Chapter 2

Briggs made his decision in the space of four seconds.

Tala Nez had watched enough commanders make hard calls under pressure to recognize the process. The rapid internal calculation. The weighing of known variables against unknown ones. The moment when training and instinct converged into action.

“Do it,” Briggs said. “You have twenty minutes before we need Marsh moving to his position.”

Tala Nez was already moving.

She separated from the patrol and began working her way toward an angle on the southern ridgeline that would give her clean sightlines to both targets without exposing her position to the compound below. The terrain was loose shale and scrub brush that required precise foot placement to move silently. She took her time. Speed was useless if noise compromised the approach.

Eight minutes of careful movement brought her to a depression in the hillside that offered exactly what she needed. She settled into a prone position and opened her rifle case with practiced quiet. Assembly took forty-five seconds. Scope checks took thirty more.

She ranged the observation post.

584 meters to the first target position.

The two men were professionals. They maintained good position discipline, keeping movement minimal and using the boulder field effectively for concealment. But they had one habit that would kill them. Every time a wind gust rolled through the valley, the one on the left shifted slightly to protect his optics from the dust. The movement was small. It was also predictable.

Tala Nez watched the pattern through her scope and timed the gusts.

Four minutes. Then four and a half. Then three minutes forty seconds. The intervals were irregular but the gusts themselves lasted approximately six seconds each. Long enough.

She identified the second target position from the first man’s sightline. Where one observer looked, another covered. The second man was twelve feet to the right and slightly lower, using a natural rock shelf for prone support.

Two targets. Six seconds of wind cover. One shot each.

She would need to cycle the bolt and reacquire in under three seconds.

Tala Nez controlled her breathing and waited.

The valley was silent except for the occasional distant sound of a vehicle on a road far below. The stars overhead were brilliant at this altitude, the kind of sky that reminded you the universe was indifferent to whatever small violent things human beings were doing on the surface of one insignificant planet.

She did not find that thought depressing.

She found it clarifying.

The wind came.

Tala Nez was already in her final breath when she heard it building in the rocks above. She centered the crosshairs on the first target’s chest, applied her calculated hold for distance and the slight downhill angle, and pressed the trigger at the peak of her exhale.

The rifle fired. The suppressor reduced the sound to something that disappeared immediately into the wind noise.

She cycled the bolt without lifting her cheek from the stock. The second target had not yet processed what was happening. She reacquired in two seconds and fired again.

Both men were down before the wind gust finished.

Tala Nez held her position for ninety seconds, watching for any reaction from the compound below. Nothing changed. No lights. No movement. No radio traffic that she could observe.

She keyed her radio twice.

Briggs responded with a single click of acknowledgment.

She began her withdrawal from the position, moving back toward the patrol with the same careful deliberation she had used on the approach. By the time she reached Briggs, she had been gone seventeen minutes.

The team sergeant looked at her with an expression she had seen before on Sam Holston’s face after her first mission. The moment when assumptions finished dying and something more accurate took their place.

He said nothing. He simply signaled Marsh forward.

The team’s sniper moved toward his planned position on the northern ridgeline without knowing that the threat to his approach had already been removed. He would establish his overwatch, range his sectors, and prepare for the shots that the mission required of him.

Tala Nez integrated back into the patrol formation and resumed her role as the quiet Marine that nobody had figured out yet.

Reyes fell into step beside her briefly during movement.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“Good to go,” Tala Nez replied.

He nodded and they continued.

The patrol established a holding position 800 meters from the compound while Marsh completed his setup on the northern ridge. First light was ninety minutes away. The target meeting was scheduled for 0530, which meant Rashid and whoever he was meeting would arrive before full daylight.

Briggs positioned his team with the efficient precision of a man who had rehearsed this kind of deployment enough times that it had become automatic. Two elements for the assault. One blocking position on the eastern approach. Marsh on overwatch. And Tala Nez, whose role remained undefined in the minds of everyone except Briggs and herself.

She found a position that gave her sightlines to both the compound and Marsh’s ridgeline and settled in to wait.

The stars began fading as the sky lightened incrementally in the east. The mountains around the valley emerged from darkness in stages, their shapes becoming specific and detailed as dawn approached. The compound below showed minimal activity. A single guard walking a predictable pattern along the exterior wall. Cooking smoke beginning to rise from inside.

Ordinary morning. Unaware.

At 0448, Marsh’s voice came over the radio.

“Ironside in position. Range to primary structure 820 meters. Wind five knots from the northwest. I have the guard on the south wall.”