22. Rook
ROOK
The monitor glowed in the darkness.
W. PARKER — ACTIVE
The words remained at the center of the operations room.
Everyone understood what they meant now.
Wade Parker had survived his team’s disappearance.
He had been alive eleven days earlier.
And someone was holding him inside a black-site network controlled by Warden.
Sniper pointed toward the screen.
“Question.”
Nobody looked at him.
He continued anyway.
“Why keep Wade alive for five years?”
That got everyone’s attention.
It was the right question.
Men like Marcus Lane didn’t preserve loose ends.
They erased them.
Yet Wade and at least three members of his team had survived their operation.
Fathom opened another series of records.
“I don’t think the same people controlled him for all five years.”
The room turned toward him.
“What do you mean?” Sarah asked.
Fathom displayed the transfer history.
“They moved him.”
A record appeared.
“Then moved him again.”
Another transfer.
“And again.”
Six relocations across five years.
Different aircraft.
Different medical authorizations.
Different security classifications.
The same Silver Sword seal appeared on three of them.
Other transfers carried Warden’s mark alone.
Rook studied the pattern.
“Someone inside the system was trying to keep him away from someone else.”
“That’s my theory,” Fathom said.
Sarah leaned closer.
“Who was protecting him?”
“I don’t know.”
“And who was hunting him?”
“I don’t know that either.”
She closed her eyes briefly.
Rook understood her frustration.
Answers remained inches away.
Every one of them hidden behind another name or code.
Fathom highlighted the latest transfer.
“Eleven days ago, Wade’s status was verified inside Theta.”
“Where was he before that?” Rook asked.
“Site Kestrel.”
Sarah looked toward him. “Another prison?”
“Possibly. But Kestrel went dark the same day Wade arrived at Theta.”
“What does went dark mean?”
“Network disconnected. Staff records erased. Satellite imagery replaced.”
Rook’s jaw tightened.
“Someone moved Wade and destroyed the trail behind him.”
“Yes.”
A notification appeared.
Fathom froze.
Everyone groaned.
He ignored them.
“What now?” Rook asked.
“A recently decrypted communication.”
The message carried a timestamp.
Two weeks old.
Current.
Fathom opened it.
One sentence appeared.
TRANSFER SUBJECT W-PARKER PRIOR TO EXTRACTION EVENT
Sarah stared at the words.
“What extraction event?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who sent the message?”
“Warden command.”
“To whom?”
“Black Site Theta.”
Rook moved closer.
“An extraction by which side?”
“That isn’t specified.”
The word could mean rescue.
It could also mean removal.
Or execution disguised beneath cleaner language.
“When is the event?” Rook asked.
Fathom opened the metadata.
A countdown code appeared.
Then resolved into a date.
Forty-eight hours away.
Sarah’s chair scraped backward.
“They’re moving him.”
“Maybe,” Fathom said.
She turned on him.
“The message says transfer him before the extraction.”
“It does.”
“Then they believe someone is coming for that site.”
Rook followed the logic.
Someone planned to breach Black Site Theta.
Warden wanted Wade gone before the attackers arrived.
“Could the Silver Sword be planning the extraction?” he asked.
Sarah looked toward her father’s emblem.
“If any of them are still alive.”
“Would they contact you?”
“They haven’t in years.”
“Maybe they couldn’t.”
Fathom opened the routing data attached to the message.
“I don’t have Theta’s exact coordinates, but I have the region.”
A map filled the screen.
A remote section of northern Canada appeared.
Mountains.
Frozen lakes.
Hundreds of miles of wilderness.
“Can you narrow it?” Rook asked.
“Satellite traffic indicates unusual encrypted communications near three possible locations.”
Three markers appeared.
An abandoned mining settlement.
A decommissioned radar station.
A private airstrip beside a frozen lake.
“Which one can hold a detention facility?” Reef asked.
“All three,” Fathom answered.
“Which one has recent aircraft activity?”
“The private airstrip.”
Sarah studied the map.
“They’ll use that to transfer Wade.”
“Probably.”
Rook looked at the team.
Shark remained unable to carry a rifle, but he could support Fathom and Cutter from the warehouse.
The others were exhausted.
Several carried minor wounds from the harbor attack.
None would stay behind if Rook asked them to go.
“We have forty-eight hours,” he said.
“Less,” Sarah corrected. “They may move him early if they know the system has been breached.”
Rook nodded.
“Then we leave in six.”
The warehouse erupted into motion.
Reef and Falcon began studying approach routes.
Maverick checked cold-weather equipment.
Cobra collected charges.
Sniper pulled satellite maps onto a separate table.
Cutter contacted pilots capable of reaching northern Canada without creating an official passenger record.
Sarah remained beside Wade’s photograph.
Rook stopped near her.
“We’ll bring him home.”
She looked at him.
Fear and hope battled inside her gray eyes.
“You can’t promise that.”
“I know.”
“Then why do you keep doing it?”
Rook held her gaze.
“Because you’ve carried this alone long enough.”
Something shifted between them.
Quiet.
Powerful.
Sarah’s fingers moved toward his hand.
Stopped.
Then closed around it.
Only for a moment.
Her grip was warm.
Strong.
Rook tightened his fingers around hers.
Neither spoke.
They didn’t need to.
Then Sarah released him and reached for her weapon.
The softness disappeared.
The hunter returned.
“They’ve had my brother for five years.”
Rook looked toward the map.
“And in forty-eight hours, they lose him.”