Chapter Twenty-Five

Ghost

"I 'm not dumping cargo," Helios argued. "No fucking way."

"We don't have a choice." We were short on fuel, al-Hashimi's men were two hours ahead of us, and I had no intel confirming they'd remain stationary once they landed. We needed to get in the air STAT, and we needed to make this plane lighter to fly further.

Helios paused with prechecks to throw me a look. "I'm not going after the fucking head of ISIS without a goddamn arsenal. There's always a choice." He focused back on task. "Cargo stays. We refuel at Homestead."

"The runway's too short for the Citation to takeoff at X51." We could land, but getting back in the air would be higher risk and use more fuel.

"I'll fucking make it work."

Ares stepped around me and took second chair. "With current payload, we can make Caracas."

"I'm not gliding into Venezuela on fumes," Helios argued.

Ares backed me up. "I agree with Ghost on the runway at Homestead."

Helios didn't drop it. "Then we go to Executive or Fort Lauderdale."

Both airports had heavy traffic. "Not enough time."

Helios spun and threw me a look. "Not my fucking problem that you brought us in last minute and tracked the wrong goddamn location. Next time you want to fly twice as far, plan better ."

Silently curing my assumption that al-Hashimi would keep the fight and Safiya closer to the States instead of heloing to a private airport and heading to South America, I hit back at Helios. "No plan survives first contact with the enemy."

"Don't feed me your SEAL bullshit because you fucked up."

Ares looked at Helios. "Thirteen hundred, sixty-four miles." Using the Garmin avionics, he brought up a flight plan on the touchscreens. "We can make that airstrip outside Caracas."

"Yeah? And then what? We fucking ask nicely for fuel in hostile territory to get home?"

"No. We throw money at it." I grabbed my burner and dialed, putting it on speaker.

November answered on the first ring. "Ghost."

"Private airstrip outside Caracas." I rattled off the coordinates that I knew by heart to al-Hashimi's nearby compound. "It's five klicks from that location. Can you get a refuel truck and two vehicles, preferably SUVs, there by seventeen hundred hours without drawing attention?" The fuel we needed. The two vehicles would save us time on infil and exfil over the rough terrain between the airstrip and the compound.

"Hold." The line went silent.

Helios spoke up. "You trust that fucking guy? You know who he is, right?"

Trust wasn't in my vocabulary, but at this point, I'd bank more on the hacker than Helios. "We'll see what he says."

November came back on the line. "Ghost, copy?"

I let him know he was on speaker. "We're here."

"You're all set," the hacker replied. "Fuel truck and two vehicles will be waiting when you land."

"Just like that?" Helios asked caustically.

"Yes," November answered in the same monotone he always used. "Ground crew employee at CCS owes me a favor."

Helios dug in. "We're flying to a restricted country with civil unrest, no diplomatic relations, and a fucking food shortage, but you just happen to know some suicidal fuck on ground crew at their largest airport who's going to smuggle out a fuel truck and not get caught?"

"Yes," November stated.

Helios looked at me. "I call bullshit."

November answered before I could. "Like you said, they're hungry."

"What are you, trading him in MREs?"

"No. The cost of the fuel, fifty thousand US, and new IDs for him and his family if he decides to leave the country."

"That's the going rate for fuel in Caracas these days?" Helios shook his head.

"No," November replied before schooling Helios. "He only asked for twenty-five. I doubled it when he said he would borrow the vehicles from his cousin. Anything else?"

I took it off speaker before Helios opened his fucking mouth again. "Thanks, we're good. Hold?"

"Holding."

I glanced at Helios. "Fuel issue is resolved. Get us in the air." Walking aft cabin, I didn't wait for a reply. "November, sitrep on those other flights."

"All in progress. Suggestion?"

"Go."

"We bring all the women to AES for holding after retrieval. They'll be secure here."

They were more secure in the air. I knew November would make all the flights untraceable and al-Hashimi wouldn't have the resources to figure out which flights they were on, let alone drop them from the sky before I got to him. Not to mention it mitigated the amount of contact between my women. It was better all around if they didn't know one another or share intel.

When I didn't immediately comment, the hacker doubled down. "Just until you're back. All the flight teams will come in with the women, and I'm pulling in two more AES personnel. Staging will be in the interior break area that opens to a secured briefing room. Eleven Tier Ones, fortified location. We resume relocations once you're secure."

In other words, hold them in a high-rise fortress until I killed their biggest threat. Which led into the real reason I wanted to speak to him out of earshot from Ares and Helios. "And if I don't accomplish my task?"

"Which answer do you prefer?"

"The one where you say you still have access to drone airstrike capability in theater." I could handle it, but it'd mean asking a favor of someone I didn't want to owe.

November didn't miss a beat. "I have airstrike capability."

"Good." I offered the trade. "I'll consent to bringing the women in for holding at AES if you agree to a drone strike on my say-so."

"Conditionally."

"No conditions. If I ask for it, send it. Full stop."

He exactly read the situation. "I don't kill our own, no matter how critical the mission. A strike will also cause an international incident, aggravating an already unstable situation."

"That's the Trefor answer." I was past giving a shit about optics. "I won't call it in unless I have Safiya in hand, it's complete mission failure, we have critical loss, and it's last resort. We both know how many soldiers are on the Venezuelan compound." The only question was how well armed and trained they were, and if Helios would contain his fucking temper.

November didn't reply.

I played into his skills. "You have a dozen different ways from your keyboard to spin a strike. Make it look like a gas leak or fire." Or any other fucking accident that assuaged his reticence.

He still didn't reply.

"How copy?" I demanded.

"Thinking."

I knew what the hacker was doing. "Run it down all you want. Look for every angle. It won't change who I'm going after, and neither of us is going to read in any Brass or agencies." They'd had fifteen years to handle al-Hashimi and hadn't. "Make a decision." If he wouldn't do it, I needed to get on another call.

The hacker finally came through. "Bringing the women in for holding. Affirmative on your request. Verbal command will be ‘send it.' Nonverbal will be a triple tap to your comms."

"Good copy."

"Ghost."

"What?"

"Don't ever ask me to do this again."

November hung up before I could tell him he wouldn't have to.

I'd either be dead or al-Hashimi would.