He isn’t asking.
He’s reminding me what the mission is.
And he’s right.
We aren’t there to debate.
We aren’t there to admire her conviction.
We aren’t there to save the world.
We’re there to extract three Americans and get out before Iran burns down around us.
Simple.
Except the missions that look simple on paper are usually the ones that leave blood on your hands.
Hours later, boots hit dirt under a moonless sky.
The air is dry. Cold. Sharp enough to cut the inside of your lungs. We move fast and low, gear tight, weapons checked, shadows among shadows as we cross hostile ground with nothing but night overhead and war breathing in the distance.
Somewhere beyond the ridge, artillery rolls like thunder.
By dawn, smoke stains the horizon.
By noon, we’ve lost two drone windows and changed routes twice.
By evening, we’re in position above the village.
What’s left of it.
The clinic is a half-collapsed schoolhouse ringed with rubble, patched tarps, and the desperate kind of hope people build when they’ve run out of options. Kids move like ghosts between the walls. Women carry buckets. Men with hollow faces scan the roads with ancient rifles and no illusion that they could stop what’s coming.
I raise the binoculars.
And there she is.
Dr. Olivia Taylor.
She’s in blue scrubs under a dirt-caked jacket, sleeves shoved to the elbows, hair falling out of its knot as she kneels beside a boy on a blanket in the yard. She presses her hand to his shoulder, speaking low and steady while blood stains the fabric wrapped around his chest.
Even from this distance, I can see it.
The exhaustion.
The fury.
The absolute refusal to give up.
Then a truck backfires somewhere down the road.
Half the camp flinches.
Olivia doesn’t.
She just lifts her head, scanning the street with those sharp eyes.
Like she’s already daring death to come find her.
