Twenty-Four
Montenegro looked colder from the ground than from the air.
The jet touched down just after dusk on a private airstrip carved into a narrow valley north of Podgorica, the kind of place that existed only because no one important wanted the public to know it existed.
Snow clung to the edges of the tarmac in dirty gray drifts, and the wind rolling down from the mountains carried the sharp bite of stone and old pine.
Justin stepped off the aircraft first and automatically scanned the perimeter.
A cavernous hangar loomed; two maintenance vehicles crouched inside like predators waiting for dusk. Floodlights slashed the darkness, throwing long shadows over the handful of figures moving with practiced economy. Everything about the scene screamed efficiency—and secrets.
Devon had done his job.
Charlie Team moved behind him in a quiet line, gear minimal yet purposeful.
Ice took one look at the dark mountains rising in every direction and muttered, “You know, I was hoping Montenegro would be warmer.”
Frosty snorted. “Maybe in summer.”
Anya was the last to descend, a silhouette against the jet’s harsh lights. Rifle case in one hand, black duffel in the other, she lingered at the top of the stairs, letting the bite of cold slap her awake—a soldier savoring the edge before the drop.
Justin kept her in his gaze longer than needed, not because she seemed unsettled, but because she wasn’t. As they drew nearer to Dawn Wing, she grew even calmer. And that was unsettling.
A van lingered beyond the floodlights, its engine humming softly. Barely marked, with tinted windows—a silent extension of HIS shadowy logistics.
Justin motioned the team forward. “Wheels up in thirty seconds.”
Ice slid the side door open and tossed his bag inside. “Nice. Nothing says welcoming like a mystery van in a freezing foreign country.”
Justin ignored him and climbed in after Charlie Team.
Anya took the seat opposite him. For a split second, their eyes met—tension sparking, the air charged with a history neither was willing to name.
No one spoke until the van rolled away from the strip and the floodlights disappeared behind them.
The road clawed its way uphill, a series of switchbacks twisting into blackness beyond the edge.
No guardrails, just a thin ribbon of hope over plummeting shadow.
Plows had scraped the worst of the snow aside, but ice still lurked in treacherous patches.
As the van barreled north, the tires hissed over the frozen dark and every sharp turn felt like a dare.
Justin unfolded the physical map he had printed before landing, a habit rooted in caution. Electronics could fail, but paper was reliable.
“Talk to me,” Ice said from the back.
Justin tapped the map. “We’re here.” He marked the airstrip with one gloved finger, then traced north along a pair of narrow roads cutting into the mountains. “Dawn Wing sits somewhere in this basin.”
Frosty leaned in. “That’s a lot of ground.”
“Not as much as it looks,” Anya said quietly.
Everyone looked at her. She tapped the ridgeline above the marked basin. “He’ll use the terrain the same way he did in Georgia. Choke points. Natural funnels. Kill angles.”
Ice smiled faintly. “That’s not unsettling at all.”
Justin watched her for another beat. She wasn’t guessing. She was remembering. “Devon,” he said into his comm, “give me your best guess on active outer nodes.”
Their earpieces crackled. “I’ve got two possible relay points outside the basin. One old weather station. One abandoned monastery.”
Ice raised an eyebrow. “I’m voting monastery. Feels more evil.”
Anya didn’t smile.
Justin almost did. “Which is closer to the supply routes?”
Devon answered immediately. “The monastery.”
Justin folded the map once. “Then that’s our first stop.”
The van climbed in silence for a while after that. The mountains pressed close on either side, steep black walls against a lighter black sky. Small villages appeared now and then in the distance, clusters of yellow lights clinging to slopes that looked too harsh to sustain human life.
Then, even those disappeared.
Ice broke the quiet first. “So let’s review,” he said. “We’ve got a dead program that isn’t dead, a live architect who should be dead, a missing handler who might be alive, and a mountain school for future murder children.”
Frosty sighed. “When you say it like that, it sounds bad.”
“It is bad,” Ice replied.
Justin kept his eyes on the road ahead. “That’s why we’re here.”
Anya’s gaze shifted toward him. There was a loaded pause before she spoke. “Not all of us are here for the same reason.”
Ice looked between them and wisely said nothing.
Justin met her eyes. “Maybe not.”
“But you still think this is about stopping a facility,” she said.
He waited.
She continued. “It isn’t.”
The van took another hard turn. The map in his lap slid slightly, but he didn’t look down. “What is it about?”
“Sokolov.” Her tone remained even, cold. “He built this around people. Not buildings. If you blow up Dawn Wing tomorrow, he’ll start again somewhere else.”
Justin leaned back slightly in his seat. “So what’s your answer?”
“Kill the architect.”
Ice muttered under his breath, “I like her.”
Justin ignored that, too. “And how do you suggest we do that?”
“Draw him out.”
Frosty frowned. “He’s already in the basin.”
Anya shook her head once. “No. He’s behind it.”
Justin knew she was right. Men like Sokolov didn’t stand where bullets could reach them; they stood somewhere smarter. “Then first we take his eyes.”
She studied him for a moment. Then nodded once. “Good.”
