3. battle calls

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Gillian received Cassidy's text when they were driving into Logan airport, giving her a hangar number

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Gillian received Cassidy's text when they were driving into Logan airport, giving her a hangar number. The field office's Pilatus PC12 was right outside, some men working on it. The pilot came to meet her when they jumped out of their cars. Gillian stayed behind, talking to him while the team hurried up the steps into the plane, the men carrying two heavy cases with some of Ron's devices.

The jet wasn't the glamorous Falcon 20 Cassidy used when he needed a ride, but it wasn't too far behind. The eight executive seats were set in two lines, and the first rows faced each other with small tables between them. Across the aisle from the door, a coffee machine and a hot-cold water dispenser were set on top of a small fridge, under a square cupboard, between the back of the first seat and the toilet.

They picked their seats, but left one on the first row for Gillian.

She joined them a moment later. "Wheels up in ten," she said. "So let's use this idle time. T, we have satellite internet here, so get a direct, steady channel with the agents at the compound. Ron, Kurt, you try to increase the motion scanner range as much as you can. And we're gonna need personal trackers, just in vase. Fred, Hank, you guys take a good look at the place and give me two extraction plans."

"What about me?" asked Aldana in a shaky voice.

Gillian barely glanced at her, as she dialed Cassidy. "You ain't no good in the state you're in. So go wash your face and make some coffee until you get a grip on yourself."

Aldana glared as if Gillian had slapped her. Gillian held her eyes, eyebrows up, inviting her to argue. Aldana breathed deep and stalked to the tiny toilet next to the cockpit.

"Sir, I'm gonna need some things," Gillian said on the phone.

She instructed the Section Chief in a tone he'd never heard from her before. Dry, tight, not a useless word, not a hint of any kind of emotion. It caused him a chill. This had nothing to do with the crazy-driven woman he was used to, always passionate despite her two decades in the field. This was the voice of a hitman making battle calls. A controlled overdrive to get the best out of her experience applied to the crisis, her feelings locked under seven keys she'd just thrown away.

Her mind went over as many possible scenarios as she could think of. And there was death in all of them. So Gillian assessed how to push death to the other side of her front line and keep it there.

As he held his phone on speaker for Cooper to listen, and Helen took note of Gillian's requests, Cassidy made his own battle call. So when Gillian asked her question, he already had an answer for her.

"How much deathly force am I authorized to use?"

"As much as you deem necessary."

"You sure, sir?" Can I really kill these sons of bitches slow and bloody?

"You do what you have to, Gillian. I've got your back."

"Yessir."

Gillian disconnected, thinking she would've liked to scoff at such a cunning gambit. That bastard! She knew he meant it. She could skin all the subjects alive, and then burn down the whole place with them inside, and Cassidy would support her decision. But aware of his unconditional support, she wouldn't do anything that might mean trouble for him. Cassidy knew it. That was exactly why he'd given her such a liberal green light. Damn politician, manipulating her like that in such a situation!

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