“How big?” Peter Davis, ITAP’s operations manager, had arrived in his wheelchair, a tablet in his lap and a puzzled look on his face.

“You’ll know when I know,” Brown said, glancing at his go-to guys, Jamie Cooper and Bobbie Taggart. Both looked alert and curious, as did the team’s new recruits, Brett Carlyle, Enrique Santos, and Josh Waldrop, all former independent private securities specialists who had recently been brought into the fold.

“When’s this little powwow supposed to start?” Cooper asked, crossing an ankle over a knee, his foot going a hundred miles an hour, relaying that he was both excited and impatient.

Before Brown could respond, the door opened, and six members of DOD’s other “off the books” team walked in.

“Holy crap,” Taggart muttered when he saw them. “Did the red phone ring in the White House?”

Now that Nate Black and his team had shown up, Brown wondered the same thing. Calling together DOD’s two top covert and highly specialized tactical teams suggested a major development.

Nate Black, former U.S. Marine captain, former CEO of his independent contract firm Black Ops Inc., and now the Black team’s CO, was the ranking operator in the room. Nate shook Mike’s hand, then joined him at the podium.

“Not sure intros are necessary,” Mike said, “but let’s dot the Is and cross the Ts, shall we?”

“Oh, by all means, let’s.” Johnny Reed grinned as he sat and gave the room in general a nod. “Top dog here, in case you didn’t remember. You can call me TD.”

“Just this one time, dial it down, OK, Reed?” Black nodded to the front row, and the rest of the team introduced themselves. In addition to Reed, Gabe Jones, Rafe Mendoza, Luke Coulter, and Joe Green nodded hellos.

“I’m going to cut right to the chase,” Black said, and passed out hard copies of an operations order—called an OPORD—to the members of both teams. “Everyone got a copy? Good. Read along with me, boys. Please hold your questions until I’m finished.”

Mike flipped open the document and followed the report while Black started reading aloud.

“Operation Aces High—Background Summary OPORD: In October this year, while conducting a routine patrol in Sperwan Ghundey, Panjwai, Kandahar, Afghanistan, an Air Force patrol operating out of recently established FOB (forward operating base) Shaker was approached by a female Afghan (Pashtun) subject on the outskirts of Emarat. Subject claimed that an American Special Forces sergeant had taken shelter with her family following his escape from enemy forces after being held hostage approximately three years. The subject provided correspondence stating it was written by the SF soldier, as well as physical evidence for verification.”

Black stopped and took a sip of water when Mike handed him a glass.

“Operational constraints precluded immediate authentication of said missing SF sergeant’s existence. Subsequent analysis of physical evidence, however, confirmed it did, in fact, belong to an American military service member believed to be KIA (killed in action) in February 2011, following hostile action near Chamkani, Paktia Providence, Afghanistan, on the Pakistan side of the border. His body was never recovered.

“Despite repeated attempts to subsequently contact the female Afghan subject at a prearranged meeting place, contact failed. Two weeks ago, however, overflights of the area by drone assets revealed the letters ‘DOL’ and ‘JA’ formed on the roof of a dwelling in the village of Salawat as the woman had promised they would be. It could be surmised that ‘JA’ represents the initials of the missing team member, and ‘DOL’ could represent ‘De Oppresso Liber,” Army Special Forces credo. Note: one week later, the letters had been removed.”

“Holy crap,” Taggart muttered under his breath.

Black continued. “Findings: Probability of said SF sergeant’s existence: 85 percent.

“Recommendations: Current political climate in Afghanistan during the draw-down coupled with increased Taliban activity in the area necessitates extreme care in handling this situation. Sanctioned military involvement is not advised. It is therefore recommended to deploy black ops and ITAP teams to conduct a surveillance mission, gather further intel on the existence of KIA/MIA service member and the Afghan subject who contacted the patrol and then report back to DOD for further orders, should an extraction of the SF sergeant, if he actually exists, becomes necessary.”

Black downed another sip of water. “Enemy Forces: Taliban, both foreign and local, are expected to inhabit the area and number fewer than fifty. They have conventional commbloc (Soviet) weapons including RPG-7s, RPDs (machine guns), AK-47s. No evidence of heavy weapons, including DShK 12.7mm heavy machine guns or mortars. Communication with their command staff is limited to radio and cell phones. They utilize a wide variety of vehicles, including small to large pickup-type trucks, passenger vans, small buses, and cars. Their mobility is limited by road conditions, and they are often able to travel only by foot or using animals.

