Chapter 15
KANE
Tommy's voice cuts through the operations center chaos. "Kane, I need you to look at this."
I'm at his console in three strides, Willa right behind me. The rest of the team clusters around—Stryker, Mercer, Rourke, even Khalid. Everyone knows what's at stake.
"The intercept I got earlier—about the timeline acceleration?
" Tommy's fingers fly across keys, pulling up the original transmission alongside new data.
"I was reading it wrong. They're moving weapons tonight, yes.
But the deployment window is still sixty hours out.
They're staging early to avoid detection. "
Relief hits first, then frustration on its heels. Not forty-eight hours. Sixty. Still not much, but enough to plan properly instead of rushing in blind.
"So we have time," Willa says.
"We need to get prepped and move out," I correct. "The Committee could already be sanitizing the Whitefish facility. Every hour we wait is evidence we lose."
Karina spreads detailed schematics across the table—facility layouts, security protocols, guard rotations. The level of detail is impressive. And damning.
"The facility is built into an old mining operation," she explains. "Main production lab is underground, accessible through what looks like a standard industrial warehouse. Security is layered—perimeter guards, internal checkpoints, biometric access controls."
"How many hostiles?" Stryker asks.
"Twelve on normal rotation. But they've been reinforcing since Protocol Seven activated.
Probably twenty now, maybe more." Karina traces a route with her finger.
"This is your best approach—service entrance on the north side.
Less visible, fewer cameras. But you'll need to bypass the biometric lock. "
"Tommy can handle that remotely," I say. "What about inside?"
"Three levels. Warehouse on ground level is just cover—legitimate shipping and receiving to maintain the facade.
Real work happens on sub-level one—synthesis labs, storage, quality control.
Sub-level two is executive offices and secure data storage.
That's where you'll find documentation of what they produced and where it went. "
"And they're destroying it," I say. It's not a question.
"Started yesterday according to my sources.
They're burning hard drives, shredding documents, dismantling equipment.
By the time you get there, you might find empty rooms." Karina's voice is grim.
"That's why you need to move fast. And why Dr. Hart's presence is critical—whatever trace evidence remains, Odin can detect it. "
My encrypted comm chirps. Victoria Cross. I step away from the table to take it.
"Kane." Her voice is smooth, cultured, expensive. Cross deals in information the way other people deal in weapons. And right now, we need what she's selling. "I have your intel on the DC shipment route."
"Talk."
"The Committee's using diplomatic cargo. Russian embassy shipment, flagged as sensitive materials under international treaty. Impossible to inspect without triggering an international incident."
My hand tightens on the comm. "When does it move?"
"Forty-eight hours. Private airfield outside Kalispell to Reagan National.
From there, it goes to a 'secure storage facility' that happens to be three miles from the Capitol.
" She pauses. "Kane, if you intercept this cargo, you'll be violating every diplomatic protocol in existence. The fallout will be catastrophic."
"Less catastrophic than chemical weapons deployed at the inauguration or just about any other place in the Capitol."
"Perhaps. But you'll need to be very, very careful how you handle it. No direct confrontation with Russian diplomatic personnel. No obvious American government involvement. This has to look like... something else."
"A robbery."
"Exactly. Private contractors hired by unknown parties to steal valuable cargo. Tragic but not political." I can hear the smile in her voice. "I can provide you equipment and cover identities. For a price."
"Name it."
"Two hundred thousand. Half up front, half on completion."
I don't hesitate. "Done. Send the intel package to Tommy. And Cross? We'll need extraction support if this goes sideways."
"That will cost extra."
"Everything costs extra with you."
"That's why I'm so good at what I do." The line goes dead.
I return to the table where Rourke's already studying potential intercept points on a map of the route between Kalispell and DC.
"This is insane," Mercer says quietly. "Intercepting Russian diplomatic cargo?"
"The Committee's counting on everyone being too scared to act," I say. "That's how they've operated for decades. We stop being scared, they lose their advantage."
"We also risk starting an international incident," Rourke points out. "Russia will scream bloody murder."
"Let them scream. As long as we have proof of what was in that cargo, the world will understand why we did it." I look at each of them. "Tommy and Sarah run operations from here. The rest of us get ready to move."
