PROLOGUE
Panjshir Valley,Afghanistan
Three years ago…
Natalia Foster heldthe Steiner MM1050 tactical binoculars steady in her hands. Her well-trained gaze remained locked on the terrorist hideout positioned forty yards downhill from where she lay.
“Something’s off.” Her voice remained low, her eyes focused on the magnified image ahead.
Agent Julian Miller drawled his response from a few feet away.
“What’s up, Tally Cat?” Her friend and colleague glanced over from his place in the dirt. His blue eyes sparkled with a touch of humor as his dirty-blonde curls danced in the breeze. “You seein’ somethin’ we don’t, or is it just your spidey sense talkin’ to you again?”
Miller—who looked more like a California surfer than a southern killing machine—was recruited by Quantico the same year as Natalia, and he’d been her best friend ever since.
Rather than respond to the Texas native’s questions right away, she kept her focus locked on their targeted location. The early evening sun shone brightly upon the two-story compound. Its owner, Ahmed al-Asiri, was the man she and her team had been sent here to find.
According to the intel they’d been given, al-Asiri and his regime were responsible for the senseless kidnapping and torture of twenty-eight American hostages. Innocent men and women who’d been ruthlessly abducted and held captive over the course of the past eighteen months.
The ill-fated group consisted of tourists, missionaries, physicians and nurses volunteering abroad, and half-a-dozen government contract employees. A collection of human beings who’d been taken against their will by those without a conscience.
And if she and the other CIA agents tasked with their rescue failed in their mission, each one of those souls would be lost.
Not on my watch.
“It’s too quiet,” Natalia finally told Julian what she’d been thinking.Way, way too quiet.“There should be guards patrolling the hideout’s perimeter. And where the hell are al-Asiri and his minions? I don’t see a single vehicle anywhere in sight.”
“Maybe your guy, Khan, was wrong about the location.”
But she was already shaking her head. In the five years she’d used him as a documented CIA asset, Rahim Khan had never steered her or her people wrong. No matter the job, no matter the danger, he always came through.
Always.
“If Khan said this is the place, it’s the place.” The confidence in her asset remained steadfast.
“Yeah?” The grumbled response came from another agent named Keith Sinclair. “Then what the hell are we waiting on?”
Natalia ground her back teeth together and remained silent, though she wanted to tell the misogynistic jerk to stick it.
Sure, Sinclair was a solid asset in the field. And yes, his record for successful ops was admittedly impressive. On the flipside, however, the not-as-special-as-he-thinks agent was also a massive pain in her ass.
Not only did Sinclair believe he was the smartest person in every room but the guy also fancied himself as God’s oh-so-precious gift to the entire female species.
Keep on dreaming, douchebag.
“We have to be sure,” Natalia countered.
Keith released a deep curse, shifting his position to look at her from over Julian’s prone, camouflaged form. “Sure about what? Aren’t you the one who just said this was the place?”
Actually, what she’d said was if Khan said this was the place, then it was. She didn’t voice the clarification, of course. Doing so would only add to the big brute’s already pissy mood.
“I can’t green-light a breach if I think there’s a chance we’re being set up.”
“Achance…if youthink…” The beefy agent’s rugged face twisted with a shake of his head. “Yeah, sure. You should definitely be the agent in charge of this op.”
Sarcasm oozed from the disgruntled man’s words. Rather than rise to the bait, she took the opportunity to put his juvenile-acting ass in its rightful place.
“That’s right, Agent Sinclair.” She met his hardened stare. “Iamthe one in charge of this op, which means it’smycall to make. Not yours.”
