32. Wade
WADE
Something had changed.
The mountain felt different.
For five years, the routine had never varied.
Lights.
Food.
Interrogations.
Silence.
Repeat.
Day after day.
Month after month.
Year after year.
The routine wasn’t merely part of the prison.
The routine was the prison.
It stripped away time. Smothered hope. Convinced a man that nothing existed beyond concrete, steel, and the fluorescent lights that never went dark.
Today, the routine was gone.
Wade noticed it before the first meal arrived.
Guards moved faster through the corridor.
Doors opened and closed at irregular intervals.
Voices carried from offices where doors were normally kept shut.
Equipment rolled through the lower tunnels.
The entire facility felt nervous.
And nervous people made mistakes.
Wade sat on the edge of his bunk, listening.
Waiting.
Collecting every sound.
He had survived five years by paying attention to details other men dismissed.
The different rhythm of a guard’s footsteps.
A meal delivered twenty minutes early.
The rumble of an engine starting somewhere beneath the prison.
Each change meant something.
The steel door rattled.
Then opened.
Three guards entered.
Not two.
Three.
That was new.
Wade rose slowly.
The guards watched his hands. One of them tightened his grip on his rifle until his knuckles went white.
Fear.
Interesting.
The lead guard pointed toward the hallway.
“Move.”
Wade smiled.
It wasn’t a pleasant smile.
The guard’s jaw tightened.
“I said move.”
Wade stepped into the corridor.
They didn’t bother with chains anymore.
Five years had taught his captors that he wasn’t going to run.
There was nowhere to run.
Or so they believed.
The corridor buzzed with activity.
Armed operators hurried between security stations. Radios crackled with short, coded transmissions. Two men rolled weapons cases toward the freight elevator while another carried a box of files toward the incinerator room.
Wade watched everything without appearing to watch anything.
Counted everything.
Memorized everything.
Three guards at the eastern intersection.
Two at the elevator.
One security door left standing open.
A maintenance panel with its cover removed.
Habit.
Always habit.
The old instincts never died.
A voice drifted from a nearby office.
“Transportation wants confirmation before they move them tonight.”
Wade’s pulse struck once.
Hard.
He kept walking.
Never turning his head.
Never breaking stride.
But the words burned themselves into his memory.
Move them.
Not him.
Them.
At least some of his teammates were still alive.
The interrogation room waited at the end of the corridor.
Metal table.
Metal chair.
Camera in the corner.
Drain in the floor.
Same room.
Different atmosphere.
The guards looked uncomfortable.
The interrogator looked exhausted.
Wade recognized him immediately.
The same frightened man from the day before.
The man who had shown him photographs of Sarah, Rook, and the Alaskan warehouse.
The man who finally understood that the mountain might not protect him.
A file struck the table.
Hard.
The interrogator stared at Wade.
For several seconds, neither man spoke.
Then the interrogator laughed.
A low, empty sound.
“They found the mountain.”
Wade remained silent.
“They actually found it.”
The man shoved both hands through his hair.
“You have no idea what you’ve done.”
Wade slowly raised his eyes.
The interrogator stopped moving.
Five years ago, Wade’s silence had been defiance.
A refusal to surrender.
Today, something else lived behind it.
Hope.
The interrogator saw it.
And hated it.
His fist slammed against the table.
“They’re not getting inside this facility.”
Wade said nothing.
“They’re not getting you out.”
Still Wade remained silent.
The man’s breathing accelerated.
With every word he spoke, he sounded less convinced.
Wade leaned back and studied him.
Watched the sweat gather along his hairline.
Watched his fingers twitch against the file.
Watched him unravel.
Then Wade asked his first question.
The first one he had asked during an interrogation in years.
“How many?”
The interrogator blinked. “What?”
“How many survived?”
Silence.
The man knew exactly who he meant.
The second team.
Shadow Division.
The men who had been sent to the same mountain five years after Wade’s team disappeared.
The interrogator swallowed.
It was a small reaction.
Barely noticeable.
But it was enough.
At least one man had survived.
Probably more.
The interrogator leaned across the table.
“It won’t matter how many are left when Madow finishes with them.”
Wade kept his expression blank.
Madow.
A name.
A new piece.
The door burst open.
A black-uniformed operator stepped into the room. He was breathing hard, as if he had run the entire length of the facility.
“Sir.”
The interrogator turned sharply. “What?”
“The transfer has been approved.”
The room went silent.
Wade watched the operator.
The way he avoided looking directly at him.
The tension in his shoulders.
The fear in his eyes.
“By whom?” the interrogator asked.
“Director Madow gave Colonel Reeves final authority. All surviving prisoners are to be removed before zero three hundred.”
Ice settled into Wade’s chest.
Not fear.
Understanding.
“Transport leaves in six hours,” the operator continued.
The interrogator nodded.
“Good.”
But he didn’t sound relieved.
Neither man did.
Because this transfer wasn’t about security.
It was about erasing evidence.
Wade was returned to his cell ten minutes later.
The steel door slammed shut behind him.
The locks engaged.
He stood in the middle of the small room and listened until the guards’ footsteps disappeared.
Six hours.
Maybe less.
He looked at the scratches hidden behind his bunk.
Five stolen years.
Five years of pain, silence, and men refusing to give their captors the information they wanted.
Now Project Nightfall was running out of time.
That meant Shadow Division was closer than anyone inside the mountain wanted to admit.
It also meant Alan Madow and Colonel Reeves were afraid.
Afraid enough to kill every surviving witness.
Wade crouched beside the wall and ran his fingers along the bottom of the metal bunk.
During his third year in captivity, a maintenance worker had failed to replace one of the bolts securing the frame to the floor.
Wade had worked it free millimeter by millimeter.
It had taken him seven months.
Since then, the bolt had remained hidden inside a split in the mattress seam.
He pulled it out.
Four inches long.
Narrow.
Heavy.
Not much of a weapon.
But it was more than he’d had yesterday.
A soft voice drifted through the vent connecting his cell to the next one.
“We still breathing?”
A smile pulled at Wade’s mouth.
Grant Mercer.
His second-in-command.
Still fighting.
Still stubborn.
Still alive.
“For now,” Wade answered.
A pause.
“That doesn’t sound promising.”
“They’re moving us in six hours.”
Silence followed.
Grant understood immediately.
“Real transfer?”
“No.”
“Thought not.”
Another voice traveled through the plumbing farther down the corridor.
Dawson.
Their medic.
“We getting out?”
Wade stared toward the ceiling.
Toward thousands of tons of rock and ice.
Toward the world waiting somewhere above them.
He thought of Sarah’s face in the surveillance photograph.
She had found Shadow Division.
She had found Rook.
And somehow they had found the mountain.
“They’re coming,” Wade said.
No one asked who he meant.
A quiet laugh came from Grant’s cell.
Another followed farther down the corridor.
Then another.
The sound spread through Black Site Theta.
Not loud.
Not long.
But real.
For the first time in five years, hope had found its way beneath the mountain.
Wade wrapped his fist around the metal bolt.
“Start checking your cells,” he whispered. “Anything loose. Anything sharp. Anything we can use.”
Grant’s answer came immediately.
“You have a plan?”
“Not yet.”
“That’s reassuring.”
Wade leaned closer to the vent.
“They’ll have to open our doors to move us. That might be the only chance we get.”
“And if Shadow Division doesn’t arrive in time?”
Wade looked at the steel door.
“Then we start the war without them.”