Page 17 of The Team

Fuck.

“It’s go-time,” Rhett said, and was up and out of bed, Jay stumbling to follow.

Without a word, they dressed, pulled their boots on, and Rhett walked into the briefing room with one minute to spare.

The wall of screens showed twenty different things. A person was at every desk, tapping away, speaking into their earpieces. Frankston and Malla, their team’s handlers, worked frantically. Directors King and Depraz were watching it all, faces sullen.

Rhett knew it wasn’t good.

“Lin with you?” King asked.

“Of course. He’s gone to confab one. He’ll get the team ready. What do we know?”

He had no clue what he was even here for.

A terrorist attack? A personal detail? Recon and extraction? Transport?

Depraz spared him a hard glance, full eye contact, all business. “We lost contact with Kowalski and Myles.”

What?

Hell fucking no.

Rhett’s stomach dropped. His adrenaline spiked, his blood pounded in his ears. “When? Last known location?”

King gave him a look that told Rhett he was not going to like the answer. “Baku.”

The fuck?

“Azerbaijan?” Rhett couldn’t believe it. “They were never?—”

“Objectives change. You know that,” Depraz said.

King’s expression was grim. “They last checked in at eighteen hundred and were supposed to make contact after crossing into Georgia. They did not. Rendezvous point in Tbilisi was not made.”

Fuck.

Rhett looked directly at him. “When do we leave?”

“You’ll fly into Baku, and there will be vehicles waiting for you south of Sangachal. Van detail in thirty.”

Rhett turned and headed for the door. “Debrief me enroute.”

He headed straight for confab one, the room where his team would convene. He knew Jay would have rounded everyone up and be waiting, like he knew they’d be ready.

He opened the door, and seven heads turned to face him. “We’re up,” he said. He checked his watch. “Gone by zero five thirty.”

Echo, Coyote, Sid, Azrael, and Jay all stood up, and Yin and Chen half a second after them. They weren’t familiar with how the team operated, but they were about to learn. It’d be a case of sink or swim for the two newest members, but Rhett wasn’t too concerned.

He was confident they’d be assets to his team in no time. And if they couldn’t adjust and keep up, if they weren’t as good as he thought they could be, they were finished.

If not dead.

Rhett led the way to the bunker. Every home base had one just like it—dark, windowless, reinforced, undetectable by radar. Lockers with their gear, black combat fatigues, weapons. Personal belongings got left behind, no identification, no nametags. Once they put their combat gear on and went on a mission, they were on their own. They belonged to no country; they were a team of kites. Independent of government and allegiance.

Such was the Milvus Division.

Operations were get in, get out. The least amount of time on the ground as possible. That was how they operated.

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