"What about me?" Khalid asks.
"You stay with Tommy and Sarah" I say, and watch the boy's eyes widen.
Khalid straightens, pride and fear warring across his young face. "I won't let you down."
"I know you won't." I turn to Tommy. "I need real-time surveillance on the op. The second anything goes wrong, you pull us out. Understood?"
"Copy that."
"We move out at 2200 hours. That gives us six hours to prep gear, review protocols, and get some rest." I look at Willa. "Especially you. You've been running on adrenaline and atropine. You need sleep."
"So do you," she counters.
"I've gone longer on less."
Her jaw sets—that stubborn look I'm starting to recognize. "Then I guess we're both going without."
The team disperses to their preparations. I watch Willa head toward the armory, Odin at her heels, and feel the weight of what's coming settle over me like armor.
This could be our last operation. One way or another, sixty hours from now, everything changes.
The question is whether we'll be alive to see it.
I find her in the armory.
She's field-stripping her M4 with the kind of focus that comes from trying not to think about tomorrow. Her hands move with practiced efficiency—release the magazine, pull the charging handle, separate the upper and lower receivers. Each piece gets inspected, cleaned, reassembled.
"Couldn't sleep either?" I ask from the doorway.
She doesn't look up. "Kept thinking about the facility. About what we might find there. About all the ways this could go wrong."
I move closer, watching her work. "Your father teach you that?"
"Yeah. He said weapons maintenance was meditation for Marines. Focus on the task, let everything else fade." She starts reassembling the rifle. "It's not working tonight."
"What are you thinking about?"
"That in six hours, I'm walking into a Committee black site where they manufacture chemical weapons. That people there will try to kill me. That I might not walk back out." She slides the upper and lower receivers together with a decisive click. "That you might not walk back out."
"We've been in worse situations."
"Have we?" She finally looks at me, and the fear in her eyes is raw. "Kessler knows we're coming. He's probably already there, setting up another ambush. This time there won't be a convenient tunnel to collapse. Just us and however many operators he's brought."
"Then we'll be ready for them."
"You can't promise that."
She's right. I can't. So instead of lies, I close the distance between us and take the rifle from her hands, setting it carefully on the workbench.
"I can't promise we'll survive tomorrow," I say quietly. "Can't guarantee the mission succeeds or that we stop what's coming."
"Then what can you promise?"
"That I'll do everything in my power to keep you alive.
That I'll stand between you and every threat.
That if it comes down to choosing between the mission and you, I'll choose you every single time.
" I cup her face, feeling her pulse hammer beneath my fingers.
"And that whatever happens tomorrow, tonight you're not alone. "
"Kane...”
I kiss her. Not desperate. Not rushed. Just honest. Letting her taste the truth in every touch—that she matters more than any mission, more than any oath I've ever sworn.
She kisses me back just as hard and what I see in her eyes terrifies me more than any Committee operation—trust, need, something deeper that I'm not ready to name.
"I need you," she says. Not whispered. Direct. "Right now. In case tomorrow...”
"Don't." I press my forehead to hers. "Don't think about tomorrow. Just be here. With me."
"Then stop talking and touch me."
I do.
My hands find her waist, sliding under her shirt to feel bare skin. She's warm, soft, real. Every touch is proof she's alive, that we're both alive, that we have right now even if tomorrow is uncertain.
She tugs at my shirt and I help her pull it over my head. Her fingers trace the fresh dressing on my ribs where she stitched me up hours ago.
"Does it hurt?" she asks.
"Not enough to stop." I capture her mouth again, backing her against the workbench. Weapons and gear clatter aside as I lift her onto the metal surface, stepping between her thighs.
"Here?" she asks, breathless. "Someone could walk in."
"I don't care." My hands work the button of her pants. "Let them. Let everyone know you're mine."
"Possessive."
"Always." I slide her pants down, taking her underwear with them. She's already wet, ready, and my hands are shaking with need. "Willa...”
"No second thoughts." Her fingers work my belt. "Not tonight."
I free myself from my own pants, and there's no finesse to this, no careful preparation. Just need. Just the desperate urge to be as close as possible to the only person who's made me feel human in years.