6. Rook
ROOK
Three months later…
Rain hammered the windshield.
The wipers swept back and forth.
Squeak.
Thump.
Squeak.
Thump.
Rook sat behind the wheel of a black pickup parked across from a roadside diner on the outskirts of Anchorage.
The neon sign above the entrance flickered.
Half the letters had burned out years ago.
The parking lot held six cars, a delivery van, an old sedan, and a pickup that looked older than the diner itself.
Nothing memorable.
Exactly why he had chosen it.
His gaze shifted to the dashboard clock.
7:30 p.m.
Their contact was late.
The passenger door opened, and Caleb “Sniper” McDougal climbed inside carrying two cups of coffee.
Rain followed him into the truck.
He slammed the door, handed one cup to Rook, and looked at him.
His expression flattened.
“Damn.”
Rook kept watching the diner. “What?”
“You look terrible.”
“Good evening to you too.”
“You sleeping?”
It wasn’t really a question.
Rook stared through the rain.
Streetlights blurred across the wet glass. Cars moved along the highway behind them.
People heading home.
Families eating dinner.
Normal lives.
The kind his team should have had.
Every time Rook closed his eyes, he saw the mountain.
Hammer falling.
Ghost disappearing into fire.
Tex bleeding beneath his hands.
Ridge walking toward the storage building.
Bishop standing behind the machine gun.
Viking smiling before his final stand.
The memories never stopped.
They simply learned new ways to hurt.
Sniper stared out his window.
For a long moment, neither man spoke.
Then Sniper broke the silence.
“They’d tell you to sleep.”
Rook released a hard laugh without humor.
“They’re dead.”
Silence returned.
Rain drummed against the roof.
Sniper looked toward the diner again.
After a moment, he nodded.
“Yeah.”
No lecture.
No argument.
Because he carried the same ghosts.
Rook glanced at the clock.
7:32.
“Did you see him inside?”
“No.”
“Anyone watching the exits?”
“Two men in the rear booth. Construction workers. One older woman at the counter. Waitress. Cook.”
“Vehicles?”
“Nothing that doesn’t belong.”
Rook lifted the coffee but didn’t drink.
The meeting had been arranged through an encrypted message sent to Fathom twelve hours earlier.
Their contact claimed to have information about Walter Graves and the authorization code used to access the final mission package.
He had demanded a public location.
No weapons visible.
Only two men.
Rook had agreed.
He hadn’t trusted the arrangement for a second.
His phone vibrated against the console.
Fathom.
Rook answered immediately.
“Tell me you found something.”
“I found too much.”
Rook heard keys clicking through the phone.
“What does that mean?”
“This wasn’t one operation.”
The way Fathom said it made Rook’s hand tighten around the phone.
“Explain.”
“The money connected to Vance’s shipping companies isn’t only tied to stolen weapons. I found military contracts, intelligence payments, and private security companies operating in nine countries.”
“How much money?”
“Hundreds of millions that I can prove. Probably billions that I can’t.”
Sniper turned toward him.
Rook switched the call to speaker.
“The mountain wasn’t about protecting one secret,” Fathom continued. “It was protecting an entire system.”
Rook looked through the rain at the diner.
Nine men had walked into an ambush without knowing they had threatened an international network.
Six had died for it.
“Does it lead to Graves?” Rook asked.
“Some of it. But the accounts overlap. Vance, Madow, Grayson, and Graves appear in different places.”
“What about Stenson?”
“Nothing. If Mac Stenson was involved, someone went to extraordinary lengths to keep him from profiting.”
That strengthened Rook’s belief that Stenson had been framed.
“What about our contact?”
“I’m still trying to identify him. The number used to arrange the meeting was disconnected twelve years ago.”
Sniper muttered, “That’s comforting.”
“He could be frightened,” Fathom said.
“Or setting a trap,” Rook replied.
“Also possible.”
A notification sounded through the phone.
Fathom stopped speaking.
Rook straightened. “What?”
“Give me a second.”
Rook’s attention sharpened.
He knew Fathom’s voice.
Something had changed.
“Fathom.”
“I received a movement alert from the system monitoring the seven suspects.”
“And?”
“Government parking garage in Anchorage. A black SUV just entered using credentials connected to Director Madow’s office.”
Rook looked at Sniper.
Madow wasn’t supposed to have anyone in Alaska.
“What do you see?”
“A woman just stepped out of the SUV.”
Rook’s pulse quickened.
“Description?”
“Black tactical clothing. Dark baseball cap.”
Fathom stopped.
When he spoke again, his voice had changed.
“She has a silver sword coin clipped to her belt.”
The woman.
The one who had saved them.
The one who had guarded their hospital rooms.
The one who had rebuilt Rook’s team without asking permission.
“Can you see her face?”
“Not clearly. Wait.”
Keys clicked faster.
Then Fathom went silent.
“What happened?”
“She stopped.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
A faint burst of static moved through the phone.
“She’s looking at the camera.”
Rook’s grip tightened.
“Does she know it’s there?”
