37. Rook
ROOK
The mountain loomed above us.
Black.
Silent.
Deadly.
Snow whipped across the ridgeline, and wind howled through the rocks.
Shadow Division moved through it like ghosts.
No lights.
No unnecessary voices.
No mistakes.
Five years of lies had led us here.
Five years of graves.
Five years of stolen lives.
Tonight, it ended.
I knelt behind a rock outcropping.
The eastern entrance sat three hundred yards below us.
Concrete barriers.
Steel gates.
Guard towers.
Floodlights cutting through the snow.
The tunnel beyond those gates led directly to the prisoner transport route.
Madow was scared.
Good.
He should be.
Beside me, Sarah studied the compound through night-vision binoculars.
Her pulse beat visibly at the base of her throat.
Somewhere inside that mountain, Wade was alive.
For the first time in five years, she was close enough to reach him.
Close enough to learn whether hope had been telling her the truth.
Fathom’s voice came through the headset.
“I found the convoy.”
Every operator became still.
“What do you have?” I asked.
“Three armored transports. Six escort trucks. Approximately thirty armed personnel.”
The satellite image updated on the small screen secured to my forearm.
“They’re loading prisoners now.”
Sarah closed her eyes.
Only for a second.
Wade.
Hold on.
Please hold on.
“I need the eastern gate disabled,” I said.
“Working on it,” Fathom answered.
“And the maintenance tunnel?”
“Sniper’s team is at the access point.”
Sniper’s voice replaced his.
“Charges set.”
“Quiet breach,” I reminded him.
Cobra sounded offended.
“That wasn’t directed at me, was it?”
“It is always directed at you.”
“I don’t even have the detonator.”
Shark’s voice came through the radio.
“I have it.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I enjoy having eyebrows.”
Despite everything, Sarah made a sound that was almost a laugh.
Good.
I needed her focused.
Not drowning in fear before we reached the door.
Inside Black Site Theta, Wade stepped into the corridor.
Four guards surrounded him.
Rifles ready.
Nervous eyes.
The kind of nervousness that came before violence.
The kind that came before murder.
Wade looked down the hallway.
More cell doors opened.
Prisoners stepped into the light.
One by one.
Men the world believed were dead.
For a moment, no one spoke.
They simply stared at one another.
Five years.
Five years since Wade had seen his entire surviving team face-to-face.
They were older now.
Thinner.
Scarred.
Some barely recognizable.
But alive.
Still alive.
Grant Barrett emerged first.
A scar ran from his temple to his jaw, and his left hand remained curled against his chest from an injury that had never healed properly.
His eyes were as sharp as ever.
Luke Dawson came next, favoring one leg.
Then Eric Hale.
Finally, another prisoner stepped through the last door.
Jackson Cole.
He looked terrible.
Bruised.
Scarred.
Half-starved.
But smiling.
Always smiling.
“Well, damn,” Jackson said.
Wade felt a grin break across his face.
“You look awful.”
Jackson examined him.
“Thought you’d be uglier.”
Grant laughed.
Then Dawson.
The sound moved through the corridor.
Rough.
Disbelieving.
Real.
The guards shifted uneasily.
Hope wasn’t supposed to exist inside Black Site Theta.
One of them raised his rifle.
“Quiet!”
The laughter stopped.
The hope didn’t.
Wade met Grant’s eyes.
Then Jackson’s.
A glance toward the guards.
A slight movement of his fingers.
Wait.
They understood.
The prisoners began walking.
Slowly.
Together.
The way brothers walked into battle.
Alan Madow watched the convoy feeds from the command center.
Everything was still proceeding.
The first prisoners had been removed from their cells.
The eastern gate was secured.
Reeves had teams sweeping the perimeter.
Shadow Division might have reached the mountain, but the mountain belonged to Madow.
Then an alarm chirped.
Brief.
Sharp.
Wrong.
He looked toward the technicians.
“What was that?”
A man checked his screen.
“I don’t know.”
Not an acceptable answer.
Another alarm sounded.
Then another.
