Page 7 of The Team (The Milvus Files #3)

FIVE

“Briefing room. Fifteen minutes.”

Fuck.

“It’s go-time,” Rhett said, and was up and out of bed, Jay stumbling to follow.

Without a word, they dressed, pulled their boots on, and Rhett walked into the briefing room with one minute to spare.

The wall of screens showed twenty different things. A person was at every desk, tapping away, speaking into their earpieces. Frankston and Malla, their team’s handlers, worked frantically. Directors King and Depraz were watching it all, faces sullen.

Rhett knew it wasn’t good.

“Lin with you?” King asked.

“Of course. He’s gone to confab one. He’ll get the team ready. What do we know? ”

He had no clue what he was even here for.

A terrorist attack? A personal detail? Recon and extraction? Transport?

Depraz spared him a hard glance, full eye contact, all business. “We lost contact with Kowalski and Myles.”

What?

Hell fucking no.

Rhett’s stomach dropped. His adrenaline spiked, his blood pounded in his ears. “When? Last known location?”

King gave him a look that told Rhett he was not going to like the answer. “Baku.”

The fuck?

“Azerbaijan?” Rhett couldn’t believe it. “They were never?—”

“Objectives change. You know that,” Depraz said.

King’s expression was grim. “They last checked in at eighteen hundred and were supposed to make contact after crossing into Georgia. They did not. Rendezvous point in Tbilisi was not made.”

Fuck.

Rhett looked directly at him. “When do we leave?”

“You’ll fly into Baku, and there will be vehicles waiting for you south of Sangachal. Van detail in thirty.”

Rhett turned and headed for the door. “Debrief me enroute.”

He headed straight for confab one, the room where his team would convene. He knew Jay would have rounded everyone up and be waiting, like he knew they’d be ready.

He opened the door, and seven heads turned to face him. “We’re up,” he said. He checked his watch. “Gone by zero five thirty. ”

Echo, Coyote, Sid, Azrael, and Jay all stood up, and Yin and Chen half a second after them. They weren’t familiar with how the team operated, but they were about to learn. It’d be a case of sink or swim for the two newest members, but Rhett wasn’t too concerned.

He was confident they’d be assets to his team in no time. And if they couldn’t adjust and keep up, if they weren’t as good as he thought they could be, they were finished.

If not dead.

Rhett led the way to the bunker. Every home base had one just like it—dark, windowless, reinforced, undetectable by radar.

Lockers with their gear, black combat fatigues, weapons.

Personal belongings got left behind, no identification, no nametags.

Once they put their combat gear on and went on a mission, they were on their own.

They belonged to no country; they were a team of kites.

Independent of government and allegiance.

Such was the Milvus Division.

Operations were get in, get out. The least amount of time on the ground as possible. That was how they operated.

This one was different though.

These were two of his team that were missing.

Rhett checked his watch again. It was 0515. Kowalski and Myles had been no-contact for almost twelve hours.

And that was really fucking bad.

Everyone dressed in silence. Everyone checked their weapons without a word.

Rhett avoided looking at the two unopened lockers. Kowalski and Myles .

It wasn’t unusual for the team to break off into smaller factions for a short op. Kowalski and Myles were more than capable and had done ops together before. They all had.

Theirs was supposed to be a simple three-day op. Covert deploy into Armenia, acquire footage and intel of a target, and get out.

They could do this shit with their eyes closed.

Which meant something had gone very wrong.

And their last known location was Baku, Azerbaijan?

Yeah. Something wasn’t adding up.

Rhett rechecked his Glock 17, slid it back into his thigh holster, and turned around.

His team was watching him, waiting.

He had to treat this like any other mission, as if it weren’t two of their own they were extracting.

Slipping into that go-mode mentality helped him compartmentalise.

Detaching any and all emotions was the only way to go.

“Kowalski and Myles failed to make rendezvous; they were supposed to make contact twelve hours ago and failed to do so. We’ll be making a covert drop into Azerbaijan, southeast of Baku. ”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Sid mumbled.

“Twelve hours?” Echo whispered.

Rhett gave a nod. “We’ll know more enroute.”

Then the door opened, and Director King walked in. He had with him Frankston and Malla, who were, as always, glued to their iPads.

They were tech nerds who watched everything, knew everything, collected intel and data for every move their team made.

