26. Lucas
LUCAS
Darkness gave us three seconds.
Ghost had promised five.
I intended to complain if we survived.
I held Wynn’s hand and ran toward the aircraft.
Gunfire exploded behind us.
Muzzle flashes lit the runway in brief, violent bursts.
Adam fired while moving.
Hawk covered our right.
Russ and Boone helped the injured pilot between them.
The aircraft ramp waited fifty yards ahead.
Then forty.
Thirty.
A red laser appeared against Wynn’s back.
I yanked her sideways.
The sniper fired.
The bullet cut through the sleeve of my tactical shirt and tore across my upper arm, crossing the older wound.
Pain burned to my shoulder.
I kept moving.
“Lucas!”
“I’m fine.”
“You’ve been shot.”
“Again.”
“That doesn’t make it better!”
Boone shouted from behind us.
“Save the argument for the plane!”
Another volley tore across the runway.
Sparks jumped from the aircraft’s fuselage.
Ghost stood at the top of the ramp, firing into the darkness.
“Move!”
Wynn stumbled.
I caught her.
Her injured leg buckled beneath her.
Without slowing, I lifted her into my arms.
“I can run.”
“Not fast enough.”
“That’s insulting.”
“That’s accurate.”
Her arms closed around my neck.
Even now, she argued.
Even now, I loved her for it.
Twenty yards.
Ten.
We reached the ramp.
Hawk boarded first and turned to provide cover.
Russ and Boone hauled the pilot inside.
Adam followed.
I carried Wynn up the ramp.
A bullet struck the metal inches from my boot.
Then another.
Ghost shouted toward the cockpit.
“Go!”
The aircraft began moving before the ramp closed.
I set Wynn behind a cargo barrier and turned toward the opening.
Adam and Hawk fired down the runway.
Meridian’s soldiers ran after us.
Minser walked.
Calmly.
As though he already knew how this would end.
The aircraft accelerated.
Minser raised one hand.
The soldiers stopped firing.
That frightened me more than the bullets.
“Why did they stop?” Boone asked.
Hawk looked through his scope.
“They’re falling back.”
Ghost stared toward the tree line.
“Missile team.”
A flash appeared near the hangar.
“Brace!” Adam shouted.
The missile raced toward us.
The aircraft lifted from the runway.
Not enough.
Not fast enough.
Ghost shouted toward the cockpit.
“Flares!”
The pilot deployed the aircraft’s defensive countermeasures.
White fire erupted behind us.
The missile veered toward the flares.
Then struck the runway.
The explosion threw the aircraft sideways.
I slammed against the cargo barrier.
Wynn crashed into me.
The left wing dipped toward the ground.
Engines screamed.
Everyone held on to whatever they could reach.
“Come on,” Ghost whispered.
The aircraft banked harder.
The wing missed the runway by feet.
Then we climbed.
Slowly.
Painfully.
The dark airstrip disappeared beneath us.
Meridian’s soldiers became shadows.
Minser stood in the center of the burning runway.
Watching.
The ramp finally closed.
The cabin fell silent except for the roar of the engines.
We were alive.
For now.
Wynn moved onto her knees.
“You’re bleeding.”
“It’s a graze.”
“You said that last time.”
“It was true last time.”
“It’s still bleeding from last time.”
She pulled open my torn sleeve.
The new bullet had crossed the older wound.
Blood ran freely down my arm.
Wynn’s face went pale.
“Sit.”
“I need to speak with Ghost.”
“You need a medic.”
“We don’t have one.”
“You have me.”
There was no arguing with the look in her eyes.
I sat.
Wynn opened the medical kit.
Her hands trembled as she cut away the bloody fabric.
“It went through the muscle.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“Stop saying that.”
“What?”
“That you’ve had worse.”
Her voice cracked.
“Your body is covered in scars from things I never knew happened.”
“Wynn—”
“You came home with broken bones. Knife wounds. Bullets. And you told me everything was fine.”
“I was alive.”
“That wasn’t the same as being fine.”
I watched her clean the wound.
Tears gathered in her eyes.
“What should I have said?”
“The truth. That you were hurt. That you were afraid. That sometimes the mission nearly broke you.”
“I couldn’t bring the battlefield home.”
“You brought it home every time you walked through the door and refused to talk about it.”
Her words landed harder than Minser’s bullets.
She wrapped the bandage around my arm.
“I didn’t need you to protect me from knowing you were human. I needed you to trust me enough to let me see it.”
I touched her cheek.
“I’m trying now.”
“I know.”
Her gaze lifted to mine.
“That’s why I’m still here.”
Something deep inside me shifted.
Hope.
I hadn’t allowed myself to feel it in six years.
Wynn tied the bandage.
“There.”
“Thank you.”
“You’ll need stitches.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“You’re agreeing too easily.”
“I’m learning.”
“Slowly.”
I caught her hand before she could pull away.
“So are you.”
Her expression softened.
I brought her fingers to my lips.
One kiss against her knuckles.
Gentle.
Nothing like the desperate kiss in the vehicle.
This felt more intimate.
More dangerous.
Because it carried a promise beyond survival.