“Assets Available for Mission,” Black continued. “Troop assets will be available for a rescue of the SF sergeant, should he be found; however, there will be complete deniability and no participation by U.S. military sources to rescue black teams if it is not also in conjunction with the rescue of the reported KIA. Intelligence assets will be available as required, including drone, satellite, and Elint (electronics intelligence) to monitor enemy radio traffic. Air assets include aerial vehicles ranging from drones to fighter/bomber air strikes, B-52s, B-1s, and AC-130s. Further information on required air assets will be determined at a later date—by us,” he added pointedly.

“One Russian-made Mi-17 helicopter with Afghan military markings will be utilized for team insertion and extraction. Utilization of this particular aircraft has two advantages: it adds further deniability that no U.S. forces were directly involved, and the Mi-17 can transport required personnel and equipment to carry out the mission and provide its own air support with conventionally mounted weapons.”

Black paused again, and seeing that the men were all engrossed in the OPORD, continued: “A staging area will be provided at the Kandahar airport. Appropriate arms, ammunition, fuel, and other material assets will be made available to the team as specified. Assault and contingency plans will also be developed—again, by us.

“Finally, the subject of the search is Medical Sergeant Jeffery Robert Albert, U.S. Army Special Forces Group (Airborne), C Company, 8th Battalion, 1st Special Forces Regiment, formerly believed KIA, February 2011.”

Black looked up from the report. “I’ll take questions now.”

Mike couldn’t have asked a question if he had a rifle pointed straight at his heart.

Medical Sergeant Jeffery Robert Albert.

It couldn’t be. It could not be J. R. Albert, the husband of the woman his brother, Ty, had fallen in love with and intended to marry.

But he knew Jess’s story. Her husband, J.R., Jeff, had been KIA by an IED in Afghanistan three and a half years ago. This could not be a coincidence.

Jeff Albert might be alive. In all probability, he was alive. And while Mike was happy as hell about the prospect of bringing a hero home, he knew what this would do to his brother. It was going to kill him.

He had to talk to Black. In private. He had to get more information.

“Has the family been notified of the possibility that Albert may be alive?” he asked abruptly.

“Negative,” Black responded. “That’s on hold until we either get eyes on him or confirm that this is a hoax.”

“But you don’t think it is. You think this guy somehow survived.”

“I do,” Black said simply.

Before Mike could ask more, the team started firing questions at Black like bullets.

“Where, exactly, are we inserting, sir?” Reed wanted to know.

Black grabbed a laser pointer from a shelf in the podium and made a circle on the wall map in the general area. There were so many small villages scattered throughout the Afghan countryside that many of them weren’t even marked on the map.

“Beg your pardon, sir,” Bobbie Taggart, former Special Forces himself, spoke up. “But isn’t it a bit—how should I put this without mentioning the words chicken shit—let’s say, unusual that Special Forces isn’t all the hell over this, draw-down or not? If that was our guy out there, there’d be so many of us jumping out of planes to find him, the sky’d be white with parachutes.”

“Unusual is the key word, Taggart,” Black agreed. “Everything about this situation is unusual, starting with the fact that Sergeant Albert was listed as KIA and ending with the circumstances that brought his existence to DOD’s attention.”

“Can you expand on that, sir?” This from Gabe Jones, who sat with his arms crossed over his chest, his bad leg outstretched, a sober look on his face.

“February 2011, Sergeant Albert’s detachment was headed back to home base after completing a mission in Pakistan. The small convoy was met with overwhelming Taliban forces,” Black said, nutshelling the situation. “Two survivors of the attack reported seeing Albert’s GMV get hit by an IED and later by an RPG. The witnesses were fighting for their own lives and barely escaped themselves. Both were one-hundred-percent certain Albert was dead.”

“And no one recovered his body?” Green sounded both skeptical and pissed.

“There were extenuating circumstances,” Black said. “One, the ambush took place in Pakistan, where ‘officially’ no U.S. military actions were supposed to take place. Two, before a detail could sneak back across the border to recover the bodies, a monster snowstorm set in. Add to that, beefed-up Pakistani forces on what had been a very porous border precluded the recovery of Albert’s body.”