It felt as though only minutes had passed when the alarm on my phone signaled it was time for me to get ready to leave.
“Is it okay if I stay here awhile?” she asked.
How I wanted to ask her not to leave until I returned—to be waiting for me in the bed we shared.
I wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and walked to the front door of the cabin with her by my side.
“You mean so much to me. I hope you know that, Flynn.”
“I more than know it, Paxon. I feel it.”
“I feel it too.”
She was on my mind during the flight to California, even while Decker and Gunner outlined each carefully planned step of the op during which we’d extract William “Xander” Harris from the black jail cottage where Decker was certain he was being kept.
I thought about her as we walked into Doc’s Montecito home, just outside Santa Barbara, where we picked up tactical gear and the weapons that would be necessary to execute this phase of the mission that had been part of my life for so long that there were times I couldn’t remember what it had felt like before. Except when I was with Flynn. Then, I remembered.
More, I longed for it to be over. Once it was, I had no idea what I’d do with my life other than spend as much of it with her as she’d let me.
When we left for the airfield, Decker accompanied us. Instead of getting on the plane we’d be taking to Taiwan, he boarded a smaller aircraft that would transport him to Texas.
“Godspeed,” he said, shaking each of our hands. I was last and he embraced me. “Let’s end this, Irish. Once and for all.”
My eyes met Saint’s when right before he boarded, he gave me a head nod. While they’d said it was my decision, I made certain Doc was comfortable with the former MI6 agent accompanying him, Razor, Gunner, Lynx, and I on this side of the mission.
Those remaining at Roaring Fork Ranch would be working with Money to develop a new offer for former Director Fisk in the hope that whatever information we couldn’t get out of Harris, we’d get from him.
I slept as much as my brain would allow me during the thirteen-hour flight, knowing I would need to be well rested for what came after we landed.
When I couldn’t sleep, I reviewed each step we were about to take as they were outlined. I looked up when Gunner sat beside me. It had changed since Decker initially talked about it. He and Gunner had modified the original plan to eliminate travel on land as much as possible.
“We get in, we get out, and we bring everyone home with us. While this may be your first extraction, it isn’t the first time you’ve relied on your gut to get you through a mission.”
“Copy that.”
“I have a question for you.”
“Go ahead.”
“How badly do you want this fucker brought back alive?”
“I can’t answer that. I’ve been weighing that question over and over in my own mind. Knowing what he’s been responsible for facilitating, it will be difficult for me not to kill him myself. What we need from him, though, if we can get him to give it to us, is crucial to us ending this—once and for all.”
“Roger that. I’ll do my best not to get trigger-happy, but it ain’t gonna be easy.”
42
Irish
With any op, we planned for success but were prepared for what to do when the worst happened. Even in the midst of it, I felt like I was outside my body, watching its execution being carried out by someone else.
Once we were in the seaplane, I looked down at the East China Sea, mesmerized by the way the water ebbed and flowed, even so far from a shoreline.
We landed in the river off Zhoushan, under the cover of the night sky, and loaded onto the boats that would take us from there, up the Yangtze to the Huangpu River. I looked out at the shoreline of the country that I’d seen for so long as the land of my enemy. I’d stopped seeing it as a place of homes and families. A place where generations of people lived and worked, from birth to death, most never believing an entire nation could be their enemy. Even their own.
“He better fucking be here,” I heard Gunner mutter under his breath when the boat he and I were in came close enough to the shore that we could get out and execute the most important—and most dangerous—part of the entire mission.
As we crept through the heavy forest and it came into view, the place where we believed Xander was being kept looked, as Decker predicted, like a simple cottage—except for the heavy bars covering the doors and windows that I could see through my night-vision goggles.
As we approached, I used a hand-held Doppler radar device that would determine the number of people inside and whether there was any movement. According to what I saw on the screen, there were three and none were doing anything more than breathing.
We rounded the house to where Decker had said we’d find a window leading into a crawl space just beneath an area adjacent to the room where the radar showed a single person.
Gunner, known as the grand master of stealth, was tasked with extracting Harris while the rest of us provided cover both inside and out. Doc and Razor followed him in.
From where Saint and I stood by the entry point, I heard two quick pfooots—the sound of guns equipped with silencers being fired. I looked at the radar device and saw that there was no movement from the two bodies that had been in the other area of the house.
Seconds later, Gunner came out, carrying who I assumed was Harris in his arms.
“Go, go, go,” I
