30. Lucas
LUCAS
GENEVA OR THE HOSPITAL.
CHOOSE ONE.
General Kane believed he had given us an impossible decision.
He had forgotten who we were.
Adam stared at the photograph.
Janice stood beside Samir’s hospital bed.
A man in medical scrubs stood behind her.
The pistol pressed against her back was hidden from everyone except the camera.
Beyond them, nurses moved through the ward.
Families sat beside the wounded.
Children slept beneath white blankets.
All alive because the Brave had reached that warehouse.
All in danger if Kane decided they had become inconvenient.
“When was the photograph taken?” Adam asked.
Hawk moved to the terminal.
“Checking.”
Wynn enlarged the image.
“There’s a clock on the wall.”
The display showed 06:17.
I looked toward the control-tower clock.
06:24.
“Seven minutes ago.”
“Maybe,” Hawk said.
He opened the photograph’s metadata.
“File was created nine minutes ago.”
“Location?”
“Embedded coordinates were removed.”
Wynn studied the room.
“That isn’t a hospital.”
Every man looked at her.
“What do you see?” Adam asked.
“The windows.”
“What about them?”
“There aren’t any.”
“It could be an interior ward.”
“No.” She pointed toward the ceiling. “The ventilation system is portable. The oxygen line runs along the wall instead of inside it, and those beds don’t match the equipment in the evacuation helicopter.”
Hawk enlarged the markings on one of the beds.
“Field facility.”
Ghost moved closer.
“Underground.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“The walls.” He touched the screen. “Reinforced concrete beneath fresh paint. Kane didn’t send them to a hospital. He sent them to a bunker.”
The anger inside me hardened.
The extraction had been compromised from the beginning.
The medical helicopter.
The orders.
The destination.
Every step had delivered the civilians exactly where Kane wanted them.
“Can you identify it?” Adam asked.
Ghost studied the room.
“Maybe. There are three military medical bunkers in this region. One was abandoned. One was destroyed. The third is beneath Garrison Eighteen.”
“How far?”
“Thirty minutes by air.”
Boone checked his rifle.
“I’ll go.”
“So will I,” Russ said.
Adam looked toward them.
Both men were injured.
Boone could barely put weight on his ankle. Russ had a deep cut along his ribs from the helicopter crash.
Neither cared.
“You need support,” Adam said.
Ghost stepped forward.
“I know the bunker.”
I turned toward him.
“How?”
“I used it four years ago.”
“For what?”
“Getting one of Kane’s prisoners out.”
“Who?”
Ghost’s face closed.
“Someone he wanted erased.”
Adam’s expression sharpened.
“Can you get Boone and Russ inside?”
“If the old tunnels haven’t been sealed.”
“Take them.”
Ghost nodded.
Adam looked at Boone.
“You secure every civilian. You confirm the identity of every member of the medical team. You don’t move anyone until you know the route is clear.”
Boone adjusted his vest.
“What about Janice?”
“You bring her home.”
For once, Boone didn’t joke.
“Yes, sir.”
Adam turned toward Russ.
“You make certain he doesn’t do anything stupid.”
Russ glanced at Boone.
“That may be beyond my capabilities.”
“Try.”
Boone looked offended.
“I’m standing right here.”
“Barely,” Russ said.
Hawk opened another screen.
“We still need transport.”
Colonel Demir spoke rapidly into his radio.
A convoy stopped outside the control tower.
Men and women wearing sealed protective suits moved toward the hangar.
At the center of them walked a woman with dark hair pulled into a severe knot.
She removed her respirator as she entered the tower.
Colonel Demir crossed the room.
For one second, neither of them spoke.
Then she slapped him.
Hard.
Boone blinked.
“I definitely like her.”
Colonel Demir smiled.
His wife grabbed the front of his torn shirt and pulled him into her arms.
He held her tightly.
No embarrassment.
No hesitation.
Only relief.
Ghost introduced her.
“Dr. Leyla Demir. Commander of the regional biological-response unit.”
Leyla looked around the room.
Her gaze took in the blood.
The injuries.
The weapons.
Then it settled on the server units displayed on the security feed.
She spoke in English.
“My team will secure the agent.”
“How long?” Adam asked.
“Thirty minutes.”
“We can’t wait that long.”
“Then leave.”
Her husband spoke urgently in Turkish.
Leyla’s expression hardened.
She looked toward the airfield.
“You have two aircraft available. One military transport and one medical jet.”
“Which is faster?” I asked.
“The medical jet.”
“Range?”
“It can reach Geneva without refueling.”
“Take it,” Adam ordered.
He pointed toward me, Wynn, and Hawk.
“We go to Switzerland. Ghost takes Boone and Russ to Garrison Eighteen in the transport.”
Wynn stepped closer to the photograph.
“What if Kane expects us to divide?”
“He does,” I said.
“Then he’ll have teams waiting at both locations.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes found mine.
“Which group does he believe is weaker?”
“The hospital team,” Adam said.
Boone raised one eyebrow.
“Excuse me?”
“Kane knows Lucas will go with Wynn,” Adam continued. “He knows I’ll command the Geneva operation, and he knows we’ll need Hawk to defeat the vault security.”
