Jed fished the small tablet out of his pocket and pressed his fingerprint onto the reader. The device opened and he tapped the icon for the incoming image. As always, he marveled at not just the detail but the beauty, scale, and depth of the sketch he knew Corbin had done almost effortlessly. The drawing depicted a beach town, the sketch cut off at the edges as if the scene  was being viewed through a small window. Jed had the sense the viewer Corbin had channeled must have been looking through an airplane window—either flying very low or perhaps on approach to a nearby airport because the image was an aerial view of the surf-side homes, condos, and shops.

“Will this help?” he said, showing the image to Bill.

“Oh, hell yeah,” Bill said. “This is something I can work with. Combined with the other image, I should be able to get you a location.”

“How soon?” Jed asked. “Because the clock is really ticking here.”

“Quickly,” Bill said, not committing to a time, Jed noticed.

Jed handed the tablet to Nisha, who jogged out of the room behind the two Army intel specialists. Jed knew they were connected to NSA as well as the other spooky intel organization in northern Virginia. They’d also have instant support from NCTC in DC.

They’d have the answer fast, he felt certain.

“Take everything, check gear, and be ready to roll,” he said to Eli. “We’re now on alert five.”

He needed everyone ready to mobilize on a moment’s notice. The enemy was close now . . . he could feel it.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT

HANGAR 4

177TH FIGHTER WING, NEW JERSEY AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE

SOUTH END OF ATLANTIC CITY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

1327 HOURS LOCAL

Jed’s hands flew over his gear as he checked extra magazines, blow-out kit, radio frequencies, blades, and grenades—two M84 flash-bangs on the left and two M67 frags on the right—and the myriad of little things he kept handy. He watched the team as each blazed quickly through their own ritual, the exception being Nisha, who moved more methodically. She had proven she could handle herself in a firefight, both in Rome and Iraq, and she’d even outperformed half the team in the kill house, but he knew that operating was not her preferred element.

“You wanna stay back and run TOC comms for us here?” he asked, leaning close and speaking in a hushed voice.

“Why?” she asked with a wry grin. “Worried you can’t keep up?”

“No,” he said awkwardly, “I just . . .”

“Relax, Jed,” she said, tightening the cummerbund of her plate-carrying vest and then slipping a Sig Sauer P229 pistol into the holster on the front. “I’m just messing with you. I get that I’m no SEAL or Green Beret, but I’ll carry my weight. If I’m to make any sense of the intelligence we uncover on the X, I need to be there. I need to . . .” She hesitated and looked over at him.