Through the scope on his rifle, and through a second-story window above a busy street on the outskirts of Cordoba, Mexico, Logan watched the scene unfold with decreasing patience. At first glance, the black van with white smoke billowing from the hood looked like some sort of minor disaster. With the van’s side doors slid open and the occupants milling about, it looked like the scene of a family vacation gone awry. The young parents, with concern burned into their reddened, sun-cracked faces. The way they leaned against the van, blocking doors to keep the kids inside but the fresh air moving. It was hot day in Cordoba. And it was midday, the worst time and perhaps place for a breakdown.

If they were any other stranded family, a guy like Logan would have been first on the scene to offer whatever help he could. A check under the hood, for starters. As far as he could tell, no one had even popped it open. It was the sign of either a bigger problem or car-repair incompetence.

Logan moved his eye out of the scope, reminding himself that it was an even bigger problem. One unimaginable to tourist families. A problem unimaginable to even the scrappy locals who’d just about seen it all.

The biggest problem, for those three kids in the back seat.

Logan took a deep breath and brought his eye back into the rubber ring of the scope. When he opened that eye, he was back with them again. Tight up close through the heat. Inches away from the misery on their young faces.

He swung to the left and focused on the woman. Then the man standing near the front of the smoking van. They wore a different kind of misery on their faces.

A blur of fur appeared at the bottom of his line of sight. It was a stray dog limping alongside the van, right by the parents, the open door, the waiting children. No one seemed to notice. No one felt inclined to help the animal. Not even the kids leaned over and reached for the poor creature.

No one seemed inclined to help the stranded family, either, and Logan was glad about that. He wanted to keep his targets away from bystanders and in the clear.

It wasn’t supposed to go down like this. That black van was supposed to be in Veracruz in an hour, along an already established route, to a place where Logan had more teammates waiting to do their part. Watching everything, the eyes and ears back at central command, was Logan’s boss, Jackson.

Logan leaned over to speak quietly into his radio. “I’m still in visual,” he said.

There was a quiet radio click in response to note the affirmative. Message received.

Logan waited for further instructions, but there were none. No more radio clicks. No words. No Jackson.

At times, Logan wondered if they’d be better off without these damn radios. And, perhaps, without Jackson watching over their shoulders. There were instincts to go on. Timeliness and opportunity to be seized and acted upon. At times, watching the roadside developments of his target suddenly made vulnerable, Logan wondered if he should take the initiative. Take the shot.

He thought about the words, take the shot, wishing they had instead come through his radio, from Jackson and not his own head. Take the shot and end this, save the kids so everyone could go home early and happy. Have that extra week of sandy beach R&R in Playa del Carmen. Have as many margaritas and carnitas as humanly possible and gain some of the weight he’d lost through all the recent training and the waiting around not eating. Maybe have a girl somewhere in there, sometime before the carnitas.

Or maybe be sensible and stay in his luxury hotel room with the book that he’d brought and hadn’t read.

Or maybe just take the fucking shot right now.

He could feel his pulse through his trigger finger. It rested along the side of the gun, not even close to the trigger guard. He had caught it inching closer before the last message to Jackson. Inching even closer now when the woman moved left just enough away from the kids. Just over and clear enough that he’d feel confident. Just enough to be clear for the shot. Two shots. And that would be it.

Like usual, it felt as if Jackson had been listening in to Logan’s internal dialogue. Jackson with his latest tech toys perhaps implementing some telepathic technology through the radio. Something to do with the mysticism of radiation and Jackson’s need to know every single damned thing.

The radio crackled twice, and then Jackson whispered in his ear. “We’ve got Delta Two en route. Hang tight.”

Delta Two was a party of three DARC operatives headed toward the scene, likely speeding there in their own black van or helicopter. Hanging tight meant Logan’s wait time to be anywhere between ten minutes and two hours.

He clicked on his radio. “Can I get an ETA on Delta Two?”

Logan already knew that anything beyond twenty minutes would be too late. By now, the two adult kidnappers had chatted enough on their phones, and waited and looked around enough to be ready to meet their backup plan. Another vehicle likely to speed in and carry on with the abduction of the three young American children taken from their Alcapulco resort.

He almost didn’t need to hear Jackson’s response with the ETA, though when it came—forty long minutes—Logan’s mind was already made up.

His mind was already moving quickly into the future, his body already receiving just enough of an increase in adrenaline not to disturb his shooting, but to send his muscles into ready mode. Ready for anything. The tiny twitch muscles of his fingers, his lungs, his neck muscles steadying, everything stiffening and readying for action. A cold metallic taste in his mouth. The sounds of Cordoba going away and leaving him quiet and empty and calm for the shot.

Jackson radioed again, but Logan had no answer.

No explanation. No giving away his move for anyone else to eavesdrop and act on to somehow get the kidnappers to slither away with their terrorized prize.

“Triple Zero Smoke,” Jackson said through the radio.

Logan took a few seconds to pull himself out of the process of staring down his target, breathing it away, the focus leaving him slowly and softly. He reached for his radio and clicked it in response to Jackson’s call.

Jackson’s voice came through again, this time with an order: “Stand down.”

