, the natural reaction most had to the sound of Giorgio’s voice. “The youngest, we believe, might be around seven. Right now, the boys are being used to transport arms and supplies. Recces intercepted a shipment of AK-47s they believe was headed that way.”
“What’s their end goal?” Joel asked.
“We believe it’s related to guerilla warfare whose purpose is to funnel its way into the more developed areas of Angola,” Benarld said. “An act of domestic terrorism perpetrated on foreigners. Preliminary reports have shown there to be more girls than boys, and we believe this is the case for two reasons. The first reason is that, by nature, people are less likely to expect violence from women and girls, and women are more likely to work in domestic positions that put them close to foreigners. The other reason is that it may be easier to reprogram girls on account of them being left out of demobilization and reintegration projects after the civil war.”
“Was the belief that they didn’t need the programs since they didn’t participate in the brunt of the combat?” Gage asked.
Benarld hummed an affirmative. “The girls were mostly used as porters, spies, cooks, and were aligned as soldier wives, so this wasn’t seen as similar to the trauma that affected the boys, who were holding the guns. Unfortunately, that left a generational blight on many of the female children in the region who are now adult women and have had no chance to resolve that trauma, which allows it to repeat, leaving the girls categorically more susceptible.”
The silence returned.
The ache in Joel’s stomach grew.
Denis, after earlier being called over to one of the tents, returned to the table. “Your team was called out because our interference could lead to a political disturbance,” he said. “This situation cannot go public. One, it would hurt Angola’s image, and two, it might cause countries to withdraw their trade agreements.”
“Which could lead to them trying to take the oil by force,” Gage said.
Denis pointed in Gage’s direction. “Correct. More conflict is the last thing Angola needs right now. It would end us, and I would die for my country. I refuse to watch it perish while I have breath in my body.”
Joel released another exhale.
John tapped the map. “In this particular encampment, we estimate a minimum of one hundred children, ninety percent of them girls. They’re a sort of pipeline, and we anticipate this raid will allow us to tap into the more significant figureheads behind the entire operation.”
Dez, brows narrowed, traced the path of an orange line woven between two forested areas. “From what we were told, Recces and Angolan Special Forces have already taken a position here. We can use this back road to secure the rest of the tactical perimeter. Has contact been made on the inside yet?”
Denis, John, and Benarld let them know that there’d been no contact with anyone inside as of that moment. It was the initial plan, trying to negotiate a hostage rescue agreement, but every attempt fell flat.
Dez raised his head. “And the building?”
Benarld waved them over to a scale model of the building where the encampment was located. Julien took a scan of the model, and soon, they had a 3D projection of the blueprint on his tablet screen. While Julien, Giorgio, John, and Denis looked at the screen, the rest of the team studied the miniature rendering.
