43. Rook
ROOK
The helicopters flew away from the collapsing mountain.
Black Site Theta burned behind us.
Fire glowed through the storm, then slowly vanished beneath snow and darkness.
Inside the cabin, Sarah sat pressed against Wade’s side.
She never stopped touching him.
A hand on his arm.
Fingers wrapped around his wrist.
Proof that he was real.
Jack Parker sat on Wade’s other side.
Every few seconds, his gaze drifted toward his son.
Checking.
Confirming.
Making certain the mountain hadn’t taken him back.
Wade noticed.
He pretended not to.
Across from them, Grant Barrett leaned against the bulkhead with his eyes closed. Luke Dawson checked Eric Hale’s injuries while Jackson Cole stared through the open side door.
Five men rescued.
Five witnesses recovered.
Two architects of Project Nightfall captured.
The secure drive inside my vest.
It should have felt like victory.
It didn’t.
Not yet.
Fathom worked beside the communications console.
His screen filled with copied files from Black Site Theta.
Personnel records.
Financial ledgers.
Transportation orders.
Interrogation reports.
He had pulled everything he could before the facility disappeared.
Cobra leaned toward him.
“Tell me you saved the good stuff.”
“I saved what matters.”
“Explosive schematics?”
“No.”
Cobra looked wounded.
“You have no appreciation for history.”
I almost smiled.
Then Sam Cutter’s voice broke through the radio.
“Rook.”
Something in his tone sharpened every instinct I possessed.
“Go ahead.”
“I have a problem.”
“How bad?”
“Bad enough that you need to hear it before you land.”
Fathom stopped working.
Everyone in the helicopter turned toward the radio.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Someone started scrubbing Black Site Theta from every government database we accessed.”
The cabin went silent.
“Explain.”
“Personnel files are gone. Mission records. Financial authorizations. Transfer orders. Flight logs. Every official reference to the site is being erased.”
Fathom began checking his remote connections.
“When did it start?”
“Seventeen minutes ago,” Sam answered. “Right after the prison wing fell.”
Exactly when Madow lost control.
Exactly when someone realized Project Nightfall had been exposed.
Fathom’s fingers raced across the keyboard.
“He’s right. The original files are disappearing.”
“Can you stop it?” I asked.
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Fathom hated saying it.
“I can preserve our copies, but whoever is doing this has access above the intelligence directorate. They’re deleting records from multiple systems simultaneously.”
Above Madow.
That was the part that mattered.
Sarah turned toward the other helicopter.
“Madow knew.”
“So did Reeves,” Wade said.
Reeves stared at the floor.
Madow remained silent on the shared transmission.
I switched channels.
“Falcon, put Madow on the radio.”
A moment later, the director’s voice entered our headsets.
“You seem upset, Commander.”
“Someone is deleting Black Site Theta.”
“I assumed they would.”
“Who?”
Madow didn’t answer.
I looked toward Jack Parker.
He had gone still.
Wade saw it.
“Dad?”
Jack continued staring toward the darkness beyond the helicopter.
Sarah took his hand.
“What aren’t you telling us?”
“Not here.”
Her expression hardened.
“Five years ago, you told me the same thing. Every time I asked what Wade had been investigating, you said it wasn’t safe to talk.”
Jack closed his eyes.
“Because it wasn’t.”
“It still isn’t,” Madow said over the radio.
Jack’s eyes snapped toward the speaker.
Madow laughed softly.
For the first time since his capture, he sounded confident again.
Not because he expected to escape.
Because he knew something we didn’t.
“You believe Black Site Theta was the operation,” Madow said.
No one interrupted.
“It wasn’t. The prison was containment. Marcus Lane was enforcement. Reeves handled acquisition.”
“And you?” I asked.
“Administration.”
A cold feeling moved through the helicopter.
Sarah’s voice dropped.
“Who was in control?”
Madow waited.
Enjoying the silence.
The mountain disappeared behind us.
Ahead, the first hints of dawn touched the horizon.
Wade looked toward his father.
Jack appeared older than he had minutes earlier.
“What did my team find?” Wade asked.
Jack didn’t answer.
Madow did.
“Your father’s name.”
Silence.
Absolute silence.
Sarah released Jack’s hand.
Wade stopped breathing.
I stared at the older SEAL.
Jack’s face had gone pale.
Madow’s voice returned.
“You still don’t know who started Project Nightfall.”
The helicopter engines roared around us.
No one moved.
No one blinked.
No one looked away from Jack Parker.
Madow leaned closer to his radio.
Then he spoke four words.
“Ask your father, Wade.”
Jack closed his eyes.
And suddenly, escaping the mountain no longer felt like the end of the mission.
It felt like the beginning.