Tactical intel from iPads and satellites was how wars were won these days.

They got to sit in the comfort of HQ playing real-life chess games, moving their pieces—Rhett and his team—around the chessboard with no more than an earpiece and a live satellite feed.

King looked around the bunker and paused for a millisecond when he saw Yin and Chen. He turned to Rhett, and he knew what King was about to say.

They were untested, too new to be thrown into a mission so soon. It had been barely twenty-four hours, after all, and the lives of two of their own were on the line.

“I was expecting to send six,” King said.

Rhett stepped forward, deliberately putting himself in front of Yin and Chen. “I’m taking my team. My team of eight, remember? You make whatever signal adjustments you need to, but all of us are getting on that plane. Do we have a problem?”

Director King stared at him.

Was this a test of Rhett’s team alliance? Did King want to know if Rhett already included Yin and Chen as part of his own? Rhett didn’t think for one minute that King thought Yin and Chen weren’t capable. So this was a trust issue.

Rhett stared right back. Unblinking, unmoving. If this was a test to see who had bigger balls, Rhett would win every fucking time.

King’s nostrils flared before he turned to Frankston and Malla and gave a nod.

“Full authorisation, full comms,” Rhett added, looking at the two techs. “And just out of interest, who was working on the Kowalski and Myles job?”

Malla gawped a little at Rhett’s scrutiny and turned to Frankston, throwing him right under the bus.

Malla was a tall Spanish guy, neat as a pin.

Frankston was the complete opposite. He reminded Rhett of an English version of Jack Black.

Shorter, pudgy, and unkempt in a way that was made more obvious working with military folks.

But he was proficient with all things tech, and he’d got their asses out of a few sticky situations on assignments before.

“Yeah,” he said with an awkward wave of his hand. “I relayed transport details to get them into Georgia, but there was no response.”

Rhett gave him a nod, then he gave King a look that said fuck you in no uncertain terms before turning to his team. “Let’s go.”

The team climbed into the back of the black van, four a side, facing each other.

Rhett knew that Yin was looking at him, but he was still too pissed off to face him.

Fucking bureaucracy made him so mad. If they had any doubts about including Yin and Chen, they shouldn’t have been brought into Milvus at all.

And if they were doubting Rhett’s ability to run his team, well, they could all go get fucked.

“Thank you,” Yin said, breaking the silence.

Rhett looked at him then. “Still trying to figure out if they doubt you or if they doubt my leadership. Fucking assholes.”

Director King’s voice broke through their earpieces, a warning of its own. “Full comms, Captain Ouston.”

Rhett smirked. “Good. Saves me repeating myself in my report.” Then he thought better about being too disrespectful, so he tacked on a curt, “Sir.”

Yin’s eyes widened, Chen grimaced, but Jay laughed, and the rest of the team smiled .

Rhett was defensive of his team, and the fact that his team now included Yin and Chen was Director King’s doing. And quite frankly, King should have known better than to question that in front of his team.

The residual anger helped keep the pre-mission anxiety from setting in, and Rhett felt better once they were in the air. They’d be refuelling in Croatia, so he told his team to rest, and he spent his time squeezing King for all the intel they had.

The base in Croatia hadn’t changed much since the last time Jay was there, over a year ago now. When they’d extracted Asher Garin and Oh Yunho from the underground bunker with the help of his favourite cranky tank, Harry Harrigan.

They were there to refuel and, of course, Rhett was off with Director King, going through the latest intel.

The base had since been relieved from the multinational crime ring fronted by Istomin in a trade-off with the Croatian government and was now a detail base and refuelling station for the Milvus Division whenever needed.

Jay didn’t care much for the political bullshit that went on. He knew it was necessary. He knew it was all a game of bargaining and give and take. Just like he was aware those rules were murky as fuck, lies were a given, and nothing was ever black and white.

Grey was a whole fucking colour.

Jay couldn’t let himself get consumed by that side of it. He knew Rhett straddled the sidelines every day—his role as team leader had him with a foot on either side of the military and political line—but Jay wasn’t built for that.

As much as it drove Rhett crazy sometimes, or just downright pissed him off, Jay was glad it was Rhett and no one else.

Not just because he knew Rhett was capable, but also that his loyalty would always be for his team. He put them first, always. And he would stand up to the likes of Director King to defend his team when maybe others wouldn’t have the balls to dare.