“Negative, Sword,” came a young man’s frustrated voice. “I don’t get it. We can get to them but just can’t get in. It’s like they’re inside some crazy cone of silence or something.”

Jed frowned. He wondered a moment if Corbin could get inside but assumed she was already working on it. There wasn’t anything bigger than this going on INCONUS for the Shepherds, and he knew both Ben and Pastor Dee would not have their best Watcher on the bench.

“Seven minutes,” came the call from the pilot in his headset, his encrypted radio set to both the tactical and air channels.

“Seven minutes,” Jed announced in the voice-activated mic, holding up seven fingers and showing them to the other three Shepherds. He got nods back.

The helo dropped in altitude and screamed low across what Jed remembered was the Bel-Aire Golf club. He chuckled as he saw a golfer throw his arms up in frustration at the noise, the man’s Pro-Am winning putt interrupted. After conducting a touch-and-go simulated landing at the airfield for the appearance of a training evolution, the pilots banked southeast and executed a downwind leg, outside the airport boundary along the edge of the woods and empty sports fields.

The helo slowed upon reaching the drop zone, hovering at treetop level and out of sight of the target hangar. Carl kicked the rope bags out and Jed shifted into position for the slide. He twisted his hands together, locking them on the thick rope, and grabbed the free end dangling out the door with his feet, his right boot locking in tightly against the arch of his left. He descended quickly, no longer worried about the pain on landing from his healed hip. He glanced at Nisha, descending beside him on the second rope with perfect form. Above, he felt the jerk of Carl coming on the rope as he hit the halfway mark of the barely thirty-foot slide. A heartbeat later, he was on the ground at the edge of the football field, part of the small sports park just outside the airport perimeter, separated from the fence line by woods. He quick-stepped clear of the rope and took a knee, scanning his sector over his rifle as Nisha did the same to his right. He heard and felt the thud of the ropes hitting the ground behind him, released from Vandal One, which confirmed that Carl and Hyeon were on the ground and clear. Above, the Black Hawk zoomed away just as Vandal Two passed overhead.

Flawless.

The whole thing had taken barely five seconds.

He scanned the tree line just beyond the football field. Seeing nothing, he motioned his team to follow and moved into the woods. They fanned out, Jed and Nisha moving left and Hyeon trailing just behind and right of Carl. Like a single organism, they moved with near-silent precision through the trees.