Logan shrugged at the order. No. He’d been a soldier long enough to know that occasionally there were extenuating circumstances where an order had to be ignored—whether it was to take action or lay down his arms. It was something no one ever talked about. Definitely not the boot-camp sergeants. Definitely not Jackson. But it was real. And it was necessary here, as the kidnappers looked ready to make their next move, their shouting and actions more animated. Everything he could feel through the scope, his eye never having left it.

This was his chance.

More importantly, those damn poor kids. It was their chance, too.

“Come in, Triple Zero Smoke.”

Logan clicked the radio.

“I said stand down,” Jackson said. “Give me a confirm.”

A click was all he was willing to give.

“That’s not a confirm, Triple Zero Smoke.”

Logan could say confirm so Jackson would get off his back, leave him to his concentration, to his aiming, to his resolving the situation once and for all. He could lie to his boss and take care of it, and explain later. Have the success of the mission buffer against the insubordination. He knew Jackson was different. He knew DARC Ops was very different. This wasn’t the army with its rigid rules and codes of conduct. Right?

This was the imagination guys, the creatives, the risk takers. He was as loyal to Jackson as the next DARC guy, but he was also capable himself of taking executive action. Whether or not he’d just gotten lucky, the decisions he’d made in the past hadn’t come back to bite him in the ass. He’d made the right calls.

“Triple! Come in!”

Jackson was beginning to sound like the boot-camp sergeant . . .

The window of opportunity was closing—Logan’s courage to venture forth with it, and the timing and placing of the shot. He looked at it through his scope, analyzing the risks. He still had a safe backdrop for the odd miss or the likely over-penetration of the bullet that would travel through human material, and then car material, and then lodge in the brick wall behind it. The kids would be more than safe. Their kidnappers, not so much. Him, perhaps not so much, either.

After the shot, Logan would rush down the single flight of stairs, try not to rush out into the street despite the urge to get to the kids as soon as possible. Try to stealth his way over while maintaining both a line of sight to the van and a three-sixty coverage of the surrounding area. A fast threat assessment before finally taking custody of them, speaking English to them—clear, friendly American English. Smiling at them despite the horror, despite the fear and distrust that had collected in their hearts over the past week. Make it clear to them that anything was better than staying in the van, or running away into the arms of a stranger on the street. His arms, in contrast, would be the only logical escape. Snatch them up and head back up into his bird’s nest across the street. Wait there. Watch there. Keep the weapon in his hands at all times. Only then would he talk to Jackson, the beginnings of his asking for forgiveness. Forgiveness, plus an immediate air extraction.

“Triple Zero Smoke,” Jackson said over the radio, his voice quiet and calm, as if he’d come to the same realization that Logan just had. “Triple Zero Smoke, come in.”

“Sunray, I’m engaging.”

“No.”

“I’ve got a clear shot,” Logan said.

“Don’t you engage, Triple. We’ve got our men approaching the area.”

While he chatted with Jackson, Logan could see the kidnappers’ attention shift from the kids and the car and each other, to a man talking loudly to them as he approached on the sidewalk. An accomplice, no doubt. There was no surprise across anyone’s faces, only the cold, hard, calculating glance at the van and back. The steely, empty glare of workers in a slaughterhouse.

Logan couldn’t wait for backup.

The kids couldn’t wait, either.

He stopped his conversation with Jackson in order to regain his shooter’s focus, the last thought on his mind the sage advice his father had once told him: It’s easier to ask for forgiveness later than permission when it’s too late.

He heard it one last time, his father’s voice, before his finger slipped back in the trigger guard. Back firmly on the trigger, pulling back ever so slightly as the picture in the scope sharpened and crystallized into one exact point.

The dirty, frazzled face of a man in his late twenties. A man so depraved that even children were not off limits. These types of jobs were always difficult, but certain scenarios made it easier. Context made it easier.

Logan didn’t blink when the shot rang out, seeing the full vibration and then nothing in his scope. There would hardly be anything left of the target’s head. He knew all about that and knew there was no need to check around. Instead, he panned two meters to the left and saw an older woman still in shock, still not recognizing the situation, standing still while raising her handgun in a random, hapless direction. A direction not at the kids, and not at Logan. And after a split second, at nothing at all. The gun and the woman lay separated in the street.

The rest of his vision, the normal peripheral scene, had erupted in panic. There were screams, rushing pedestrians, speeding cars. Through the mayhem, he tracked the newly arrived suspect, another young man who had just seconds before been talking to two living, breathing human beings who were now crumpled, bleeding messes on the Cordoba cobblestone. His reaction was typical. Everything about him was normal and typical, save for the fact that he’d been approaching the kidnappers, the car, and the kids. Approaching and talking with them as if he’d known them. But it wasn’t enough to seal his fate. And Logan wasn’t ready to dish out another death sentence. Instead, he let him flee with the rest of the crowd, the man hopping onto the back of a motor scooter and zooming away, the whine of the engine finally fading.

He leaned to the radio where Jackson had been talking almost without cessation. He cut in. “The two primaries are gone. Two primaries are down. I’m moving in and clearing and securing the area.”

There was a flurry of voices in response, and not all of it from Jackson. Other DARC members had cut in, other agencies, too. It was official. He’d stepped out of line, emerged from the safety of the shadows, the safety of orders, and put his own neck on the line for the safety of those kids. And it felt great.