Warning indicators illuminated across the communications board.
The command center erupted into motion.
Operators shouted status reports.
Screens flickered.
Security feeds vanished one at a time.
“Show me the exterior checkpoints,” Madow demanded.
A technician enlarged the first feed.
Checkpoint Three.
Empty.
Checkpoint Five.
Empty.
Checkpoint Seven.
Empty.
No guards.
No bodies.
Nothing.
The room went silent.
Everyone understood.
The guards hadn’t abandoned their positions.
They had been removed.
Madow stared at the screens.
They were inside the outer perimeter.
Maybe closer.
“Seal the eastern gate,” he ordered.
A technician entered the command.
Nothing happened.
He tried again.
“Sir, the system isn’t responding.”
Madow turned slowly.
“What do you mean?”
“Someone has taken control of the gate.”
On the ridge above Black Site Theta, Fathom smiled at his screen.
“Eastern gate is ours.”
“Keep it that way,” I said.
“Gladly.”
The security lights surrounding the transport tunnel went dark.
For one second, the compound disappeared into the storm.
Backup lights snapped on.
Dim.
Red.
Cobra’s voice came through my headset.
“Permission to ruin somebody’s evening?”
Shark sighed.
“Here we go.”
I never looked away from the entrance.
“Make it count.”
Cobra’s grin was audible.
“Oh, I intend to.”
Three seconds later, the communications tower exploded.
The blast ripped through the darkness.
Fire climbed into the storm.
Concrete shattered.
Steel twisted.
The mountainside jumped beneath us.
Every exterior light went out.
“Move,” I ordered.
Falcon rose.
Sarah moved with him.
We descended toward the eastern gate while darkness and confusion swallowed the compound.
At the western maintenance tunnel, Sniper triggered a shaped charge.
The explosion remained mostly contained, driving the steel hatch inward without bringing the mountain down around them.
Sniper entered first.
Shark followed.
Then Reef.
Three shadows disappeared inside Black Site Theta.
The first explosion rolled through the prison wing.
Every light flickered.
Alarms screamed.
The floor shook.
Guards stumbled.
Men shouted into their radios.
No one answered.
Wade stopped walking.
His head snapped toward the ceiling.
A second explosion followed.
Closer.
Dust drifted from the concrete overhead.
A crack appeared along one wall.
Jackson slowly smiled.
Disbelief filled his eyes.
Then hope.
Real hope.
The kind that hurt.
“They came,” Grant whispered.
Wade wasn’t ready to believe it.
Not yet.
One of the guards shoved him.
“Move!”
Wade stumbled forward.
The guard stepped within reach.
Too close.
Wade looked at Grant.
Now.
He spun.
The metal bolt drove into the guard’s thigh where his armor ended.
The man screamed.
Wade caught his rifle before it fell.
Grant slammed his shoulder into a second guard.
Jackson swept the legs out from under the third.
Dawson drove both hands into the fourth man’s throat.
Five years of rage erupted inside the corridor.
The first guard tried to raise his rifle.
Wade drove the stock into his face.
Once.
Twice.
The man collapsed.
Wade turned the weapon toward the intersection.
“Get their guns!”
His men moved.
Slow bodies remembered old training.
Injured hands found magazines.
Men who had been prisoners seconds earlier became operators again.
Gunfire erupted farther inside the mountain.
Short bursts.
Professional.
Controlled.
Deadly.
Not guards.
Not mercenaries.
Operators.
Wade went still.
A grin spread across his face.
The first real grin he had worn in five years.
He looked at the men beside him.
His brothers.
His team.
“They’re here.”
Silence held for one heartbeat.
Then, twenty years of training and five years of fury came alive inside every man in that corridor.
Grant checked the rifle he had taken.
Jackson pulled a sidearm from a fallen guard.
Dawson helped Hale fasten a vest over his prison clothes.
Wade looked toward the sound of approaching gunfire.
The cavalry had finally arrived.
But Wade Parker and his men weren’t waiting to be rescued.
They were fighting their way out.