38. Wade
WADE
The mountain shook again.
Dust rained from the ceiling.
A crack split the concrete wall behind Wade as alarms screamed through the transport corridor.
Red emergency lights flashed.
The guards were shouting now.
Not barking orders.
Not threatening prisoners.
Shouting.
Panicking.
The difference mattered.
Panic spread faster than fire.
And once it started, it was almost impossible to contain.
Wade tightened his hands around the rifle he had taken from the first guard.
Five years ago, the weapon would have felt familiar.
Tonight, it felt like freedom.
Grant Barrett stood beside him, holding another captured rifle against his shoulder. Jackson Cole had stripped a sidearm and tactical vest from a fallen guard. Luke Dawson covered the rear while Eric Hale fought to stay upright on an injured leg.
They were thin.
Weak.
Scarred.
But they were armed.
And together.
For the first time in five years.
Another explosion thundered through the mountain.
Closer.
Much closer.
The floor jumped beneath their feet.
A radio on one of the unconscious guards erupted with static.
Then a panicked voice broke through.
“Breach!”
Gunfire crackled beneath the transmission.
“They’ve breached the lower level!”
Another voice shouted over him.
“Teams Three and Five aren’t responding!”
The radio went dead.
Wade looked at Jackson.
Jackson looked back at him.
Neither man spoke.
They didn’t need to.
They had heard the guards whispering about the team assembling in Alaska.
The survivors from the second mountain ambush.
News came to you if you listened closely.
The operators who had seized an entire cargo ship loaded with weapons.
They called themselves, Shadow Division.
They had come.
Wade glanced toward the intersection ahead.
“We move toward the gunfire.”
Grant almost smiled. “You always did know how to plan a vacation.”
“Stay close. Take weapons and ammunition whenever we can.”
“What about Hale?”
Wade looked at Eric.
The man’s face was gray with pain, but the expression in his eyes was pure defiance.
Hale adjusted his grip on the rifle.
“Try leaving me.”
Jackson grinned. “There’s the miserable bastard I remember.”
Wade moved first.
His body protested every step.
Years of confinement had stripped away muscle and endurance. Old injuries burned. His lungs felt too small for the air he demanded from them.
None of it mattered.
His men were alive.
His family was somewhere beyond the mountain.
And the people who had stolen five years from him were finally afraid.
Wade reached the first intersection and held up a fist.
Stop.
Boots pounded toward them.
Four guards rounded the corner.
Surprise flashed across their faces.
Wade fired first.
Short bursts.
Controlled.
One guard dropped.
Grant took the second.
Jackson hit the third before the man cleared his rifle.
The fourth turned to run.
Dawson shot him in the leg.
The man crashed to the floor.
Wade approached and kicked the rifle beyond his reach.
“Where is Reeves?”
The guard clutched his leg.
“Go to hell.”
Wade pressed the barrel of his rifle against the man’s tactical vest.
“I’ve been there for five years. Where is Colonel Reeves?”
The guard’s gaze moved over the armed prisoners.
Fear replaced defiance.
“Command level.”
“And Director Madow?”
“I don’t know.”
Wade leaned closer.
“Wrong answer.”
“The helicopter.” The words rushed out. “There’s a concealed landing pad above the northern tunnel. Madow has an escape helicopter.”
Wade pulled the guard’s radio free.
“How do we reach the prison exit?”
“Two corridors east. Take the freight elevator.”
Grant shook his head.
“They’ll lock down the elevator.”
The guard looked toward the ceiling as another explosion shook the mountain.
“Nothing is locked down anymore.”
Wade stepped away.
“Bind him.”
Jackson used plastic restraints taken from another guard.
“Never thought I’d be happy to see these again.”
Wade collected the fallen men’s ammunition.
“Move.”
Eastern Entrance
I reached the steel door as the emergency lights came on.
Falcon covered the left side of the tunnel.
Sarah took the right.
Gunfire echoed through the mountain, muffled by thousands of tons of stone.
Sniper’s team was inside.
So were Wade and the surviving prisoners.
Whether they were still alive was the question I refused to ask.
“Fathom,” I said into the radio. “Open the inner gate.”
Keys clicked over the transmission.
“I’m trying. Madow initiated a full lockdown.”
The steel barrier in front of us was designed to withstand an explosion.
Behind it, engines started.
The convoy.
They were still trying to move the prisoners.
Sarah stepped toward the door.
“How long?”
“Give me thirty seconds.”
“We don’t have thirty seconds.”
I looked at Falcon.
He understood immediately.
“Cobra,” I said. “We need the eastern gate open.”
The answer came far too cheerfully.
