Edge of Reason (EDGE Security Series Book 2) by Trish Loye

Blackwell, who’d come to see them off. In the last week, he’d come to respect the woman as a soldier and as a leader, and nothing proved leadership skills more than actual combat. Cat had already shown she was competent and fierce in battle.
    He’d seen more than one officer lose it when the bullets started to fly. Admittedly, he hadn’t seen it since he’d become a SEAL, because weak officers never made it through training in any of the spec ops forces.
    It was because she was a woman that he still doubted her ability, he acknowledged to himself. Even though he’d seen her in Nigeria and on that mountaintop in Afghanistan, he still worried. Her other teammates accepted her and he could see their trust in her, but he had to admit he still needed further proof. Damn. He hadn’t thought he was a chauvinist.  
    Even so, he just couldn’t get over the feeling. He was going to have to do something about it. No way could he go on a mission with doubts about his team leader.  
    “Time to go,” Cat yelled over the noise of the rotors.  
    He lowered his head and stared at his boots. Could he go?
    Black boots stepped into his view. “Lafayette?” Cat said.
    He met her gaze and saw the steel there.  
    Her chin raised. “If you can’t follow my orders,” she said, “you know you don’t belong.”
    He struggled to view her as just another soldier. She was physically competent, intelligent, and calm under pressure. He had to believe she could do this. He wouldn’t let his prejudices harm the mission. And he refused to let himself treat her differently than he would any other leader. Time to shut off his small brain and only think with his big one, as his grand-mère used to say.
    He nodded. “Copy that, Valkyrie,” he said. “I’m good to go.”
    Her shoulders relaxed subtly. “Then let’s do this.”

C HAPTER 9

    The Black Hawk helicopter’s rotors threw up a mini dust storm as it settled to the ground at the airbase in Niger. Just before they’d landed, Cat had caught a glimpse of the Yobe River in the distance.  
    It had been a long trip. Cat’s BDU shirt clung to her back with sweat. Dirt grimed her face, and her eyes begged to close, but her stomach complained most loudly of all. The rest of her team looked like she felt, though Rhys grinned like a kid on his birthday as he flicked through the deck of cards in his hand. He didn’t look at them as he flipped them over and under his fingers, the suits flashing by too quickly to see.  
    The Black Hawk barely jostled her when it landed. The pilot wasn’t part of SOAR, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, but he still had some nice skills. She made a mental note to request him for their mission exfil.
    She grabbed her pack and her weapons bag and jumped off the helicopter with a wave to the pilot. Her team followed.  
    The base wasn’t large, just enough to house a couple of Black Hawks, two MH-6 Little Birds, and three Predators—the remote-controlled drones used for surveillance and sometimes a bit of extra firepower, since each of the MQ-1s carried two Hellfire missiles. Cat would rather the next-generation MQ-9 Reapers be here since they carried fifteen times the ordnance, but she knew they shouldn’t need the backup. If they did, then something had gone drastically wrong with the mission.
    It would be a quick in and out, she repeated to herself.
    The MH-6 Little Birds were used by the U.S. special operations forces for insertion, so Cat knew there probably were a couple of SOAR pilots around and some operators. She made a mental note to find them to see about intel for the area.
    The base HQ was a squat concrete building that looked like it might have once been a school. Around it were the sturdy temporary shelters the military deployed in situations like this. To the side of the small landing strip were the three thirty-foot trailers that housed the operating systems and pilots for each Predator.  
    The airbase was here to help the