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Activating the microphone on his comms unit, Hollywood said, “Hey, Ghost, we got a couple of Trident frogs who want in on our frequency. You okay with that?”

A single click was his answer.

“Did Daddy say we’re allowed to join your sweet-sixteen party or is he worried we’ll spike the punch?” Sawyer snarked as he surveyed the crowd on the patio.

Between the man’s name and the mention of Trident, Frisco now knew who they were dealing with.

The world of black ops was a relatively small one in the grand scheme of things, and even if you were meeting someone from it for the first time, you’d probably already heard about them from other members of the community.

Ian Sawyer and his brother Devon had retired from SEAL Team Four a few years ago and started Trident Security in Tampa, Florida.

The company took on cases from the private sector and government contracts, specifically from the FBI, CIA, and Deimos.

That last agency was still a large enigma in that, until just recently, a scant few people had known it even existed and that included members of the black-ops community.

“Yup, you’re in. But you owe him a case of scotch ... the good stuff.”

Frisco grinned for the first time since the other man had snuck up on them, knowing Ghost had said no such thing.

After Hollywood rattled off the frequency the team was currently using, Sawyer repeated the info to someone named “Polo” over his own unit.

Within seconds, there were several clicks and then the two groups were suddenly able to communicate with each other.

Frisco took over the watch as the two men to his left compared maps of the surrounding area and alerted their own team members about who was within shooting distance so no one got caught up in friendly fire.

It was bad enough they had to worry about the armed guards patrolling the outer edges of the compound spotting them.

“Damn, I wish these two fuckers would just meet up already,” Frisco grumbled about twenty minutes later, after all was quiet over the comms once more, except the chatter from the party inside. “Then we can take them both out and get the hell out of here with the codes and nuke.”

Sawyer yanked the binoculars from his eyes and glared at Hollywood and Frisco.

“What do you mean take both of them out? Damn it, this is what fucking happens when those dingleberries back in Washington don’t talk to each other.

” He activated his microphone again. “Hey, Jackass, Sweetheart, and Vixen, there’s a price on your boy’s head.

Ghost, under no circumstances do any of your men shoot the guy with the damn codes. He’s friendly.”

Hollywood groaned. “Are you fucking kidding me? He’s a plant?”

“More like a dweeb, but yeah, we need to get him out in one piece.”

For the next thirty seconds or so, there was back and forth conversation between Ghost, Fletch, Carter, and the woman, Jordyn, about some guy who worked for an import/export company.

It was all fictional, of course. The end result was they were all on the same page—finally.

“Preston Ward” was now off the Deltas’ hit list. Unfortunately, the one person who remained on it was still an unknown entity.

Once he was satisfied their inside man was not going to end up in the morgue, Sawyer gave the Deltas a quick intel report.

“The dweeb is from Deimos—one of their support guys using a cover that’s been cultivated for years.

His date, Vixen, is an operative. Egghead, get with whomever Delta’s got on the wires and send out the pic of Reardon and Caldwell.

They get extracted no matter what; resistance isn’t in the dweeb’s vocabulary. He won’t last sixty seconds.”

Great, just great . That meant the guy wasn’t trained in SERE—Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape.

If he was captured and tortured, he’d be spilling his guts in no time.

Not what you wanted to hear about a black-ops agent, even if he was on the support team.

He still probably knew enough to cause huge problems for Deimos and the President of the United States.

A few seconds after Beckett “Coach” Ralston and Sawyer’s man synchronized their databases, Frisco’s miniature tablet vibrated in his pocket, and he pulled it out.

When a photo of a couple popped up, he studied it.

They were dressed in formal wear—a tuxedo on the red-haired guy, while the looker wore a gold evening gown with a thigh-high slit in the skirt.

And damn, was she hot. Her chestnut-colored hair was down and full of curls that framed her heart-shaped face.

Without knowing how tall the guy was, and with nothing else in the photo to use in comparison, it was difficult to tell how tall she was.

But with that mile-long leg that was exposed, Frisco figured she was somewhere between five seven and five nine, which was three to five inches shorter than he was.

While she had curves, it was obvious to him she was in excellent physical condition, which was in direct contrast to her “date,” whose arm was around her waist as they grinned for the camera.

It was evident they knew each other well, and an odd jolt of jealousy struck Frisco as he assessed the other man.

The lucky bastard looked like he spent most of his time indoors behind a computer—he was pale, skinny with almost no muscle tone, and his black-rimmed glasses had “nerd” written all over them—not that there was anything wrong with that.

The “nerds” and “geeks” of this world held a lot more power than most gave them credit for.

Hell, Coach’s wife, Harley, was a computer geek . .. and she was pretty damn hot, too.

“Coach, are you fucking with the damn feeds?” the guy named “Egghead” queried in a pissed-off tone.

“Nope—was just going to ask you the same thing. I’ve got garbage on half of them.”

“What’s wrong?” Sawyer and Hollywood spoke into their comms at the same time.

Sawyer’s man was the first to reply, “We’ve got some sort of interference on a few of the feeds—they’re coming in as static, and I don’t think it’s random. Someone else is hacked in besides the two of us.”

“Fuck,” his boss replied. “Who else wants to throw a monkey wrench into this gig? Find out where it’s coming from and make it fast. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

Before anyone could respond, that bad feeling Frisco and all the other operatives were now experiencing became reality when an explosion rocked the compound, followed by screams and all hell breaking loose.

A ball of flames blew out several windows, spraying everyone standing on the patio with shattered glass, sending them running for cover.

A chorus of curses came over the comm units. Murphy’s law just went FUBAR again. The mission was officially fucked up beyond all recognition. Shit.