That evening, the air outside the villa sat heavy and still, carrying the faint smell of motor oil and dry grass.
Graham stepped out through the front door with a soft-shell ballistic vest tucked under one arm, his eyes sweeping the courtyard with the practiced calm of a man who had seen too many operations go sideways to take anything for granted. Three black Humvees sat idling at the gate, their paint scuffed and dull, the kind of vehicles that didn't draw attention on the wrong kind of road.
Soren stood near the lead vehicle, threading a sling through the attachment points of a BCM Recce-14 carbine. He worked without looking down, fingers moving from habit. The last instance had put an AR-15 carbine in his hands, and somewhere along the way he'd developed a preference for BCM's build
