Page 40 of The Team

Not to Jay anyway.

Thinking about why people did evil shit led to trying to understand the psychological reasons, and that was a short path to sympathy.

There was no room for sympathy in this game.

Not for the bad guys, anyway.

The laboratory itself was located in the northeast pocket of Tehran and looked more like an office building Jay expected to see in Silicon Valley.

It was a massive white building and grounds, with a lot of office workers, admin staff.

Innocent civilians.

Something else Jay tried not to think about.

The laboratory was, according to intel, located in the second-level basement. It was secure personnel only and basically cut off from the rest of the facility.

The only people who should have been there were the scientists with top clearance. So, while teams Alpha One and Two locked down the lab, the Iranian military was tasked with escorting civilians out of the building and establishing a perimeter in conjunction with the local police.

They’d be arriving in the same armoured trucks they had before, marked Iranian military, but in full black tactical gear. The second basement was so secluded, anyone inside wouldn’t even know the building was being evacuated until they breached the floor.

No one in, no one out.

Ideally, no casualties, but Jay knew that wasn’t likely.

Given Gordian and Askarov more than likely wouldn’t go down quietly, or not without attempting to take as many of the Alpha teams down with them, Jay wasn’t expecting them to be taken out in handcuffs.

Rhett had said the order wasalive, if possible, but the possible part of that equation was subjective as fuck.

It’d be body bags or nothing.

Jay was never part of the breach team. He was never one of the first ones through any door. He was the medic. It was his job to stay back until given the all-clear. And take down any threat that was late to the party, of course.

Same with Echo. His specialty was tech-ops. He could access computers, satellites, and whatever; he could listen to footage and isolate sounds in his head like a freaking computer. He could also use his weapons like the best of them, and his knife. He’d been part of India’s 1B, and Jay had seen him in action plenty of times to know he’d more than earned his spot on the team.

Jay didn’t mind holding position on the team’s six. He’d much rather the likes of Coyote and Chen be the breach with Rhett, Yin and Giardello coming in second. The rest of the teams filed through while Jay, Echo, and Wilkins, the Alpha Two’s medic, stayed in the corridor.

When the Iranian military pulled up, civilians were understandably scared. There were the typical cries of shock and fear, voices yelling as the teams entered the building, and people running with their hands on their heads, ushered along by the military calling for quiet and calm.

Seeing a team of special ops in full gear, weapons drawn, running into the building had to be frightening.

They filed down the stairs and Jay knew the secondthey were through that door, Frankston or Malla would have access to the security cameras and be giving Rhett real-time intel.

Three of Alpha Two team were entering on the first basement level and two others continuing down to the third basement. Basement one was a restricted admin floor for classified information. They would be secured, cleared, and escorted out. Basement three was, as intel had divulged, an archive basement. Unmanned, only accessed by mid-level staff as required.

Frankston, Malla, or even Yixing, would open all the security doors. And, failing that, Coyote could blow a vaulted door in under fifteen seconds.

But there was no need.

“Need a key on the door,” Rhett said to HQ over their comms.

There was silence for a second. Then the access panel beeped to green as soon as they got there, and Jay heard Rhett tell Coyote and Chen to “Go, go, go.”

And they were in.

There was yelling and a few shrieks and bangs, but no weapon fire and Jay was always thankful for that.

“Where’s Gordian?” Jay heard Rhett yell.

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