“She’s looking directly into the lens.”
No one should have known Fathom had accessed that camera. Even the people using the garage probably didn’t know the feed had been compromised.
“What is she doing?” Rook asked.
“She’s pointing at it.”
Static crackled again.
“Fathom?”
“My monitors just?—”
The call died.
Every instinct inside Rook sharpened.
He called back.
Nothing.
He tried again.
The call failed.
Sniper placed his coffee in the cup holder.
“Problem?”
“Fathom lost the feed.”
“Accidentally?”
“Fathom doesn’t do anything accidentally.”
Rook started the engine.
“We’re leaving.”
His phone vibrated before he could shift into reverse.
Unknown number.
Three words appeared on the screen.
THEY FOUND YOU.
His pulse accelerated.
Sniper read the message.
“Her?”
“Has to be.”
A second message appeared.
BOMB UNDER TRUCK.
Everything inside Rook turned cold.
He looked toward the diner.
If the truck exploded here, people inside could die.
“Caleb.”
Sniper already had his hand on the door.
The phone vibrated a third time.
DO NOT START THE ENGINE.
Rook looked down.
The engine was already running.
“Out!” he shouted. “Move away from the diner!”
Both doors flew open.
Rook launched himself into the rain.
Sniper hit the pavement on the opposite side.
“East!” Rook yelled.
Away from the diner.
Away from the occupied cars.
They sprinted toward a concrete drainage barrier at the edge of the parking lot.
Twenty yards.
Fifteen.
Ten.
A black sedan pulled away from the curb across the highway.
Rook caught a glimpse of two men inside.
The passenger was looking directly at the truck.
Something was clutched in his hand.
A phone.
Or a remote.
“DOWN!”
Rook struck Sniper from the side.
They crashed behind the barrier.
The explosion tore through the night.
Fire erupted beneath the truck.
Metal screamed.
Glass shattered.
The blast slammed against the concrete, sending debris over their heads.
Car alarms began shrieking across the parking lot.
The diner windows shook but held.
Rook covered his head as pieces of burning metal struck the pavement around them.
For several seconds, all he heard was ringing.
Then came the heat.
The roar.
The fire.
Rain hissed against the flames.
Rook pushed himself onto one knee.
Pain radiated through his shoulder, but everything still moved.
Beside him, Sniper rolled onto his back.
“You alive?”
Sniper blinked at the sky. “Ask me when my ears stop ringing.”
“That’s alive enough.”
Rook rose cautiously and looked over the barrier.
The truck was gone.
Twisted metal burned where it had been parked. Black smoke climbed into the rain-filled sky.
People hurried out of the diner.
The waitress stood in the doorway with a phone pressed to her ear.
No one appeared injured.
The concrete barrier had protected Rook and Sniper from the worst of the blast.
The woman’s warning had protected everyone else.
Rook looked toward the highway.
The black sedan had disappeared.
“They were watching us,” Sniper said.
“And our contact never arrived.”
“You think there was a contact?”
Rook stared at the burning wreckage.
“No.”
The meeting had been bait.
The diner.
The message.
The promise of information about Graves.
Someone had drawn them out of the warehouse and planted an explosive beneath their vehicle while Sniper was inside buying coffee.
They could have detonated it at any time.
Why had they waited?
To make sure both men were inside.
To kill Rook and Sniper together.
His phone had survived the blast.
The screen was cracked, but the warning remained visible.
BOMB UNDER TRUCK.
The message had arrived seconds before the detonation.
Not minutes.
Not hours.
Seconds.
The mystery woman hadn’t only known they were being watched.
She had been watching the men hunting them.
Rook typed a response.
WHO ARE YOU?
He sent it.
No answer.
Sirens sounded in the distance.
They couldn’t remain when the police arrived. Their false identities might survive routine questioning, but Fathom had warned them against allowing fingerprints or photographs into local databases.
Sniper looked at the wreckage.
“What now?”
Rook called Fathom again.
This time, he answered.
“Rook?”
“We’re alive.”
“What happened?”
“Bomb under the truck.”
Silence.
Then Fathom’s voice hardened.
“Where are you?”
“Outside the diner. We need extraction.”
“I’m sending Reef and Falcon.”
Rook looked toward the road.
“Fathom, the woman warned us.”
“The woman with the coin?”
“Yes.”
“She shut down my entire system.”
“She also saved our lives.”
Again.
The first time had been on the mountain.
Now she had done it in Alaska.
Rook watched rain fall through the smoke.
Whoever had planted the bomb had made two mistakes.
They had confirmed that Shadow Division’s investigation was getting close.
And they had revealed that the woman with the silver sword was still protecting them.
Sirens grew louder.
Rook slipped the damaged phone into his pocket.
“We move,” he told Sniper.
Together, they disappeared into the trees beyond the parking lot.
Behind them, the truck continued burning.
Somewhere in the city, a woman with no name watched from the shadows.
For the first time since the mountain, Rook understood something with absolute certainty.
Shadow Division wasn’t hunting alone.