2. Rook
ROOK
Something tugged at Rook’s arm.
Tape.
Plastic tubing.
A needle buried beneath his skin.
He tried to breathe.
Fire exploded through his ribs.
A groan escaped before he could stop it.
Somewhere nearby, a machine answered.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
The sound seemed impossibly far away.
His mouth was dry. His tongue tasted like metal. When he tried to lift his hand, pain slammed through his shoulder and sent his arm crashing back onto the mattress.
Mattress.
A bed.
The realization drifted through the fog.
Another breath.
Another stab of pain.
The machine continued beeping.
Steady.
Patient.
Alive.
Hospital.
The word surfaced slowly.
His eyelids felt glued shut, but he forced them open.
Light stabbed through his skull.
White ceiling.
White walls.
Sunlight spilling through a narrow window.
Metal rails surrounding the bed.
A monitor tracing green lines beside him.
The sharp smell of antiseptic burned his nose.
Rook blinked.
The room tilted.
Settled.
Then tilted again.
Something wasn’t right.
His body knew before his mind did.
A crushing weight pressed against his chest.
Heavy.
Waiting.
Then the memories came.
Not complete memories.
Fragments.
Red emergency lights.
Hammer laughing.
Tex holding a photograph.
Fathom staring at a tablet.
Dark mountains.
A red laser.
Gunfire.
Ghost disappearing inside an explosion.
Bishop behind his machine gun.
Tex bleeding beneath Rook’s hands.
Ridge running toward the storage building.
Viking smiling through the smoke.
Go.
Rook bolted upright.
Pain tore through his body.
The room exploded with alarms.
Machines shrieked as his vision darkened around the edges.
He didn’t care.
“Viking.”
The name scraped from his throat.
Raw.
Broken.
No answer.
Only machines.
Only sunlight.
Only silence.
“Tex.”
Nothing.
His pulse thundered.
“Hammer.”
The empty room gave him no answer.
“Bishop.”
His throat closed.
The door burst open.
A nurse rushed inside. Her shoes squeaked against the polished floor as she crossed the room.
“Mr. Cole!”
Rook barely heard her.
His fingers wrapped around the bed rail.
White-knuckled.
“Where are they?”
The nurse stopped.
Just for a second.
A tiny hesitation.
A small drop of her eyes.
But Rook saw it.
Sympathy.
Pity.
The answer.
His stomach turned to ice.
“No.”
“Please lie back. You’re going to tear your stitches.”
“No.”
“Mr. Cole?—”
“That isn’t my name.”
The words came out harsh enough to make her step back.
Rook looked toward the door.
No guards.
No uniformed personnel.
No familiar faces.
The hospital room had no military insignia, no identifying paperwork, and no sign explaining where he was.
“Where am I?”
The nurse’s expression changed.
Fear flickered behind her eyes.
Not fear of him.
Fear of answering.
“What hospital is this?”
Before she could respond, movement appeared in the doorway.
A man stepped inside.
Caleb McDougal.
Sniper.
Alive.
A sling wrapped around one arm. Bandages crossed his forehead, and bruises darkened the left side of his face.
But he was standing.
Breathing.
Alive.
For a second, Rook couldn’t speak.
Sniper didn’t smile.
He didn’t make a joke.
He just stood there looking twenty years older than he had on the helicopter.
Then he stepped aside.
Another figure entered.
Michael Sarrilla moved carefully, one hand pressed against his ribs. A strip of medical tape covered a deep cut along his cheek.
His face looked pale.
Exhausted.
Haunted.
But he was alive.
Sniper.
Fathom.
Rook.
Three.
Rook’s gaze returned to the doorway.
Waiting.
Hammer should have been leaning against the frame, complaining about being trapped in a hospital.
Tex should have been talking about his daughter.
Bishop should have been insulting the food.
Viking should have been making terrible jokes.
Ghost and Ridge should have been standing silently behind them.
Nobody came.
The doorway remained empty.
The room seemed to shrink around that emptiness.
No one spoke.
No one needed to.
Grief stood between them like another man in the room.
Rook lowered his gaze to the blanket covering his legs.
He couldn’t look at Sniper or Fathom.
Not yet.
Because if he looked at either of them, he would see the six who hadn’t made it.
“How long?”
His voice was hoarse.
Fathom answered quietly.
“Three weeks.”
Rook’s head came up. “What?”
“You were unconscious for three weeks.”
Three weeks.
The words didn’t fit inside his head.
Three weeks while his brothers were carried home.
Three weeks while parents, friends, and children waited for answers.
Three weeks while whoever had murdered them continued breathing free air.
Rook closed his eyes.
The pain in his chest had nothing to do with broken ribs.
“What happened?”
Sniper and Fathom exchanged a look.
Rook saw the hesitation.
The weight.
The secret they didn’t know how to hand him.
Finally, Sniper spoke.
“We were found.”
Rook frowned. “By who?”
Silence.
Too long.
Too strange.
