That was the plan anyway.
Dropping down through the elements, the Thunderbird in me wanted to stream faster. The mythical bird wanted no constraints and no ties to this political world where lines were drawn in the sand—black, white, and every shade of gray in between.
It wanted to fly.
Being Lakota meant I listened to the voices of my ancestors.
Family.
Swooping into a slipstream air current, I remembered mine. The people and the place I’d told Hunter about, finally. Some still alive. Some buried. Memories and visions surrounded me, ghosts as close as the cloudburst I broke through. I’d hidden everything away for so goddamn long sometimes I wasn’t even sure who I was anymore.
Hunter had thought I had no ties to this earthly life.
Truth was the bonds of this life tried to tether me to the land of my people.
I’d slipped free of the knot. I’d flown away. I’d left everything that mattered.
Adjusting my direction as the lights of Beirut swam below me, I checked my gages.
Fuck it. I have a new family now.
After last spring when Hunter and I had lost our entire team and then some to Victor Valderas and the Tampa Bay Outlaws, Hunter had gone off-rez. That was how I’d hooked up with this crew—The Three Stooges.
Storm: transport specialist and supply hoarder extraordinaire. He organized our shit, decided when we were running low, at which point he took over doling out water, weapons, ammo, MREs like we were broke bastards standing in the food line.
Bane: lead medic, which was laughable, because the dude literally had no bedside manner whatsoever and rarely strung more than three words together.
Justice assisted Bane with the stitches and—you know—life-saving emergency measures when needed, because it was a well-known fact Storm couldn’t stand to be in the same room as Bane longer than necessary, and I was just an unsympathetic asshole.
In addition to being all Red Cross gung ho, Justice was tech guru, master hacker, and communications expert.
Aside from me, he was the most talkative of the bunch, and the youngest.
Me? I was the infiltrator, able to blend into any scenario. Oh, and of course, explosives were my thing. Except tonight I wouldn’t be the one packing the boom boom.
It was the perfect job for me. No attachments. I could remain inside my emotionless bubble, firing off whenever anyone got too close to me.
A new team made up of men I’d worked with in the past here and there, but due to the deep shadow nature of this particular op, I was pretty much a lone wolf. Justice and Bane had been dropped outside the hot zone—on-call in case I got caught in hot water.
Those two bastards were probably at a spa getting manscaped.
Cunts.
This mission was so far off the record it didn’t even exist. Not on paper, not in the headlines, and definitely not to-be-read in an unauthorized biography.
That was the nature of this beast I loved. What we did was underground and precise. Carefully planned and executed.
But I didn’t mind thinking outside the X-Ops box one little bit when things got hairy or the gunfire came on strong.
In this kill or be killed existence, I preferred to kill.
There was no incoming flak as I soared through the night. A good sign. I was superstitious like that. I noted landmarks, checked my compass, and, finally, ripped the oxygen hose free so I could gulp straight air down my windpipe. The elements buffeted my descent, cushioning me, carrying me to my final destination.
I rolled into the soft landing of my impact twenty-two klicks north of Beirut. Only a cliff face separated me from the famous Casino du Liban. Funny. The high-class gambling establishment had been a 007 feature. There was no one as suave as James Bond on any of my missions.
Bright pink beams of light speared out across the Mediterranean water from the polished structure above.
I huddled against the cliff side, silently disengaging my chute and swaddling it into a ball I sandwiched between two rocks. Peeling off my tough outer gear, I heaved a grunt of relief when I dragged away the polypropylene long johns underneath. That shit made my balls itch.
I stashed my gear beneath the waterproof parachute, tucked away my beloved pair of Smith & Wesson 686s, and pulled out a standard-issue handgun.
Luckily I could pass as Arabian with my black hair and dark eyes and darker skin tone. Dressing in the custom-made uniform of black cargos and lightweight Kevlar—getting ready to rock the rock climbing—I knew I could pull this shit off. Unlike pretty boy Justice and his GQ/GI Joe looks.
I timed my watch and started the ascent.
Per intel, the target would arrive with a full torso, ceramic bomb at eleven twenty-five.
The target.
Sheikah Majedah Chehab.