Siren in the Wind Book One of the MIT Series

Chapter Eighteen

Friday saw Max on a secure line with Fort Bragg and Washington, negotiating for most of the day. They revised plans and relayed new information on the mercenary cell that they hunted. The following morning, Max called Slater and Johnny in for a briefing. Donnie and Max had sat up for most of the night. It did little to appease the disquiet running through him. One of his favorite quotes, "theories look great on paper until reality scribbles all over the page," kept playing over in his head.

Donnie ran across the way to keep an eye on Abby as he'd already worked through a separate briefing with Max.

As the other two men rolled through the door, Johnny waved a grocery bag in the air. "I picked up sandwiches for lunch, and I got your gummy worms." He threw a packet at Max. "A pain in the ass to find the all-natural, dye-free shit you eat."

"Natural gelatin is good for the joints," Max said as he tore open the bag.

Slater started in with his wisecracks as he wandered to the fridge to grab a Red Bull. "Arghh boss, you made me leave the happy place...to come to the sad place."

Max raised a brow. Slater shoved the fridge closed with his foot as he continued. "What? Evans's place smells nice. There's a beef stew on the stove, and it has cake. This place? Nothing in the fridge and it smells like FAN."

Max rolled his eyes at Slater's slang for feet, ass, and nuts. "Those are probably your dirty socks stinking up the place, and if I find any of those soggy missiles hiding behind our equipment, I'll stuff them down your throat. Now sit your ass down."

"Don't get your Nordic thunder cock in a wad!" Slater threw himself into a seat with a grin.

Pulling up a chair, Johnny addressed Max. "After the briefing and lunch, I'll stop by Lizzy's. Shift work means that I'm only able to meet her some evenings after she gets out of beauty school. We need a new schedule so she's not left unprotected." Max sensed a fine thread of tension running through his teammate.

"We'll get to that after lunch. First, we're running through the updated intel. An informant came through for us." Max turned to projected images on the wall. "Another Somalian canary came forward, contacting AFRICOM."

"A reliable source?" Johnny asked.

"AFRICOM has used him before. Apparently, Khalid is planning that South African hunting trip. He knows Evans is in country."

This was their one chance to take Khalid out. The Sandpiper had been holed up in an extremist stronghold in Somalia for months. No allied team could get near him. The entire Southern region was under Khalid's control.

"We get one chance. Khalid won't have his al-Shabaab buddies to cover his ass. We'll go over possible scenarios later. I need you all on point."

Max tapped on a photo of Roman Petrovich, a Ukrainian mafia henchman turned mercenary and a high-value target. "Roman is now second-in-command in Khalid's cell. His predecessor died two days ago in a backwater clinic with cerebral malaria."

"Shit, lucky break for the crazy bastard," Slater said.

Roman was indeed a crazy bastard—rumored to have purposely run over his brother with a truck on one occasion and also to have murdered his wife, mounting her head on a stick for burning his dinner.

Roman ran sex trafficking rings in Eastern Europe, over and above his campaign of violence against innocents in East Africa. He was responsible for setting hospitals alight, blowing up food markets, targeting hotels and destabilizing regions for profit. Roman was now second in charge—that didn't sit well with Max.