Page 6 of Her Righteous Protector

“No,” Simon said as he entered the room. “None of your missions have ever been easy in my opinion. They might have been a little heavy in the romance department,” he chuckled. “But never easy.”

“Hell, I’m here to tell you, the romance part was the hardest part,” Zed said laconically.

“You got that right,” was Kane’s dry agreement.

Everybody nodded in agreement. How in the hell so many of his men managed to fall in love with women they’d met while on missions still amazed him.

“You all realize that we have a shitstorm on our hands if I’m the one coming in to brief you,” Simoon said. “This isn’t because I think this is tougher than your normal mission—hell you’ll come through with flying colors—it’s because this is a major political clusterfuck and I’m going to need constant updates.”

Simon sent Max a sideways look of apology.

“There’s a reporter by the name of Lark Sorensen who was last seen in Kandahar. Her mother is Beatrice Allen, the founder of InTechno. Your job is to get her the hell out of Afghanistan.”

Jesus, no wonder the situation’s so explosive.

Max looked around at his men. He could see that every one of them understood how consequential their target was.

“You’ve got it,” Max said.

Simon handed Max the file he had been holding, then turned to Kane. “Max will give you the passwords you’ll need to get into the encrypted server to get all of the details that we currently have. All communication reports will be going directly to myself and Captain Hale. He would have been here, but he’s currently in-flight from Coronado.”

“Understood,” Kane nodded.

“I want a report as soon as you determine your point of entry,” Simon said as he looked at Max.

“You’ve got it.” He nodded to his commander.

He watched as Simon left the room, then turned to his team. “Start loading up your gear while Kane sets up everything we need to go over.” He turned back to Kane. “How long will you need?”

Kane didn’t bother looking up. “Less than ten minutes.”

“You heard him,” Max said. “Get back here in less than ten minutes.”

He watched as his men filed out. Max went over to Kane’s gear and found the pouch that contained Kane’s prized mini projector. He plopped it down on the desk in front of him. “Does this thing connect with your tablet?”

Finally, Kane looked up from his tablet.

“You didn’t just ask me that, did you?” he mocked. “What decade are you living in? If things weren’t originally made to adapt wirelessly, then there are usually ways to make them adapt. If you can’t, you get something new. With me around, things adapt.”

“You’re sounding kind of pompous, you know that, don’t you?”

Kane ignored him as he continued to work on his tablet. Max watched with admiration as he saw that Kane was actually putting things into a presentation format. Max shook his head and headed for the door.

“Max, wait up a second.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve got some info on your girl.” Max frowned for a moment, then realized Kane was talking about the will.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’ll tell you on the plane.”

“Sounds good.” Max left for his office. He knew that Kane would get them the information they needed, but he wanted to do a little bit of research on Lark Sorensen while he had the time. When he pushed open the door to his cramped office he was surprised to see Kostya Barona sitting in one of his two visitor’s chairs. He looked tense. Max closed his door and sat down at his desk.

“Kostya, didn’t your team just get back from Central America on Wednesday? What are you doing here?” he asked the big, blond lieutenant of Omega Sky.

“I know what your assignment is,” Kostya said bluntly.