He glanced at Skye, who had settled behind a cluster of granite boulders not far away, the barrel of her M4 carbine stabilized between two rocks. She also carried her Glock and probably an ankle gun.

The hours slipped past. The eighty-degree daytime temperature had fallen only as far as the low sixties, which meant their black tactical vests, weapons, and gear were enough to keep them warm.

Edge heard a voice in his earbuds. “The first ATVs have been spotted coming over the ridge,” Harding said. “They’ll be dropping into the valley in the next ten minutes.”

“Roger that.” Edge glanced over at Skye, who touched her earbud and nodded that she had heard the call.

“Copy,” Trace added from his sniper hide sixty yards out. By now his MK22 would be set up on its tripod, ready to fire.

Edge shifted the M16 slung across his chest. His M9 Beretta rode in a holster at his waist, his Ka-Bar knife strapped to his thigh. He was ready. So was Skye. Still, his worried glance swung in her direction.

He had let her come, and now he regretted it. He didn’t want her near this kind of danger, the kind that could wind up getting her killed.

But he had accepted long ago that Skye Delaney was her own person. She had a mind of her own, and she made her own decisions. He respected her for it and for being the strong woman she was. He loved her for it.

The words hit him hard, though it wasn’t the first time they had slipped into his head. He was in love with her.

And yet, as Skye had said, they were headed in different directions. She didn’t fit into his life, and he couldn’t fit into hers. Another truth he accepted.

“The chopper is in the air.” Harding’s voice came through crystal clear. “Visual contact with the first ATVs.”

Edge took out his night-vision binoculars and focused on the trail leading into the valley. A line of six ATVs, each pulling a two-wheeled trailer loaded with boxes of munitions, rolled toward the landing zone. Six well-trained members of the United States Army, equipped with the finest weapons and gear in the world, drove the machines.

Taking them down wouldn’t be easy.

He swung the binoculars in the opposite direction, saw vehicle headlamps bumping over a dirt track he had noticed when they’d first arrived. Five SUVs. As they passed the abandoned cabin and neared the landing zone, he could make out the profiles of three men in the first vehicle, two or three in each of the others.

Best guess—Markham, his top lieutenant, and a driver in the first car; at least eight cartel soldiers in the other four SUVs. Plus six US Army soldiers. As many as seventeen men, and the helo hadn’t yet arrived.