Chapter 19
KANE
The Montana dawn breaks cold enough to burn.
I stand at the cabin's north window, thermal mug warming my scarred hands, watching frost patterns crawl across the glass like artillery maps drawn by winter itself.
Four-thirty in the morning. The mountains are still dark, but the sky bleeds from black to deep purple, that precise moment when night admits defeat but day hasn't claimed victory.
This is my favorite time. The world holds its breath, and for twenty minutes, I can pretend I'm the only person left in it.
Except I'm not at the cabin anymore. I'm at the staging facility that just became a battlefield. And one of my team is gone.
The staging facility looks like a war zone in the grey predawn light.
Spent brass casings litter the ground like copper snow. Bullet holes stitch patterns across concrete walls. Blood—too much blood—darkens the frozen earth. The acrid smell of gunpowder hangs heavy in the air, mixed with something chemical that makes my eyes water even through the dissipating smoke.
Twenty-seven bodies. I count them myself, methodically moving through the perimeter with Stryker while Rourke maintains overwatch from the roof.
Committee operatives in full tactical gear, most of them dead before they hit the ground.
Professional soldiers carrying out orders under the banner of national security.
Now they're just casualties in a war most people don't know exists.
"They came prepared for a siege," Stryker says, crouching beside one of the bodies near the southern perimeter.
He's examining the operative's gear with the careful efficiency of someone who's stripped enemy combatants more times than he can count.
"Night vision, thermal scopes, breaching charges. This wasn't a reconnaissance mission."
"No," I agree, studying the tactical formation they'd used to assault the building. "This was an extraction. They knew exactly where the staging facility was and came with everything they needed to dig us out."
Or to make us think they were trying to dig us out while they grabbed Mercer from the perimeter.
Six hours. Mercer's been in Committee custody for six hours now, and every minute that passes makes recovery less likely.
Enhanced interrogation techniques. Chemical persuasion.
Sensory deprivation. I've done worse myself when the mission required it.
The kind of methods that break even the strongest operators if applied long enough.
But Mercer's not just any operator. He's Echo Ridge. My team. My responsibility.
My failure.
"Strip the bodies of anything useful," I order, forcing my mind back to the immediate problem. "Weapons, ammo, intel devices. Anything that might tell us where they've taken him. Then we sanitize the site and move out."
Stryker nods, already moving to the next body.
We work in practiced silence, years of black ops experience making the grim task efficient if not easy.
Every weapon we recover is one less the Committee can use against us.
Every piece of intelligence might tell us something about their organizational structure, their command protocols, their next move.
Might help us find Mercer before it's too late.
I'm searching the third body when I find it—a tactical radio still clipped to the operative's vest. The encryption is military-grade, but Tommy can crack anything given enough time. I pocket the device and continue the sweep.
"Kane." Willa's voice pulls my attention.
She's approaching from the northwest corner, Khalid at her side.
Both look exhausted—Willa from coordinating the defense from inside the facility, Khalid from close-quarters fighting.
"Sarah's stable. The wound needs proper cleaning but Khalid got the bleeding stopped. "
"How soon?" I ask.
"She says she's good for transport now," Khalid reports, his voice tight. "But the wound needs to be cleaned out properly and she needs antibiotics. She's worried about infection."
I calculate timing in my head. Twenty-four hours to get Sarah to Echo Base's medical bay. Twenty-four hours to plan and execute a rescue operation for Mercer. Twenty-three hours until the inauguration puts the entire federal apparatus under Committee control.
Not enough time. Never enough time.
"We move in thirty minutes," I decide. "Get Sarah prepped for transport. Khalid and Odin escort her back to Echo Base. The rest of us stay mobile."
"And Mercer?" Willa asks quietly.
"We find him," I say. "We bring him home."
The drive back to Echo Base takes several hours through mountain roads barely wide enough for the vehicles.
Stryker drives the lead Suburban with Sarah secured in the back, Khalid beside her monitoring her condition.
The rest of us follow in the second vehicle—me driving, Willa in the passenger seat, Tommy in back with Rourke on overwatch.
