Disquiet crept into his mind. This operation seemed to be falling apart by the minute, and his brain wasn’t one hundred percent focused on the mission. There had never been a woman before now he’d been anxious to return home to. That should please him. Instead it seemed ominous—something that would be denied him because he wanted it too much.
Maria chewed on her thumbnail and fidgeted in her chair. She’d once thought the hardest thing she would ever do was pass her law exams, but she’d been wrong. As she sat in the situation room at K2 with her brother and K2 staff, waiting to hear Jake’s voice come through the speakers topped the list. She slid a quick glance at the man sitting next to Logan. Although he hadn’t been introduced, he had CIA written all over him. He briefly met her gaze, but didn’t give even the hint of a smile. Logan would’ve briefed the guy on who she was, but he’d given no sign of wanting her to acknowledge him, so she tried to ignore him.
Jake had been gone for three days, and today was The Day. Any minute, the feed from the team would stream over the speakers as they prepared to sneak into the house and rescue Chad Sinclair. A part of her wanted to leave, or at least cover her ears. If she went back to her office, Logan would come tell her when it was over. He would tell her that Jake was safe.
Who was she kidding? There was no way she could leave. The situation room was the closest to Jake she could get. She would will him to stay safe. Logan had ordered her not to say a word, that if she even muttered something under her breath he would physically pick her up and deposit her outside the conference room door, locking it behind him.
Saint winked at her, a silent reassurance that all would be well. She smiled back and felt her lips trembling. Jake would be okay. He would. This kind of operation was a piece of cake for him.
Yet, so many things had already gone wrong. The weapons the team got belonged at the city dump, they’d lost their in-country contact, and had been forced to move to a different safe house. Maybe it was true that bad luck came in threes and now the operation would get back on track. Maria said a little prayer it was so.
“You in place, Elaine?”
It was starting. Maria’s heart went into overdrive at the sound of Jake’s voice coming through the speakers.
“Eyes on the back door,” Stewart said. “All’s quiet back here. No Tangos in sight. Headed your way now.”
“Good. Tennessee, ready to rock and roll?”
God, she loved how Jake’s voice sounded so sure and confident.
The silence stretched as everyone in the room waited for Rick Bayne to answer Jake. They were supposed to have a video feed but for some reason, it wasn’t coming through. She had mixed feelings about that, half wanting to see Jake, half fearing what she might see if things went wrong.
Finally. “Ah . . . yes, sir. I’m right behind you, Buchanan . . . Tiger.”
They weren’t supposed to use real names—a slipup Bayne should never have made—and Logan’s lips thinned. Was he concerned about Bayne? Rick was supposed to have Jake’s back. Maria tried to catch her brother’s eye, but he wouldn’t look at her, which worried her all the more. Logan knew something she didn’t, something he didn’t like.
Her pulse pounding a kazillion beats a minute, she moved to the edge of her chair. It was three in the morning in Egypt, and hopefully all the bad guys guarding Sinclair were asleep. As planned, Jake and his team were going for the kid two days earlier than he expected.
“Show time,” Jake said.
Maria closed her eyes and imagined him creeping up to the front window. They would go in through the lower floor’s window instead of trying to get through a locked door. Once inside, Jake, with Rick and Brad covering his back, would find Chad Sinclair and get him out of the house without anyone ever knowing they were there. That was the plan anyway, and she crossed the fingers on both hands.
The radio went silent, the only sound in the room the tick, tick, tick of the clock on the wall. She glanced at it and watched the second hand bump its way past the numbers—a minute, two, and on to three. Unable to take her eyes from it, by the time it hit five minutes, her stomach churned and she feared she might throw up.
“We’re in.”
Jake’s whispered voice startled her so badly she squeaked, getting a glare from Logan. Maybe she wasn’t cut out for all this cloak-and-dagger stuff and should wait outside. Although, in the past, she’d sat in and watched or listened to live operations, and it had never unnerved her like this.