23. Sarah
SARAH
The warehouse moved around Sarah.
Equipment cases opened.
Weapons were inspected.
Maps of northern Canada covered the operations table.
Captain Cutter coordinated aircraft, fuel, and a remote landing location while Reef and Falcon studied routes into the three possible sites.
Shadow Division was preparing to leave in less than six hours.
Sarah stood in front of the monitor.
W. PARKER — ACTIVE
LAST VERIFICATION: ELEVEN DAYS AGO
Her brother was alive.
Not was.
Is.
The difference struck her again.
Five years.
Five years spent visiting a grave with no body beneath it.
Five years mourning a man who had been breathing somewhere beyond her reach.
The thought made her sick.
Fathom continued searching while the others prepared.
Every answer uncovered three more questions.
Why had Warden kept Wade alive?
Why move him from one location to another?
Why spend millions hiding him?
Marcus Lane wasn’t merciful.
Merciful men didn’t delete warnings that could have saved six lives.
Merciful men didn’t bury investigations or send execution teams into snowstorms.
Sarah looked at Wade’s photograph.
“He saw something.”
The room quieted.
She hadn’t intended to say it aloud.
Rook stopped beside the operations table.
“A witness.”
Sarah nodded.
“He knew something they couldn’t allow him to reveal.”
Fathom stopped typing.
“I don’t think that’s the entire reason.”
Sarah turned toward him.
He opened a series of medical reports and psychological evaluations.
Each document was heavily redacted.
One designation remained visible.
SUBJECT CLASSIFICATION: OPERATIONAL ASSET
The warehouse grew still.
Sarah stared at the word.
Asset.
Not prisoner.
Not detainee.
Not witness.
Asset.
Her stomach tightened.
Assets had value.
Assets were useful.
Rook read the designation again.
“If Warden considers him an asset, they’ve been using him.”
“That’s my interpretation,” Fathom said.
“To do what?”
“I don’t know.”
Sarah looked at the repeated medical assessments.
“Are the reports genuine?”
“They use Warden’s internal authentication system. I haven’t found evidence they were altered.”
“Could the classification be a disguise?”
“Yes.”
That was the difficulty with every answer.
Nothing inside Warden’s network meant only one thing.
“Open the most recent evaluation,” Rook said.
Fathom selected it.
Most of the text had been destroyed, but fragments remained.
SUBJECT RETAINS REQUIRED KNOWLEDGE.
CONTINUED ISOLATION AUTHORIZED.
FIELD DEPLOYMENT SUSPENDED.
Sarah’s blood chilled.
“Field deployment?”
Nobody answered.
Warden hadn’t only imprisoned her brother.
At some point, it may have sent him into the field.
“Against his will?” she asked.
Fathom shook his head. “The report doesn’t say.”
Rook’s expression hardened.
“It wouldn’t.”
Another file appeared.
A photograph filled the monitor.
Chain-link fencing.
Guard towers.
Concrete buildings surrounded by snow.
The image had been captured from long range.
A date appeared in the lower corner.
Eleven days ago.
The same date as Wade’s last status verification.
Sarah moved closer.
“What is that?”
“One of the three possible Theta sites,” Fathom said. “The private airstrip beside the frozen lake.”
He enlarged the area near the fence.
A figure appeared.
Tall.
Broad shoulders.
Dark jacket.
The image quality was poor.
Almost useless.
Almost.
The man turned slightly toward the camera.
One profile.
One impossible moment.
Sarah stopped breathing.
Wade.
Older.
Thinner.
His hair was longer than she remembered, and a scar crossed one side of his face.
But she knew the way he held his shoulders.
She knew the shape of his jaw.
She knew him.
“That’s Wade.”
Her voice broke.
Only slightly.
But Rook heard it.
Everyone did.
Fathom enhanced the photograph without speaking.
The software compared the profile against Wade’s military records.
A result appeared.
FACIAL MATCH: 94.7%
Sarah placed one hand against the table.
The room blurred.
For five years, Wade had existed inside photographs and memories.
Now she was looking at him standing in snow eleven days earlier.
Alive.
Not a document.
Not a status code.
Her brother.
Rook moved beside her.
He didn’t touch her.
He didn’t offer empty comfort.
He simply stood close enough that she could feel his presence.
Steady.
Solid.
There.
Sarah forced herself to breathe.
“What can you tell from the photograph?”
Fathom opened the image metadata.
“It was taken from approximately eight hundred yards away. Long-range lens. The original coordinates were stripped, but weather patterns and terrain match the private airstrip.”
“So Theta is there.”
“Probably.”
“Probably isn’t enough.”
“No,” Rook agreed. “We verify before we commit the team.”
Sarah looked at him.
“They may move Wade before we finish verifying.”
“And if we hit the wrong site, they move him while we’re hundreds of miles away.”
He was right.
She hated that he was right.
“What about the person who took the photograph?” she asked.
“No identification,” Fathom said. “But it was uploaded into the Warden archive through a Silver Sword authorization.”
An ally inside.
Perhaps the same person who had kept Wade alive.
Perhaps the stranger standing beside the transport aircraft.
Sarah stared at Wade.
Eleven days ago, he had stood behind that fence.
Now Warden intended to move him before an extraction event.
The clock was already running.
“Find the airstrip,” she told Fathom.
“I’m working on it.”
“How long?”
“Less if everyone stops talking to me.”
Sarah looked toward the operators preparing their equipment.
For five years, she had hunted alone.
Now eight men were preparing to cross a frozen wilderness for her brother.
One of them stood beside her.
She turned toward Rook.
“Thank you.”
His eyes held hers.
“Bring him home before you thank me.”