Page 35 of Until the End

“Our contact didn’t mention two visitors,” Yankee said over comms. “Tango travels alone. I don’t like this.”

“It might be nothing.” Sierra spoke into her mic. “In two minutes, the other guy may be gone.”

Yankee came back on. “Or it might be a setup. The target is early and those five-man cells are insulated. They don’t interact with just anyone. Nasser wasn’t expecting us to hit the place for another two hours. Maybe he decided to sell us out instead.”

“Maybe Yankee has a point,” Whiskey chimed in. “Picture four Americans featured in an Islamic State video. It wouldn’t matter that we’re freelance. It would cement Nasser’s cover to be the one responsible for our capture. Also, he already has half the money.”

Not a possibility Sierra wanted to entertain or validate. If that were the case, things were about to go sideways.

“Victor here. I’m with Sierra,” their fourth team member, who was covering another angle of the building from high up in his sniper’s nest, said. “Nasser wouldn’t take the chance that we’d burn him. Any iota of doubt, they’d kill him too.”

“I’ve got movement.” Whiskey sighed into his mic. “They’re loading the girls in the van. Seven of them. Goodness, they’re young. About the same age as my Lizzie. Thirteen years old, max.”

“What?” Sierra clutched the wheel, her chest tightening. “They’re not supposed to move them until midnight.”

“Another change in plan,” Whiskey said. “This isn’t good. Nasser is leaving with the driver of the van and the girls, but our target is still inside.”

Shit. “They could be shipping those girls sooner or changing the bed-down location.” Sierra knew her next words would be vetoed, but it didn’t stop her. “We have to follow and help those girls.”

“Negative,” Yankee said in a calm monotone. “Interdiction is not our primary objective.”

Sierra loved her husband, but sometimes she wanted to throttle him. “You know what’ll happen to them.”

“I don’t like it any more than you do.” Yankee sighed. “Don’t you think I want to save them too? We had a plan, but Nasser just took a monster crap all over it. We stay on mission. Break, break. Victor, this is Yankee. Prepare to enter the building and seal the front door so no one slips out as we breach.”

“Roger. Preparing the stick and stay,” Victor said, referring to a chemical compound he’d apply to the crevice where the front door met the jamb to seal it.

She gritted her teeth and shook her head even though no one could see her. “Yankee, this is Sierra. You can’t ask me to sit by and do nothing.”

“I’m not asking,” Yankee said. “I’m ordering. Stand down.”

The Jordanian police would intervene if they knew seven young girls were in the process of being trafficked like cattle. The plan from the start had been to notify the LEOs—law enforcement officers—right before the breach and have them ensure the safety of the girls afterward, but there was no time now.

“I’ll follow them,” Sierra said, desperate to see this through, “find out where they’re going, and let the cops intervene.”

“Damn it,” Yankee hissed over the airwaves. “The target takes priority. We won’t get another opportunity like this. Without Khan, the rest of the plan falls apart. Everything else has already been set in motion. We can’t afford to get this wrong. There’s too much riding on it.”

A navy van with two men seated up front—one was their double-crossing informant, Nasser—drove past the alley. The seven innocent girls were in the back.

“I have eyes on the vehicle. I can—”

“Follow protocol. It’s too risky,” Yankee snapped. “You don’t even speak Arabic. You can’t run after them half-cocked. What the hell are you thinking?”

What she was thinking should’ve been obvious. What if that was one of their daughters or sisters trapped in that van, about to be sold off like cattle to a terrorist? Didn’t it make them complicit when they chose not to intervene?

That’s what she was thinking. “I’m sorry, but I have to—”

“I’m inbound, Sierra,” Whiskey said, sounding winded like he was running flat out. “Hold position.”

Hold? Wait for them to stop her? No way.

She cranked the van’s engine and punched it into drive.

Whiskey rounded the corner and ran up to the front of her vehicle, slamming his hands on the hood. “I’ll follow.” He sucked in ragged breaths.

“What?” Sierra asked, gobsmacked.

He hustled around to the driver’s side and threw his hand through the rolled-down window, grabbing her arm. “I’ll follow the van,” he said, straining for more air, “and I’ll reach out to an old contact in the Jordanian intelligence service. Although she won’t be happy to hear from me.”