A Special Operations liaison met them inside the hangar, voice clipped and professional. Young. Maybe late twenties. The kind of guy who'd done a deployment or two and now pulled liaison duty because someone decided he had people skills.
"Rotary is prepped. Fifteen-minute window."
Steele nodded.
The team moved like they'd done this a thousand times before. Because they had. Gear shifted from C-17 pallets to Blackhawk cargo. Weapons checked one more time. Night optics mounted and tested. Batteries swapped for fresh ones even if the old ones still had charge.
Ghost synced last-minute signal overlays with the helicopter's navigation system. Made sure the jamming equipment would interface properly. Made sure the pilot knew where not to fly if they wanted to avoid getting shot down by Iraqi air defense.
Hawk stepped outside briefly, scanning skyline and perimeter like the threat could be here already. Old habits. The kind that kept you alive when everyone else was dead.
Joker adjusted his gloves. Flexed his fingers. Checked his watch. "Iraq. Missed this place."
"No, you didn't," Risk replied, shouldering his medical pack.
Joker shrugged. "Fair."
The Blackhawks waited on the edge of the tarmac, rotors already turning. Two birds. One for the team, one for backup in case the first went down. Standard procedure for operations this far from friendly territory. Wind kicked dust across concrete in swirling patterns that caught the amber light from the hangar.
Steele moved first. The team followed.
They boarded without hesitation. Muscle memory. Each man knowing exactly where to sit, where to stow gear, how to strap in without wasting motion. Inside the helicopter, noise swallowed speech. The rotors were too loud for conversation. They communicated with hand signals and practiced rhythm. The kind of nonverbal language that came from years of working together.
Night swallowed the runway behind them as they lifted. Erbil fell away beneath them. City lights spreading out in patterns that made sense from the air. Planned streets. Organized districts. The Kurdish capital trying to be modern and cosmopolitan in a region that kept trying to tear itself apart.
Turkish-Iraqi Border Same Night
The charter plane was small, unmarked, and cost more than most people made in a year. Mara had paid cash. No questions asked. No manifests filed. No record that four women had crossed into Turkish airspace carrying enough tactical equipment to start a small war.
She sat near the window, watching darkness slide past below. Turkey first, then the border, then Iraq. The route they'd mapped carefully. The route that kept them away from commercial airspace and military radar and the thousand eyes that might wonder why a civilian aircraft was heading toward Mosul in the middle of the night.
Nadia sat across from her, cleaning her sidearm with the methodical care of someone who'd done it ten thousand times. Field strip. Wipe down. Reassemble. Check the action. Load the magazine. The ritual that kept hands busy and minds focused.
Kira was in the back, organizing medical supplies for the third time. Making sure everything was accessible. Making sure she could grab what she needed in the dark if someone went down and seconds mattered.
Sloane had her laptop open, reviewing the intelligence package one more time. Guard rotations. Security patterns. Structural weaknesses. The compound layout they'd memorized but kept checking anyway because one missed detail could mean the difference between extraction and grave.
"ETA to the border?" Mara asked.
The pilot's voice came through the small speaker. "Forty minutes. Weather's clear. No traffic."
Forty minutes. Then they'd cross into Iraq. Drive to the safe house Winter had arranged. Stage their equipment. Wait for the window.
0200 hours. Same time Delta would be hitting the compound from the north.
Except Mara didn't know about Delta. Didn't know that another team was targeting the same compound for completely different reasons. Didn't know that in a few hours, two operations would collide in the dark and everything would go sideways.
All she knew was that Amira and Karim Nazari had ninety-six hours before a seven-year-old boy was sold like inventory and his mother was executed to cover the tracks.
Now they had less than six.
"You good?" Nadia asked without looking up from her weapon.
"I will be."
"You haven't run field ops in two years."
"I know."
