“Really? After two years, you’re still going to go with my full name? You know I can’t stand it, right?” Zack said, mock outrage in his voice.

“Oh. I do. But I don’t care, which is half the fun.”

“You’re a real charmer.” Even though the gibes were in jest, there was a part of Zack that was still cautious around Griffin Huntsmen. The team leader did everything right, but even after multiple operations, there was a quality about him that troubled Zack. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t shake the sensation that Griffin had a compartmented section of his personality that no one saw, ever. What was inside was anyone’s guess. Zack knew all men had their inner demons, but a man like Griffin? What those might be was alarming, to say the least. There was a side of him that was ruthless in its determination to see a mission to its definitive conclusion.

“But to answer your question, we’re just waiting for Ray-Ray and Aleksei and their unfortunate security team to leave the villa for lunch. The ScanEagle will stay on station at twelve thousand feet until the operation’s over.”

“Good. No room for error. It’s nearly ten thirty. Their lunch is at eleven,” Griffin said.

The sound of footsteps stomping down the stairs echoed throughout the main floor as Noah and Charles, the two junior men on the team, carried the team’s duffel bags to stage them near the front double doors. Once the targets were down and they’d vacated the farmhouse, a follow-on team would sweep the residence and remove all evidence of their presence. All personal items would be destroyed at the US embassy, and their surveillance equipment and other gear would be shipped home.

“We set to jet?” Noah asked, a slight Texas accent in his words. A good-looking thirty-two-year-old with short, neat brown hair, Noah was an anomaly for the CIA and SAD since he hadn’t matriculated to the agency via the military or the college recruitment program. Instead, he’d been a San Antonio police officer with a college degree from Texas A&M, but when his brother, a Special Forces Green Beret and his idol, had been killed in Afghanistan years into the post-9/11 occupation, his focus had changed, and a raging storm inside him had been triggered. He focused the anger into a singular purpose, honing himself into the best shape of his life, and two years later, he’d applied to the CIA and been accepted within a month of his application. Three years into the agency, and he’d deployed to Afghanistan for the first time, teaming with JSOC to kill a Taliban leader who’d been terrorizing US forces in Kabul. That mission had slightly calmed the internal storm, transforming him into the highly capable operator that he was, committed to capturing or killing the enemies of his nation.