Odin sits alert between them, the dog's head swiveling at every sound.
Nobody speaks. We're all thinking the same thing, running through the same calculations.
Mercer's been gone for nine hours now. Nine hours of interrogation, chemical enhancement, psychological manipulation.
The Committee has specialists who can break anyone given enough time, and we have no idea which facility they've taken him to or what protocols they're following.
"Stop spiraling," Willa says softly, not looking at me. "I can hear you thinking from here."
"We should have pulled him back sooner," I say, the words tasting like ash. "Should have known they'd stage a diversion."
Willa looks as though she’s been struck. “I’m sorry.”
“You made the right tactical call with the information you had. We all agreed splitting up was necessary to cover the perimeter."
She turns to face me, her expression fierce. "Mercer knew the risks. He's been doing this as long as you have. He made his own choices out there."
"Doesn't make it easier."
"No," she agrees. "It doesn't. But beating yourself up doesn't help him either. What helps is staying sharp, staying focused, and planning his extraction properly instead of rushing in on emotion."
Logic doesn't erase the guilt, but she's not wrong.
Tommy's voice cuts through from the backseat. "I've been analyzing the tactical radios we pulled off the bodies. The encryption is good, but not perfect. I'm seeing communication patterns that suggest they were coordinating with at least two other teams during the assault."
"How many total?" I ask.
"Best estimate? Sixty to eighty operatives staged across multiple positions. They weren't just trying to breach the facility—they were trying to contain us. Keep us pinned down while a smaller extraction team grabbed Mercer from his position."
"Which means they knew our formation," Stryker adds from the driver's seat. "Knew where each of us would be positioned defensively."
Nobody speaks for a long moment. The Committee has been watching us. Tracking our movements. Learning our patterns and protocols well enough to predict our tactical responses.
Which means they've been planning this operation for weeks. Maybe months.
"They have someone on the inside," Willa says what we're all thinking. "Or they've compromised our communications."
"Tommy?" I ask.
He's already shaking his head. "I sweep our systems daily. No external access, no malware, no monitoring software. If they're tracking us, it's not through our tech."
"Then it's human intelligence," I conclude. "Someone feeding them information."
"Or someone they turned," Rourke suggests from his position. "Captured operative from a previous encounter. Forced cooperation through leverage or coercion."
It's possible. We've lost people before—operators who went dark on missions and never came back. The Committee could have any number of former teammates in custody, using them to gather intelligence on Echo Ridge's operational patterns.
"We'll worry about security leaks after we get Mercer back," I decide. "Right now, assume all our previous protocols are compromised. We operate on the assumption they know our patterns and we change everything."
The rest of the drive passes in tense silence. By the time we reach Echo Base, the sun is high and harsh, turning the snow-covered landscape into a blinding expanse of white. The hidden entrance remains perfectly camouflaged—you'd drive right past it unless you knew exactly where to look.
Inside, the underground facility feels different now. Violated somehow, even though the Committee never breached our actual location. We all know it's only a matter of time before they narrow the search grid, before someone talks or slips up or simply gets lucky.
Mercer might have already told them everything.
No. I shut that down immediately. Mercer's survived worse. He's been captured before, interrogated, tortured. SERE training plus years of field experience means he knows how to resist, how to compartmentalize, how to hold out long enough for extraction.
He'll hold. He has to hold.
Echo Base Medical Bay
Sarah's set up in one of the recovery rooms within an hour of our arrival.
The shrapnel wound required proper surgical cleaning and fresh stitches, but Khalid's field work kept her stable long enough to get her here.
Now she's sedated, antibiotics flowing through an IV, monitors tracking her vitals.
Khalid hasn't left her side. He's sitting in the chair beside her bed, his wounded shoulder properly bandaged now, his hand wrapped around hers like he's afraid she'll disappear if he lets go.
I understand the feeling.
"She's strong," I tell him from the doorway. "She'll pull through."
He doesn't look up. "I should have been faster. Should have seen that operative coming around the corner before..."
"Stop," I interrupt. "You saved her life. The field medicine you administered kept her alive long enough to get here. That's what matters."