“You heard me,” Hancock said curtly, no patience for restating what they’d all clearly heard. “The mission has changed.”
“Good mojo,” Mojo said, with a more animated voice than his usual monotone. The man actually looked happy.
“Not that I remotely object and if I were still in the military, I’d be saying hooyah,” Cope interjected. “But do we get a clue about what changed since our last meeting a little over twelve hours ago?”
“Everything,” Hancock snarled. “We aren’t going to use the torture and murder of an innocent woman to finally take Maksimov down. I’m fucking tired of the good of the many creed and I swear to God, I’ll have the balls of whoever says it in my hearing again.”
“Fuckin’ A,” Conrad snapped.
“Good mojo.”
“Rock the fuck on, bro,” Henderson piped up.
Viper and Cope both nodded their agreement.
“We’re going to take Maksimov out by making it appear we’re giving him what he wants. And then we take him and any other threat out. I don’t give a fuck how messy or clean. And I don’t give a shit about dismantling his empire. For once, someone else can clean up the goddamn messes.”
“You’re on it tonight, man,” Conrad said in a dry tone.
“Tell me how Bristow died,” Hancock asked abruptly, his tone turning lethal.
Conrad shrugged. “He might still be alive. Or not. I figured a few hours, but he’s a pussy. I doubt he lasted more than an hour. More’s the pity.”
The other team members muttered and expressed their disgruntlement at the idea he would die so quickly.
“His instructions were to drug her for the delivery,” Hancock said, turning the conversation back to its original subject.
Conrad’s brow lifted. “Is that what you’re doing?”
Hancock uncharacteristically paused. Usually his responses were quick, assured. Situation completely in hand and on point. His men picked up on it. He would have been pissed if they hadn’t, even as it pissed him off that he’d allowed himself that brief show of uncertainty. His men had been trained to pick up subtleties. It was the smallest of details that saved one’s ass.
Hancock sighed. “I am.”
The others looked at him in surprise.
“If I thought the other option was the best option, then I wouldn’t drug her.”
No one asked the obvious question, but it was there in every single face and in their eyes. They waited in silence for their team leader to explain.
“Honor can’t know that we’re actually pretending to deliver her, and she can’t be conscious for more reasons than the fact that Maksimov made it a condition. She’s simply too honest. All you have to do is look at her face, into her eyes, and you see the truth. Maksimov would never believe her to be what she should appear as. A scared, beaten-down captive about to be turned over to a monster. So I have to drug her, and . . . I have to fucking lie to her.”
He said that last with blistering rage, a bitter taste filling his mouth. It was a necessary evil, one that would save her life and, if they were lucky, take Maksimov out in the process. But it didn’t mean he liked deceiving her. Again. He fucking hated it. Especially after what they’d shared the night before. And even more, she’d given him her unconditional trust. The mere thought that for even one moment she could think he’d betrayed her made him sick to his soul.
“We do what’s necessary,” Viper said, his tone quieter than normal.
“Good mojo,” Mojo said by way of agreement.
“You know it’s the only way,” Conrad said, but Hancock could see the other man’s equal dislike of the deception. And his guilt. He could read Hancock. Conrad had always had the uncanny knack of reading his team leader, and he knew just how much Hancock hated what had to be done just as he’d known how much he’d despised the initial mission of handing Honor over and walking away.
“Yes. It is,” Hancock said. “Now, we need to come up with a plan. A damn good plan. There is no margin for error. Maksimov has to be taken out, and Honor can not be harmed in any way. She, not Maksimov, is the primary goal. Yes, we’re using her as a way to get close enough to Maksimov to take him out. But Honor’s safety comes before all else. Even if it means Maksimov escapes us. Again.”
“We’re on it,” Cope said immediately.
And then, as a team, they all turned to face Hancock, at attention, something they hadn’t done since they’d left the military.
“You have our word. We will protect Honor Cambridge with our lives,” Conrad said formally.
In turn, each of the remaining men repeated Conrad’s vow, and Hancock’s heart swelled with pride. They were hated, reviled. Their own government, whose dirty work Titan had done for years, had turned on them and tried to execute them. When that hadn’t worked, the government had put a bounty on their heads.
His men were good men. Good men who’d done terrible things in the name of justice. And for the fucking good of the many. Had saved lives, even the lives of the very people who sought their death. They worked under no banner, no country. They had no true homeland. And they would always be hunted by the few remaining who even knew of their existence.
The very country they had fought so tirelessly to protect—and still protected—had denounced them all. Branded them with the worst insult they could have possibly levied given just how many acts of terrorism they’d prevented. Terrorists. Traitors to their country. The country they would have given their lives for. They were stripped of honor, already declared officially dead before becoming the black ops group Titan and they’d been robbed of their citizenship. They had no home, no place anywhere to call home. No loyalty to anyone save themselves. Their cause, their mission, was still the same. That much had never changed even when everything else had. Protect the innocent. Hunt the evil. Regardless of nationality.