"Fortifications?"
"Reinforced doors. Bars on basement windows. External cameras covering all approaches. Professional setup. Nazari's not taking chances."
Mara pulled up the tactical map and started running scenarios in her head. North breach for Delta. South breach for Shadow Veil. Converge in the basement. Extract Steele. Exfil before Nazari's network could respond. Simple on paper. Nightmare in execution if anything went wrong.
"Get Delta on the line," she said. "They need to see this."
Quinn had the connection established in under a minute. The screen split, showing Quinn's intelligence on one half and the Delta team bay on the other. Hawk, Bulldog, Ghost, Risk, and Joker were already geared up, body armor and weapons ready. They'd been waiting for this call.
"We've got him," Mara said without preamble. "Ninety-three percent confidence. Site one."
Hawk's expression didn't change but something shifted in his posture. Relief. Determination. The look of a man who'd just gotten confirmation that the mission was back on. "Show us."
Quinn walked them through the intelligence. Guard positions. Thermal signatures. Communications patterns. Everything she'd compiled over the last eighteen hours of monitoring Nazari's network. Ghost was making notes on his tablet, already calculating signal jamming parameters and communication windows.
"This matches what we've been seeing," Ghost said. "Encrypted traffic spiked about six hours ago. Couldn't break it but the volume and frequency suggested something significant happening at that location."
Hawk studied the building layout. "Basement access?"
"Service entrance on the east side has stairs leading down," Quinn said. "Emergency exit on the south might connect directlyto the basement level but we can't confirm from satellite. You'd need to breach to know for sure."
"We'll find out when we get there," Bulldog said. His voice carried the flat certainty of someone who'd breached a hundred buildings and would breach a hundred more.
Risk was focused on the thermal signature in the basement. "That heat pattern's concerning. Not much movement. If he's been there for three days with interrogation and injuries, he might not be ambulatory."
Kira spoke up from Shadow Veil's side. "I've got a litter in my kit. Full trauma setup. If he can't walk, we carry him."
"Time to target?" Hawk asked.
Mara checked her watch. "We're wheels up in six hours. Flight time to Turkey is eleven hours. Ground transit across the border and positioning takes another four. That puts us on site at 0200 local time tomorrow."
"Same timeline on our end," Hawk said. "We stage at the forward operating base, transfer to ground vehicles, approach from the north. Two hours to get into position."
Ghost and Quinn coordinated insertion routes, making sure both teams wouldn't cross paths before the breach. The last thing they needed was friendly fire because two teams converged on the same location from different directions without proper coordination.
Nadia pulled up the breach plan she'd been refining for the last twelve hours. "We hit the south side. Three operators. Fast entry through the emergency exit if we can access it, service entrance if we can't. Objective is the basement. We locate Steele, secure him, and hold position until Delta clears the upper floors."
"Delta takes the north entrance," Hawk said. "Full breach. We clear ground floor and push up to second and third.Neutralize guards, secure Nazari if he's there, establish perimeter so Shadow Veil can extract the prisoner."
"Rules of engagement?" Joker asked, and there was an edge to the question. A reminder that the last time they'd discussed this, there had been disagreement about Shadow Veil's no-kill policy.
Mara met his eyes through the screen. "We don't kill unless there's no other option. But if it comes down to Steele's life or a guard's life, we make the call that gets our people out alive."
"Good enough," Hawk said before Joker could push back. "Priority is recovering Steele. Everything else is secondary. If we can avoid casualties, we do. If we can't, we don't hesitate."
The planning continued. Communication protocols. Rally points. Contingency plans if the breach went loud. Medical evacuation procedures if someone went down. Every detail mapped and rehearsed until both teams could execute in their sleep.
Mara watched Hawk coordinate with his team, watched the easy efficiency of operators who'd worked together for years. She wondered what Steele's role was in that dynamic. Wondered how the team functioned without their leader. Wondered what he'd think about two teams that had never met coordinating a joint rescue operation to pull him out of hell.
Wondered if he'd thought about her at all during the last three days. If he remembered the woman with the dark eyes who'd left him behind. If he'd be angry when he saw her again or just relieved that someone had come.
"Mara." Sloane's voice pulled her back to the present. "You good?"
"Yeah. Just thinking through contingencies."
Sloane's expression said she knew exactly what Mara had been thinking about and it wasn't contingencies. But she didn't push. Just nodded and turned back to the planning.
Two hours later, the call ended with final confirmations and synchronization checks. Both teams knew their roles. Both teams knew the risks. Both teams knew that in twenty-four hours, they'd either be celebrating a successful rescue or writing after-action reports about how everything had gone wrong.