“Finally.”
Sarah backed away.
Falcon grabbed her arm and pulled her behind a concrete support.
Cobra ran toward the gate with a shaped charge.
He pressed it against the locking mechanism and sprinted back.
“Fire in the hole!”
The explosion tore through the tunnel.
Steel screamed.
The gate buckled inward but didn’t fall.
Cobra stared at it.
“I’m offended.”
“Be offended later,” I said.
He reached for another charge.
Then the gate groaned.
The locking bars retracted.
Fathom’s voice came through the radio.
“I told you to give me thirty seconds.”
Cobra looked at the gate.
Then at the detonator in his hand.
“I helped.”
“You almost destroyed the mechanism.”
“But I didn’t.”
The steel gate began rising.
Gunfire erupted before it cleared the floor.
Rounds struck the concrete around us.
Falcon dropped to one knee and returned fire.
I moved beside him.
Sarah took position behind the support and fired through the widening gap.
One mercenary fell.
Then another.
The gate rose high enough.
“Move!”
We entered the mountain.
Lower Level
Sniper cleared the corridor ahead.
Shark moved beside him.
Reef watched their rear.
The maintenance tunnel had brought them inside the facility, but every security door between them and the prison wing was sealed.
Until Fathom opened them.
Most of them.
The final door refused to move.
Shark examined the reinforced lock.
“We need Cobra.”
“No time,” Sniper said.
He attached a compact charge.
Reef took cover.
The blast tore the lock apart.
The door crashed inward.
Gunfire met them from the other side.
Sniper dropped the first mercenary.
Shark took the second.
Reef drove the third behind a concrete barrier with two controlled bursts.
They moved through the smoke.
Fast.
Disciplined.
Relentless.
The mercenaries defending Black Site Theta had spent years guarding starving prisoners.
They had forgotten what it was like to face trained operators who could fight back.
The radio on a fallen guard crackled.
“All units converge on the transport level. Prisoners are loose.”
Sniper stopped.
“Did he say prisoners are loose?”
Shark smiled.
“Sounds like Wade got tired of waiting.”
Wade heard the gunfire getting closer.
Two separate battles were moving toward them.
One from the lower maintenance level.
Another from the eastern entrance.
Shadow Division wasn’t creeping through the mountain.
It was tearing the facility apart from both sides.
He and his men reached the freight elevator.
Grant hit the button.
Nothing happened.
“Of course,” Jackson muttered.
Wade looked at the stairwell door.
“Up.”
Hale stared at the flight of stairs beyond it.
“That’s going to be a problem.”
Dawson moved to his side.
“I’ve got you.”
“I don’t need?—”
“That wasn’t a question.”
Together, they started climbing.
Wade took the lead.
Grant followed.
Jackson covered the rear.
They made it one level before voices sounded above them.
Wade raised a fist.
Everyone stopped.
A shadow crossed the landing.
Then a man appeared.
Night-vision goggles.
Tactical armor.
Rifle raised.
Wade aimed at the same instant.
Both men froze.
“Wade Parker?” the operator asked.
Wade didn’t lower his weapon.
“Who wants to know?”
The man lifted his night vision.
Caleb McDougal.
Sniper.
Wade recognized him from old operational briefings—and from the stories whispered by guards who believed their prisoners were too broken to listen.
“Shadow Division,” Sniper said.
Wade finally lowered his rifle.
“Took you long enough.”
Sniper laughed.
“That’s what Rook said you’d say.”
Shark and Reef appeared behind him.
Sniper looked over Wade’s shoulder.
“How many survivors?”
“Five.”
“Can they move?”
Hale answered for himself.
“Fast enough to shoot anyone who gets in the way.”
Shark grinned. “I like him.”
Gunfire erupted below.
Sniper turned toward the sound.
“We need to get you out.”
Wade looked past him.
“My sister.”
“She’s here.”
His heart stopped.
He had seen Sarah in the photograph.
He had known she was working with Shadow Division.
But knowing she was inside the mountain was different.
“What the hell is she doing here?”
Sniper smiled.
“According to Rook, refusing to stay behind.”
“That sounds like Sarah.”
“Rook also said you’re not allowed to yell at her until we’re clear of the mountain.”
“I’ll yell at whoever I want.”
Shark laughed.
“Definitely her brother.”
A burst of automatic fire struck the stairwell door below.
Sniper raised his rifle.
“Family reunion later. We move now.”
Wade looked at his men.
For five years, he had promised he would get them home.
For the first time, that promise felt possible.
“Let’s go.”
They moved toward the transport level.
Toward Sarah.
Toward Rook.
Toward the way home.