Russ nodded.
“That leaves us.”
Boone looked between the two groups.
“So Kane thinks I’m weak?”
“You have a badly injured ankle,” Hawk said. “And you were unconscious after the crash.”
“I was resting.”
“You said that already.”
“It remains true.”
Ghost studied the photograph.
“Kane isn’t underestimating you. He’s counting on your loyalty.”
“What does that mean?” Russ asked.
“He knows you won’t leave the civilians. The hospital threat may be designed to hold you there.”
“To keep them away from Geneva,” Wynn said.
“Why?” I asked.
Ghost looked toward the radar screen tracking Kane’s aircraft.
“Because his men are carrying the metal tag and the evidence drive to Geneva. He doesn’t want the entire Brave waiting when they arrive.”
I stared at the aircraft’s flight path.
“If Kane wanted the encryption key destroyed, he could have ordered his men to destroy the tag.”
“No,” Ghost said. “He needs the drive decrypted first.”
“Then?”
“Then he’ll destroy the drive, the tag, and everyone who knows what they contained.”
Including Wynn.
Including me.
Adam looked toward the medical jet.
“We proceed with both missions. No contact over military channels. Hawk establishes a private frequency between the aircraft.”
“If either team loses communication?” Boone asked.
“We continue.”
Boone’s humor disappeared completely.
“No one turns back.”
Adam nodded.
“No one.”
The words hung between us.
We had spent the entire night refusing to divide.
Now we had no choice.
The Brave gathered in the center of the control tower.
Adam looked at each man.
“Geneva rescues Elise and Camille, retrieves the drive and tag, stops Minser, and disables the portable dispersal unit. Garrison Eighteen extracts the civilians and exposes Kane’s operative.”
“We have one objective,” Boone said.
“Bring everyone home,” Adam finished.
Boone extended his fist.
Russ placed his against it.
Then Hawk.
Ghost hesitated.
He wasn’t one of the Brave.
Not yet.
I caught his wrist and pulled his hand into the circle.
Ghost looked at me.
I still didn’t trust him.
I didn’t know if I ever would.
But he was going after Janice and the civilians.
For now, that made him one of us.
Adam placed his fist with the others.
“Courage runs deep.”
Every man answered.
“Love runs deeper.”
Wynn’s hand appeared beside mine.
Small.
Bruised.
Steady.
She joined the circle.
Boone smiled.
“You remember.”
“I helped choose it.”
Adam looked surprised.
“So I heard.”
“It was engraved inside our wedding bands,” Wynn said.
Russ looked at me.
“You never told us that.”
“I didn’t tell you a lot of things.”
“No,” Wynn whispered. “You didn’t.”
The words didn’t carry anger anymore.
Only truth.
And the promise that we would do better if we survived.
The group separated.
Boone pulled Wynn into a quick embrace.
“You stay behind Lucas.”
She stepped back.
“I don’t think you remember me very well.”
“I remember you perfectly. That’s why I asked.”
Russ hugged her next.
More gently.
“Don’t let him do anything stupid.”
She looked toward me.
“That may be beyond my capabilities.”
Boone laughed.
“I knew I liked her.”
Wynn’s eyes glistened.
“Bring Janice and the others home.”
Boone’s expression turned serious.
“We will.”
I faced Ghost.
“If this is another trap?—”
“It is.”
“If you’re part of it?—”
“I’m not.”
“If anything happens to them…”
“You’ll kill me.”
Ghost shrugged.
“Get in line.”
He removed a slim black wafer from inside his vest and handed it to me.
“What is it?”
“A copy of the second encryption sequence.”
I stared at him.
“I thought the sequence was hidden on the tag.”
“It is.”
“The tag Kane’s men just took.”
“Yes.”
“Then how did you make this?”
“I created the original sequence. I remember it.”
“Why didn’t you give us a copy before?”
“Because two copies were more dangerous than one. As long as the tag remained with you, no duplicate was necessary.”
He closed my fingers around the wafer.
“Now it is.”
“Will this open the Fate directory?”
“When combined with the first key and the encrypted drive.”
“And Minser?”
“He won’t know a second copy exists.”
Only Ghost and the people in this room knew about it.
I slipped the wafer into a sealed pocket beneath my vest.
Then I stepped closer to him.
“Bring my team back.”
Ghost looked toward Boone and Russ.
“I couldn’t save my own.”
His voice lowered.
“But I’ll save yours.”
The honesty in his expression stopped me.
I nodded once.
Then we went our separate ways.
Boone, Russ, and Ghost ran toward the military transport.
Adam, Hawk, Wynn, and I headed for the medical jet.
Colonel Demir’s pilot waited beside the stairs.
Leyla called after us.
“Mr. Spencer.”
I turned.
She held up a sealed medical case.
“What is it?”
“Post-exposure treatment.”
Everyone stopped.
“You know what’s inside the containment units?” Wynn asked.
Leyla nodded.
“The laboratory code identifies a modified hemorrhagic virus.”
“Can the treatment stop it?”
“If administered within thirty minutes of exposure.”
“How many doses?” Adam asked.
“Twelve.”