“Confirm connectivity,” Adam ordered, and five “copies” came back at him. “Team one, on your mark.”
“Mark,” Cody replied, and Jamie set the timer on his watch as they continued to speed toward the access road used to approach the outpost from the highway.
“Satellite update,” Adam demanded.
“No change,” Jay replied from his computer station back at the JTT’s HQ. “Two targets on the east side of the building. Three known hostiles inside along with the objective.”
Shit.Almost three hours had passed since they’d discovered Summer had been abducted. Most of that time spent in the vehicles racing toward her location. And while Jay had been keeping them up to date on any movement around the exterior of the outpost, they had no way of seeing inside.
No way of knowing what Summer had been forced to endure in the hour since Marla Wagner had arrived. Jamie’s heart twisted, the pain a sharp knife between his ribs.
If anything happened to her…
Christ! He couldn’t stop thinking about it. Couldn’t stop picturing all the ways they could be hurting her. She was so God damn tiny. And fragile. Jesus. Why? Why had they taken her to begin with?
He had no fucking clue. Nobody did. They hadn’t had time to do a deep dive, but nothing in either of the Wagners’ backgrounds suggested a problem. No illegal activity. No drugs. No shady friends. No financial struggles.
They hadn’t found any obvious political association to Jonas Johnson, connection to Dominion, or involvement with the Imperium Council either. As far as they could tell from their limited search, the governor appeared squeaky clean.
And guaranteed, Summer hadn’t done anything wrong.
She was a nanny, for Christ’s sake.
Sweet. Young. Innocent.
His.
Fuuuck. If anyone so much as touched a hair on her head—
“You good?” Adam asked, looking over his shoulder.
“Five by five,” he replied, his adrenaline spiking as Chase slowed the truck, cut the headlights, and turned onto the snow-covered lane leading to the isolated building where his girl waited.Hang on, baby.I’m coming.Just a few more minutes now.
The truck bucked and bounced on the pitted road, and he had to grab the handle above his head to keep from smashing his head off the roof.
“Marker two,” Chase said, coming to a stop at the last bend in the road and leaving them out of sight of the cabin.
In three seconds flat, Adam and Jamie were out in the cold, boots on the ground and rifles slung over their shoulders as they pulled down face masks and adjusted equipment. “Ready?”
With his knee shot full of cortisone to dull the pain, and his leg jammed into a heavy-duty brace to support his weight, Jamie was more than ready to go and get his girl. He didn’t give a shit if he did more damage, so long as he got Summer back safe and sound, he didn’t care if he ever walked normal again.
He gave a thumbs up, and a crisp nod from Adam later, the two of them fell into a slow jog up the center of the lane, leaving Chase behind to watch the vehicle and their backs.
“Got you on satellite,” Jay said. “Team one closing in on targets one and two. Team two one hundred yards out and moving into position.”
Adam signaled, and they veered off the road and into the tree cover on the right. The terrain more difficult to navigate here, he had to work harder to keep up, his breaths sawing in and out of his lungs as they trudged through the knee-deep snow.
“Team two in view,” Adam said, stopping on the edge of the clearing and pulling his night vision goggles into place.
Jamie did the same, and the world lit up green. A quick sweep, and he took in the building, the parked Toyota Sequoia, and the two men huddled together at the side of the outpost furthest from their vantage point.
“Confirming we’ve got clean line of sight on two armed assholes,” Cody said.
“Drop them,” Adam ordered, and three seconds later, they watched both men die from headshots nobody heard.
“Targets neutralized,” Grant said as the lifeless bodies dropped to the ground, folding in on themselves like wet paper. “Moving into secondary position.”
“Let’s roll,” Adam said, his rifle up and aimed at the front of the building.