Ghost approached from the rear of the cabin.
“We have a problem.”
Wynn sighed.
“Of course we do.”
I stood.
“What?”
“Meridian hit our navigation system.”
“Can we fly?”
“Yes.”
“Can we reach Geneva?”
“Maybe.”
“That doesn’t sound promising,” Boone said.
Ghost ignored him.
“We also took damage to a fuel line.”
“How much are we losing?” Adam asked.
“Enough that we won’t reach Switzerland without landing.”
“Where?”
“There’s a private airfield in northern Turkey.”
Russ shook his head.
“We just escaped a private airfield.”
“This one belongs to a friend.”
“What kind of friend?” Boone asked.
“The kind who won’t shoot us.”
“That is my favorite kind.”
Adam walked closer.
“Can this friend be trusted?”
Ghost’s gaze settled on him.
“No one can be trusted.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the only honest one.”
I stepped between them.
“The tag.”
Ghost’s expression changed.
I removed the metal tag from beneath my shirt.
“You put the encryption key on this.”
“Yes.”
“You told me it was a threat against Wynn.”
“It was.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It wasn’t only a threat.”
Ghost took the tag.
“The message was a warning. The reverse side was insurance.”
I stared at the piece of metal I had carried for six years.
“Why give it to me?”
“Because the original Fate files required two physical encryption keys.”
“Who had the first?”
“Minser.”
“And the second?”
“I did.”
Wynn looked toward Ghost.
“You hid yours on Lucas’s tag.”
“Yes.”
“Without telling him.”
“The less he knew, the safer he was.”
Anger rose inside me.
“You used me.”
“I trusted you.”
“You turned me into a target.”
“You already were one.”
Ghost held the tag between us.
“Minser had compromised the observation post. Kane had compromised command. I had nowhere safe to take the key.”
“So you gave it to me?”
“You were the only man I knew who couldn’t be bought.”
“Then you threatened my wife and disappeared.”
“I gave you a reason to get her away from you.”
“You destroyed us!”
The shout filled the aircraft.
Everyone went silent.
Ghost didn’t step back.
“You’re alive. So is she. That was the mission.”
“Wynn wasn’t a mission.”
“No.”
For the first time, pain entered Ghost’s voice.
“She was your weakness.”
I hit him.
My fist struck his jaw.
Ghost staggered backward.
Boone moved between us.
Adam grabbed my injured arm.
Pain exploded through my shoulder.
I barely felt it.
“She was my wife!”
“I know.”
Ghost wiped blood from his mouth.
“And Melissa was mine.”
His words stopped me.
“If I had warned her properly, if I had forced her to disappear, she might still be alive.”
The aircraft fell silent.
Wynn stepped closer.
“You said she believed you were dead.”
Ghost looked at her.
“She did.”
“For how long?”
“Two years.”
“What happened?”
“Kane found her.”
The pain in his face deepened.
“He sent Minser to finish the job.”
My anger went still.
“Minser killed her?”
“He tortured her for three days, trying to learn where I was.”
“She didn’t know,” Wynn whispered.
“No. She died protecting a man who had let her believe he was dead.”
My anger collapsed beneath the weight of his grief.
Ghost had carried something worse than regret.
He had proof that walking away hadn’t saved the woman he loved.
It had left her defenseless.
“I’m sorry,” Wynn whispered.
Ghost looked toward the dark cabin wall.
“So am I.”
No one spoke for several seconds.
Then he handed the tag back to me.
“After Melissa died, I stopped hiding. I began dismantling every part of Meridian I could reach. Safe houses. Shipping routes. Bank accounts.”
“Minser?”
“He disappeared before I could reach him.”
“And General Kane?”
“Untouchable without the Fate files.”
Adam folded his arms.
“You’ve had eight years. Why come back now?”
“Because Wynn found the Geneva copy.”
“How did you know?”
“I arranged for the file to reach her.”
Wynn stepped back.
“The wounded man from the extraction convoy.”
“He was my courier.”
“He gave me the drive without telling me who he was.”
“That was the plan.”
“Then he appeared inside the extraction team with a transmitter.”
“I sent him to infiltrate the extraction after your convoy disappeared. He realized the rescue force had been compromised and tried to transmit your location to me before Kane’s men shot him.”
Boone and Lucas had assumed he was reporting to Meridian.
He had been trying to warn Ghost.
“You brought Meridian into my life,” Wynn said.
“No.”
Ghost looked at her.
“You were already investigating one of their humanitarian organizations. You were weeks away from finding the financial network on your own. I gave you the file because I believed possessing it would give them a reason to keep you alive.”
A bitter laugh escaped her.
“That worked beautifully.”
“I underestimated how quickly Minser would find you.”
“You knew who I was.”
“Yes.”
“You knew what Lucas and I had lost.”
“Yes.”
“And you used me anyway.”
Ghost’s face hardened.
“I used the only journalist who had ever gotten close enough to expose them.”
I stepped between them.
“You’re done using her.”
“I don’t need to anymore.”
“Why?”
“Because she moved the file to Geneva.”
Ghost looked at the tag in my hand.
