Hunt extended the envelope, his expression gentler now. “They didn’t waste any time. Your orders came through.”
Her heartbeat kicked sharply. She took the envelope with hands she forced not to shake. The paper was heavy gauge. Hername was clear, Air Force crest faintly watermarked. She slid a finger under the seal and opened it.
Hunt stayed right there. A silent support in a suddenly unsteady room.
Shannon unfolded the single-page dispatch and scanned the header. Then the assignment line. “Forward Operating Base Anaba – Niger, Africa.”
Her breath hitched. Not out of fear—it was something deeper. Something like gravity. It was the Sahel. It was where the intel threads Dante and Ford were chasing led. It was where Bravo was bleeding for answers. It was where Krueger had been flown.
Her pulse thundered. “Niger,” she said, as if repeating it would make it less surreal.
“Yes,” Hunt replied. “Fast deployment. Rotary-wing support. MEDEVAC rotation and recon flights. They’re short pilots.”
“You made some calls to check it out.”
“Yes.”
She swallowed. “Because the region’s heating up.”
“Exactly.”
She kept reading.Report date: 10 days. Unit: 449th AEW Forward Detachment.
Aircraft assignment: HH-60W Black Hawk. Initial operating responsibility: Extraction and evacuation in AO Charlie-2. U.S. Africa Command.
Her heart stopped at that line. Her area of operation—Charlie-2—was where the network was. Where Ford and Dante were. Where everything was spiraling toward a confrontation no briefing had fully prepared anyone for.
Hunt watched her, his expression softening. “You’re ready. More than ready. But I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t one of the tougher deployments.”
Shannon folded the orders and held them tightly in both hands. “Does Ian know?”
“Yes.”
“And my dad?”
“He suspected your orders were coming,” Hunt said. “He hasn’t seen them, but he didn’t try to block any of them.”
She nodded slowly. Her father wouldn’t. Not when she’d fought twenty times harder to get back in the air than anyone knew.
“Does… Dante know?”
Hunt hesitated then shook his head. “No. He’s dark. No comms.”
Something in her chest twisted, sharply and warmly at the same time. She exhaled through it. “So,” she said, steadying, “this is it.”
“This is the job. And you’ve earned every step that brought you here.”
She looked down at the orders again. Stared at the wordNigeruntil it blurred. Then she whispered, almost to herself, “I’m going to the same place he is.”
She didn’t say it out of fear. She said it as a promise.
Shannon foundher father exactly where she knew he’d be, inside the glass-walled operations room, sleeves rolled up, tie loosened, staring at a screen covered in spreadsheets and comms logs. He was mid-conversation with Martin Bailey on a screen when he saw her through the glass.
Mike turned everything black. Martin gave him a two-finger salute. The door clicked shut behind him. “Shan?”
She held the envelope at her side. Her throat felt tight, but her voice came out steady. “My orders came.”
His jaw tightened, not with surprise, just inevitability settling in behind his eyes. “Where?”
