I move my hand along Luke’s strong shoulder, adjusting the vest so it sits evenly on his body.
“Thanks,” he says as I pull one last piece of Velcro across his stomach and memories of my dad helping me with my own vest come flooding back to me. Once a month, Dad would run one of his drills with me in the basement using different situations. Hostage standoffs, bomb threats, terrorist take-downs, just to see how I’d react, what guns I would take, what martial arts skills I would use. All those Saturdays strapping on a vest I didn’t really need, loading a gun I wasn’t even going to shoot, sidestepping quietly through a house with no one inside, has all led to this moment. And now I’m ready for the real thing.
Luke, Eduardo, and I are suited up even though we’re staying in the truck. Eduardo behind the wheel, Luke and I monitoring the satellites and intel from CORE. We’re extreme backup. Sam actually used the word extreme like seventeen times when referring to us as backup. Sam, Laz, and Cooper will take down the guards and storm the barn.
“One mile from the field,” Eduardo’s voice comes over the computer monitors. “One mile.”
“All right, everyone have their earpieces in?” Sam asks from the back of the truck. She’s surrounded by monitors, watching the satellites, intercepting last-minute data, and talking directly with CORE.
The tiny blue light of my earpiece shines up at me from the palm of my hand. I slip it into my right ear so we can all hear one another.
“Thomas, are you online? What’s the latest?” Laz asks into his earpiece. There’s a small crack on the other end.
“Yes, I’m here,” Thomas answers. “From our satellite images, Torres went out to the barn around eight o’clock and stayed there for sixteen minutes before returning to the main house. It’s dark now so the images aren’t as clear, but it looks like several of the guards from around the house have started to make their way in for dinner. There should still be four guards around the barn. I don’t think Torres will let those guards leave their position for anything.”
“So all sources point to them still being inside the barn?” I ask, my voice carrying up to the tiny black microphone built into my earpiece.
“Affirmative,” Thomas replies. “And a word of caution; even if you disarm these guards, they most likely are concealing weapons too. With what happened at the airport in Kentucky, I’ve gotten full clearance from the higher-ups to shoot to kill.”
Shoot to kill, I repeat in my head. In just a few minutes, the team has full permission to take a life. I have never wanted to kill anyone. It’s the part of the job I’ve hated, the idea of being the hand that forces someone’s last breath. But tonight’s different. If it’s a choice between them or us—if it means my parents can go free—then let there be bodies and blood on the ground.
My pulse throbs anxious beats against my neck. My thigh and calf muscles begin to twitch and tingle and I have to stop myself from sprinting out the door of the moving truck. I lean my head against the metal wall and close my eyes. I breathe and try to focus on something to calm me down. Moments of my life filter through my brain. They’re not full memories, just flashes—Mom dressed in her cream robe, the squeak of Dad’s office chair, the clink of coffee cups on the kitchen counter, Mom’s biscuits in the oven, Dad’s paper on the island. They’re meaningless, mundane moments that now mean everything to me.
“Half a mile from target,” Eduardo updates us in our ears, flicking my eyes open.
“Everybody locked and loaded?” Sam asks, standing from behind the mountain of monitors.
Team members nod or answer, “Ready.”
“Luke, Reagan,” Sam says, stepping closer to us. “As soon as we’re out those doors, you guys are on. We’ll have cameras strapped to our helmets so you’ll be able to see. Do you remember how to work everything? Have any questions on what I’ve showed you?”
“No. We’ve got it,” I confirm.
“Silencers on?” Laz asks, twisting a silencer on his M4.
“All set,” Cooper answers, running his fingers along the smooth metal of his silencer. Everyone around me nods.
“Two hundred yards from target,” Eduardo says in my ear and I can feel the truck beginning to decrease its speed.