Like rugby players attacking the ball, the entire team assembled around the HD monitor as the figures neared the SUVs. The silhouettes appeared small on the monitor, but Zack could see that one of the female figures wore a red dress with a wide-brimmed hat; the other was a brunette with a white dress. All he could discern about the children, who trailed the woman with the hat, was that they were at least half their mother’s height. As they watched, Moretti, the brunette in white, and two security personnel entered the first Mercedes, and Belyakov, the lady in red, and the children approached the second SUV with the remaining two security members.

“Jesus,” Noah said. “She’s Belyakov’s wife, and those are his kids, which makes the other woman Moretti’s girlfriend or something.”

Zack looked up at his team chief, and the thing that he had wondered about—the true, merciless nature of Griffin Huntsmen—stared back at him, the essence of the man beneath the mask revealed. Zack’s blood ran cold, and he felt his pulse pound a little harder. Before Griffin could speak, Zack declared, “No. No innocents. That was the deal. No civilian casualties, especially women and children.” But something had changed, and Zack knew the answer even before he’d finished speaking.

“Listen to me, Zachary,” Griffin said, a hard resolution in his liquid brown eyes. “This is happening, no matter what. I can call back to HQ, but—after what happened and how hard it’s been to track these two, let alone the odds of getting another opportunity where all of our resources and stars align—this is it. And they’re going to say the same thing: to remove these two players from the board, that the collateral is acceptable. We stick to the plan. The IED takes out the first vehicle, no matter who’s in it, and then we only shoot to kill Belyakov and Moretti. We try to avoid hurting the women and children. We can even try to spare the security detail. I don’t care about them. But the primary targets have to die. I just need to know one thing: Are you with me?”

Noah and Charles had been watching the exchange. The tension in the room ratcheted up several notches. No one spoke, and the question lingered, begging to be answered.

There it is, Zack, and he suddenly felt his world teeter as if he were balanced on a pinpoint of morality that had physically manifested into existence. The choice was clear, and what had moments before been a straightforward operation had turned into a battle for his soul. He felt the weight of it threatening to pull him under. “Go along to get along” has never been your style. And killing kids? Not when you know they’re there.