Fathom looked toward the window. “We don’t know.”
Rook stared at him. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I mean we don’t know.”
Frustration flashed across Fathom’s face.
Michael Sarrilla hated questions he couldn’t answer.
Sniper stepped farther into the room.
“The official recovery team didn’t find us.”
That landed hard.
Rook felt the cold of the mountain again.
Smoke.
Blood.
Stone beneath his hands.
“What are you talking about?”
“When the military reached the ambush site,” Fathom said, “we were already gone.”
The room went still.
Even the nurse didn’t move.
Rook looked from Fathom to Sniper.
“Gone?”
“Someone pulled us out before the recovery team arrived,” Sniper said.
“That’s impossible.”
“Yeah. That’s what we said.”
Rook tried to piece the fragments together.
The missile.
The mountain collapsing.
Sniper thrown through the air.
Fathom disappearing beneath the debris.
Then darkness.
“Someone carried us out?”
“Dragged, carried, transported.” Fathom’s mouth tightened. “We don’t know. But someone got all three of us off that mountain.”
Sniper glanced at his sling. “Someone stopped the bleeding.”
“Someone stabilized us in the field,” Fathom added. “Then transported us across the border using a medical relief convoy.”
Rook stared at him. “How do you know that?”
“I woke up four days ago.”
Of course he had.
Fathom had probably started investigating before the medication had completely left his system.
“I checked everything I could access from here,” he continued. “The ambulance records are false. The patient-transfer forms were created after we arrived. Every name attached to our rescue belongs to someone who either doesn’t exist or died years ago.”
Rook looked at the nurse.
“Mr. Cole?”
Her cheeks paled.
Fathom nodded toward the plastic band around Rook’s wrist.
“That’s who you are here.”
Rook lifted his arm.
The movement sent pain through his shoulder, but he ignored it.
The identification band read:
JAMES COLE
Not Callahan.
Cole.
Close enough to answer to while unconscious.
Different enough to hide him.
Sniper held up his own wrist.
CALEB DOUGLAS
Fathom’s band identified him as MICHAEL SANTOS.
Someone had kept their first names and altered everything else.
Someone who understood that critically injured men might respond to familiar names.
“That isn’t an accident,” Rook said.
“No,” Fathom agreed. “None of this is.”
“Where are we?”
“A private trauma center in Germany,” Sniper answered. “The entire third floor was leased two months ago by a medical security company.”
“What company?”
“It disappeared yesterday,” Fathom said.
Rook stared at him.
“Website gone. Records gone. Bank accounts closed. The listed corporate address belongs to an empty building in Luxembourg.”
Rook’s pulse quickened.
The monitor betrayed it immediately.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
“What does the military know?”
Fathom’s expression hardened.
“That six bodies were recovered from the mountain.”
Rook stopped breathing.
Six.
Hammer.
Ghost.
Viking.
Tex.
Ridge.
Bishop.
“The funerals?”
“Four days from now.”
Rook closed his eyes.
At least they were coming home.
It wasn’t enough.
It would never be enough.
But they wouldn’t remain on that mountain.
“What about us?”
Sniper answered this time.
“Missing and presumed killed.”
Rook opened his eyes.
“Presumed?”
“No bodies. No confirmed remains. But they aren’t searching anymore.”
“Why not?”
Another look passed between them.
Fathom turned one of the room’s chairs around and lowered himself carefully onto it.
“Because twelve hours after the recovery team reached the mountain, an intelligence report concluded that no one could have survived the collapse.”
“That report was fast.”
“Very.”
“Who signed it?”
“General Sheffield.”
The name settled inside Rook’s mind.
General Robert Sheffield had been part of the mission briefing.
He had known the coordinates.
The timetable.
The insertion route.
Everything.
“Someone wants us declared dead,” Rook said.
Sniper’s eyes turned cold. “Looks that way.”
The person responsible for the ambush hadn’t recovered their bodies.
But instead of ordering a wider search, someone had closed the investigation.
Declared the mountain unsurvivable.
Assumed the three missing SEALs were buried beneath the rubble.
Someone had pulled Rook, Sniper, and Fathom out before the killers could confirm it.
Then hidden them under false names.
“Whoever rescued us knew we couldn’t go to a military hospital,” Rook said.
Fathom nodded. “They knew the betrayal went higher than the men on that mountain.”
“And they knew we were still targets.”
The nurse shifted near the door.
Rook looked at her.
She pressed the clipboard tighter against her chest.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Her eyes widened. “Nothing.”
“You’ve been standing there for five minutes looking like you expect someone to shoot you for talking.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“But you’ve seen something.”
The nurse looked toward the hallway.
Then back at them.
“I’ve seen her.”
All three men went still.
Sniper’s eyes narrowed. “Seen who?”
“The woman.”
The air inside the room changed.
“What woman?” Rook asked.
“The one guarding you.”
Every muscle in his body locked.
“Guarding us?”
The nurse nodded.
“She’s been here every day.”
No one spoke.