She spied a folded piece of paper on top of the coffee table, next to the bottle of mineral water she’d been drinking from.

Jonah wrote that a raid on the place they’d found had been quickly planned and that they were to meet a few members of Special Operations down in the hotel lobby in half an hour. Rian checked her watch. Shit. She had less than ten minutes to get ready. She walked rapidly to the work desk, cursing under her breath that she’d likely misplaced the book of matches that she’d normally kept next to the phone. She finally found it next to the remote control. She struck a match, lit the edge of the note Jonah had written to her, and dropped its ashes on the metal wastepaper basket. She dumped the remaining water in the water bottle to douse the ashes. And then got ready for the mission.

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It was nearly midnight and the moon hanging over the dark desert mountain sky was just a sliver. A ragged group of men, a single woman, and a bunch of children continued their desperate but slow ascent over the rocks and boulders on the side of the solitary highway that traversed the Hindukush mountain range. They were less than a third of a mile from their destination, which was one end of the longest tunnel of this highway. The tunnel, under two miles long, cut across the upper section of the mountain range, tucked under snow-capped mountain peaks. When it was built in the 1960s, it was thought to be the world’s highest road tunnel. Even today, given that it was over 11000 feet above sea-level, it was higher than most road tunnels in the world.

A rescue party was meeting them, coming from the other end of the tunnel, and the group needed to get as close to the rescue party as possible before its escape could be detected.

The armored vehicle the group had been on until about half a mile from where they were now had been attacked with deadly force, and had been crippled by some kind of missile. The rest of their convoy had been destroyed during the attack, and one of the men had managed to pull the rest of their group together behind a huge boulder. They’d huddled together, trying to keep the children quiet and calm, while he got in contact with a support group.