Chapter 2

Waiting is always the toughest part of any assignment, Ashley Barker mused. It was because she always found it easier to engage the enemy instantly. She related it to how some people like to tip toe into uncomfortably cold water until their body adjusted to it. She was the opposite. She would just as soon plunge right in and let her body absorb the cruel shock.

Still, the 36 year old mused, waiting can be the most important part of an assignment especially when you’re dealing with criminals. You move too soon, you alert the terrorists who disappear before you can catch them in the act. If you’re too late, the destruction is done and they’re long gone before you have a chance to challenge them. So it’s not as much as the waiting as the proper timing. Yes, timing is everything.

Since Ashley had been huddled against a rocky outcropping for some time, she shook her shoulders and stretched her neck and legs to stop them from cramping up. Since Pakistan can be brutally hot during the day, she welcomed the cool breeze that blew off the mountains. As she stirred to further relieve her limbs and stared up into the inky blackness of the star-filled sky she wondered if the gang was actually going to come tonight. Her unit had been sitting concealed in the low foothills since midnight as part of an ambush against a gang who had been hitting isolated American oil camps. It was bad enough that the gang stole or damaged expensive equipment and terrorized the camp personal in their rampage, but the last time they’d gone too far. They’d stepped over the line by killing several members of the camp staff who dared to put up a fight.

Of course, Ashley and her unit, which was part of a private security firm hired to protect the camps had drawn the blunt of the blame. It didn’t seem to matter to their critics that they had been guarding another camp miles away, and that it was always hard to get good information about where the gang might strike next. Most of the intel she’d gotten so far had either been totally wrong or had been received way too late. However, the latest information on the gang’s activities was supposed to be dead on. Ashley hoped so because she was anxious to get her hands on some of them, and because she didn’t want another wasted night.

“Ashley, what do you think? Are they gonna show up tonight or what?” The questions came from one of her squad who was growing impatient, and she couldn’t blame him because she was also beginning to wonder if the carefully planned ambush was going to be a bust.

Before answering Ashley mulled over the information she had heard about the gang. They always liked to strike just before dawn when everybody in the camp was still dead to the world, and because the darkness helped them get close to its perimeters undetected. She studied the horizon and realized that the night was almost gone with only a couple of hours before dawn. Soon, instead of an inky, star filled blackness, the night would evolve into a dim, fuzzy grey sunrise. There wasn’t much time left. If the gang was going to strike tonight, it would have to be soon.