The word landed cleaner than approval had any right to.
The driver finally spoke for the first time. “Five minutes.”
Justin looked out the windshield. The road had narrowed to little more than a mountain shelf.
To the right, a sheer stone wall rose into darkness.
To the left, the drop plunged into pine and shadow.
Ahead, an ancient, angular structure hunched against the ridgeline: crumbling stone walls, a fallen bell tower, and black windows that resemble hollow eyes—all part of the silent, mysterious monastery.
They disembarked into impenetrable darkness—no floodlights, no engine noise. The van silently pulled away as Charlie Team grabbed their gear and vanished down the mountain road, leaving only echoes in the night.
Justin looked up at the ruined structure. “Cheerful.”
Ice slung his rifle and scanned the upper windows. “I miss the fake safe houses already.”
Devon came through the comm again. “Thermal is patchy from the stone density, but I’ve got intermittent flicker from the lower east wing.”
Justin nodded. “Generator?”
“Possibly.”
Anya moved to the low stone wall bordering the courtyard and crouched behind it, studying the monastery through the scope. “No external guards.”
“Visible guards,” Justin corrected.
She didn’t argue.
Charlie Team split automatically into approach angles. Ice and Frosty took the west flank. Justin and Anya moved east.
Snow crunched beneath their boots as they crossed the ravaged courtyard, weaving between broken statues and toppled stones half-sunken in drifts. Beauty clung to the ruins like a ghost—now the monastery gaped at them, hollow and hungry, a mouth missing too many teeth.
They reached the outer wall of the east wing. Justin flattened himself against the stone and held up two fingers.
Anya nodded.
He counted down silently before making his move. Inside, the monastery’s scent was a haunting blend of damp dust, cold iron, and a sharper, almost metallic aroma lurking beneath—the faint scent of electronics. Not many, just enough to hint at hidden secrets.
The corridor ahead was narrow and lined with crumbling icons stripped from the walls decades earlier, their silhouettes still visible in faded shadow where gold leaf had once caught candlelight.
Justin heard it before he saw it. A soft mechanical click from the room ahead. He signaled to stop.
Anya froze behind him.
He cautiously edged toward the doorway, peering inside. A lone table held two battery lanterns, a portable relay unit, and a single open laptop flashing route data. No sign of people. He took the lead, stepping in first.
Anya followed. Her eyes moved immediately to the screen. “Supply routes.”
Justin glanced at the display. The same mountain corridor from the convoy tracker. But with something new layered over it. Red movement markers. He keyed Devon. “We found your relay.”
“Good. Anything useful?”
“Depends on how much you enjoy bad news.” He turned the laptop toward the light. A roster list sat open on the left side of the screen. Transport teams. Hunter rotation. One highlighted entry.
Retrieval Window: 0300 hours
Anya stepped closer. Her voice went very quiet. “That’s tonight.”
Justin looked at her. “They’re moving now.”
“Yes.”
“Who are they retrieving?”
She didn’t answer.
He looked back at the screen.
Below the highlighted entry, a secondary file lay partially open, an image attachment visible.
He clicked it, and the screen refreshed.
Pierce stared back at them—no longer an old surveillance photo, but a recent, startlingly current image.
He stood beside a weathered road marker, shoulders bowed beneath a dark coat, his face tense and turned toward an unseen figure just outside the frame. Alive. Near. In front of them.
Justin felt the air in the room change.
Anya didn’t move. Didn’t blink. But the cold around them sharpened. “Timestamp?”
He checked. “Six hours.”
Ice’s voice cut into the comm from the west side of the monastery. “We’ve got movement.”
Justin snapped the laptop shut and killed the lantern nearest the table. “How many?”
The room dropped into darkness around them.
“Three outside the lower yard. Fast.”
Hunters. Of course. The relay had never been left unguarded.
Anya was already moving toward the door.
Justin reached for her arm just long enough to stop her from stepping into the corridor first.
His grip was firm. Controlled. No hesitation.
She went still—not because she had to, but because she let him.
For a fraction of a second, the world narrowed to the point of contact. His hand on her arm. Her pulse steady beneath it. The shared awareness that neither of them moved without intent—and neither of them had pulled away. Her gaze lifted to his.
Close enough now that he could see the shift—not doubt, not fear. Something sharper. Something that acknowledged exactly what he had just done.
“You don’t get to take that hit for me every time,” she said quietly.
His thumb shifted once against her sleeve. Not loosening. Not tightening.
“Watch me.”
The words landed between them—low, deliberate, and far more personal than the moment allowed.
Something flickered in her expression. Gone before it could settle.
Then she stepped forward anyway. Not past him. With him. She looked back at him. Annoyed. “I know.”
He released her. “That’s the problem.”
A faint, humorless curve touched her mouth and vanished just as quickly.
Outside, snow hissed against the broken windows.
Inside the crumbling monastery, a door creaked open softly and then closed again. Not the wind, nor settling stones—someone was there.
Justin lifted his weapon. “Contact.”
The word had barely left his mouth before the first shot hit the wall just outside the doorway, showering them both with rock dust.
And in the courtyard below, Ice shouted, “Hunters!”