“And brought the second key back to it.”
Wynn shook her head.
“That was an accident.”
“No.”
“What?”
“I suspected you would use the old joint account.”
“How?”
“Because you never changed your name.”
Wynn’s face lost its color.
Ghost had known.
Had counted on the love neither of us could bury.
“You manipulated both of us,” I said.
“I gave you a chance to finish what we failed to stop eight years ago.”
“By putting Wynn in danger.”
“She was already in danger.”
“Then you should’ve come to me.”
“And led Meridian directly to the Brave?”
“They found us anyway.”
“Yes.”
Ghost looked around the aircraft.
“Because Kane has been controlling your missions from the beginning.”
Adam’s expression tightened.
“Prove it.”
Ghost removed a small drive from his pocket.
“This contains every mission Kane redirected. Every intelligence failure. Every civilian target Meridian needed the Brave to rescue or eliminate.”
“Why would they send us to rescue their targets?”
“To gather witnesses in one place.”
The meaning hit us all at once.
The Brave had believed they were saving innocent people.
But each rescue also gathered survivors in predictable locations.
Medical flights.
Secure facilities.
Extraction aircraft.
Locations Meridian could infiltrate.
“Samir,” Wynn whispered. “The civilians.”
I turned toward Ghost.
“Are they still in danger?”
“Yes.”
Wynn reached for the nearest radio.
“We have to warn the medical flights.”
Ghost stopped her.
“We can’t transmit. If Kane is monitoring military channels, any warning could expose their destination.”
“We already sent them to the secure air base!”
Adam moved toward the cockpit.
“We need a protected line.”
“There isn’t one aboard.”
“Your airfield?”
Ghost nodded.
“If my contact is still alive.”
Boone leaned his head against the wall.
“Why wouldn’t he be?”
“Because I missed two check-ins. Meridian may have found him.”
The aircraft shuddered.
An alarm sounded from the cockpit.
Ghost turned.
“What now?” Russ asked.
The pilot’s voice came through the speaker.
“We’re losing fuel faster.”
“How long?”
“Twenty minutes.”
Ghost looked toward the dark mountains below.
“The airfield is twenty-five minutes away.”
Boone closed his eyes.
“Of course it is.”
Adam examined the emergency equipment mounted along the wall.
“Alternatives?”
“None,” Ghost answered. “We either reach the airfield…”
“Or?” Boone asked.
“We become the second aircraft to crash tonight.”
Wynn looked at me.
“You promised me dinner.”
“I remember.”
“You can’t take me to dinner if we fall out of the sky.”
“I’ll speak with the pilot.”
“Very reassuring.”
The aircraft dropped suddenly.
Wynn fell against me.
I caught her.
The engine coughed.
Once.
Twice.
Then steadied.
Ghost ran toward the cockpit.
Adam followed.
Hawk began calculating our remaining fuel against the distance.
Boone and Russ secured the injured pilot for another emergency landing.
I helped Wynn into a restraint beside me and tightened both our harnesses.
Her arms circled my waist.
“Are we going to make it?” she asked.
I could have lied.
The old me would have.
I would’ve told her everything was fine.
Promised certainty I didn’t have.
She deserved better.
“I don’t know.”
Fear flickered in her eyes.
Then she nodded.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For telling me the truth.”
I touched my forehead to hers.
“I’m afraid.”
The admission didn’t weaken me.
It freed something.
Wynn’s hands tightened against my back.
“So am I.”
“But whatever happens, I’m staying with you.”
She looked into my eyes.
“Together?”
“Together.”
The engine coughed again.
This time, it didn’t recover.
The aircraft began to lose altitude.
Warning alarms screamed.
Ghost shouted from the cockpit.
“We’re not going to reach the runway!”
The mountains rose beneath us.
The pilot fought the controls.
Ahead, a small line of lights appeared between the trees.
The private airfield.
Too far.
Too low.
Ghost looked back.
“Brace!”
I pulled Wynn against me as far as our restraints allowed.
The aircraft clipped the first row of trees.
Branches struck the wings.
Metal tore.
The runway rushed toward us.
We hit the ground hard.
The landing gear collapsed.
The aircraft slid sideways across the pavement in a shower of sparks.
One wing struck the dirt.
The fuselage spun.
Then stopped.
Silence fell.
Wynn lifted her head from my chest.
“Lucas?”
I opened my eyes.
Smoke filled the cabin.
But we were alive.
Again.
“I’m reconsidering dinner.”
She stared at me.
“What?”
“I’m taking you somewhere within walking distance.”
A shaky laugh escaped her.
Behind us, Boone groaned.
“I’m never traveling with either of you again.”
Then Ghost’s voice came from the cockpit.
“Everyone stay down.”
I looked toward the windows.
Armed men surrounded the aircraft.
Ghost slowly raised his hands.
His face had gone pale.
“That isn’t my contact.”
The cabin doors opened.
A man in a Turkish military uniform climbed aboard.
He looked directly at me.
Then at the metal tag hanging from my neck.
“Lucas Spencer.”
I raised my weapon.
He smiled.
“General Kane sends his regards.”