12. The Extraction
The Extraction
Nikolai
The port is louder tonight. That helps.
Ferry traffic still moves along the public side of the harbor, headlights sliding across wet pavement, engines idling, passengers calling to one another as they drag luggage toward taxis and waiting buses.
Commercial noise sits beneath it, trucks reversing, chains rattling, men shouting orders over diesel engines and the slap of water against concrete.
Noise hides many things.
Fear does not hide as well.
I watch the Meridian section from behind a stack of empty pallets near the service lane, close enough to see the guards by the container row, far enough that a glance in my direction finds only shadow and bad lighting.
Cole waits two lanes east of me, positioned near the low storage building where Solace is being held. Jax is closer to the blue container with women inside. Dimitry is above us on a warehouse roof, rifle steady, eyes covering every approach.
Steve waits in the van beyond the lower access road.
He argued with no one tonight.
That was how I knew he was dangerous.
Janice is not with him. She is on the rescue boat with Crew and Liberty, both women waiting farther down the harbor where Meridian does not usually load.
The boat sits in darkness just beyond the port lights, close enough to move fast when called, far enough that no guard expects rescue to come from that side.
Crew knows the water. Liberty knows wounded bodies. Janice knows what it costs Steve to keep driving while she is out of reach.
That may be the most useful knowledge of all.
In my ear, Grayson’s voice comes through soft static.
“Camera loop is holding. You’ve got eight minutes before the next manual check, unless someone gets twitchy and looks early.”
“Understood,” I say.
“Try not to make them twitchy.”
Cole’s voice cuts in. “That’s adorable.”
No one laughs.
We are too close now.
The plan is simple because simple has the best chance of surviving contact.
That does not make it easy.
Jax has the container.
Cole has the building.
I have the space between them, the service lane, the blind corner near the warehouse, and the two guards who keep drifting too close to the lower road. Dimitry covers from above, where he can see what the rest of us cannot.
Steve waits in the van beyond the access road, engine cold until I call him in.
Crew holds the boat farther down the harbor with Janice and Liberty aboard, hidden beyond the spill of port lights. Not where Meridian loads or near where their men are watching. Somewhere darker, quieter, and close enough to escape the second we reach it.
Between us and the women are cameras, locks, bad timing, and men who were frightened last night and armed tonight because of it.
One guard stands by the blue container.
Another patrols between the storage building and the fence.
A third smokes near the service gate, trying to look bored and failing.
Fear changes the way men move. It makes them check shadows twice, grip weapons too tightly, and mistake every sound for threat. That makes them dangerous.
It also makes them predictable.
Simple.
Almost never easy.
A guard near the blue container shifts, cigarette between his fingers, one hand resting near his weapon. He is tired. Angry. Still thinking about last night. Men like this become sloppy when their fear has nowhere to go.
Dimitry clicks once over comms.
He sees the second guard moving along the far fence.
I raise two fingers for Jax.
Wait.
The guard passes beneath a broken light, pausing to check his phone. The screen lights his face blue for half a second.
Wrong direction.
I move.
Three steps across shadow, one hand over his mouth, blade angled where he can feel it without bleeding yet. His body locks.
Good.
Intelligence has entered the conversation.
“Sleep,” I tell him in Greek.
His eyes widen.
He obeys after I apply pressure to the correct place.
I lower him behind the pallets without sound.
Jax moves as soon as the path opens. He reaches the container, tools already in hand, while Cole slips toward the building entrance. Neither rushes. Rushing is how men die before women get out.
My gaze lifts to the high narrow window where I saw Solace before.
Dark.
Empty.
Waiting.
In my ear, Steve speaks from the van, voice low and controlled.
“Status.”
“Opening now,” Jax says.
Cole answers a beat later.
“At the building.”
I keep my eyes on the yard.
“Hold your engine until I call.”
Steve’s reply is quiet.
“I’m holding.”
Barely, I think.
The guard lies hidden behind the pallets.
Jax is at the container.
Cole reaches the first door.
Everyone is in position.
I key my comm.
“Go.”
The lock pick slides into the first mechanism.
Now there is no turning back.
Mytilene Port, Greece. 2105 hours
The container opens first.
A muffled cry escapes before Jax catches the door and eases it wider. Warm air carrying sweat, fear, rust, and too many bodies spills into the lane.
“Quiet,” he whispers. “We’re getting you out when I say go.”
I don't look.
Jax has the women.
I have Solace.
Cole is already inside the building when I reach the side entrance. The unconscious guard lies where I left him behind the crates, radio silent, breathing steadily. He will wake with a sore neck, a pounding headache, and no useful memory of my face.
The corridor beyond is narrow, damp, and lit by a single yellow strip light humming above the doors.
Cole waits at the far end, one hand resting on the first lock.
“Clear,” he murmurs.
I nod once and move to the final door.
No sound comes from inside.
My hand closes around the pick.
One pin.
Second.
Third.
The mechanism yields with a soft click.
I ease the door open.
Solace Montgomery is standing in the center of the room.
Not hiding.
Waiting.
A strip of torn fabric is wrapped around one hand. Her auburn hair hangs loose around a face sharpened by seven days of hunger, but her eyes are clear, alert, and already looking past me into the corridor.
Ready.
Obviously.
“You came,” she whispers.
“I said I would.”
For the first time since I met her, the hard line of her mouth softens.
Only for a heartbeat.
Then she's back to work.
“There are three more women,” she says quietly. “One either side of me. Another farther down.”
“I know.”
She shakes her head.
“No. Petrakis changed the schedule after the shooting.”
Every instinct sharpens.
“They're moving everyone tonight. Twenty-one-thirty to twenty-two hundred. The container too.”
Thirty minutes.
Maybe less.
I key my comm.
“Hollands. Solace confirms schedule change. Full movement between twenty-one-thirty and twenty-two hundred.”
Steve answers immediately.
“Copy. We accelerate.”
From outside comes the metallic scrape of the container doors opening.
Jax.
Good.
Cole has already reached the first adjoining room.
The woman inside stares at him as if she cannot decide whether he's another captor until he quietly cuts the restraints from her wrists.
Movement.
Hope.
Confusion.
It spreads faster than fear.
I step aside and hold out one hand toward Solace.
“Stay behind me.”
She looks toward the other doors instead.
“The others first.”
Of course.
Even now.
Even after seven days behind a locked door.
I give a single nod.
“Then stay close.”
She does.
Mytilene Port, Lesbos, Greece. 2110 hours
“Follow me,” I say.
Solace steps into the corridor without looking back.
Behind me, Cole is already at the next lock.
She knows what she is asking.
More women means more doors, more noise, more bodies moving through corridors too narrow for speed. It means frightened prisoners who may freeze, stumble, scream, or fight before they understand who we are.
It means Steve waiting longer at the access road, Crew holding position in dark water, Dimitry covering more angles than one man should have to cover.
It means increased risk.
Solace understands all of that.
Her eyes do not move from mine.
“All of them,” she says again.
“Our mission is to extract every prisoner in this facility,” I tell her. “You don’t have to convince me.”
Something shifts in her face, small but visible.
Not relief.
Permission.
Jax’s voice comes over comms. “Container open. Five women. Two need support.”
“Keep them inside until transport arrives,” I say. “Door open, bodies low.”
“Copy.”
I key Steve next. “Come in now.”
His engine answers before he does.
Then his voice follows, tight and controlled. “Moving.”
Cole angles his shoulder into the next door, shielding the lock while he works.
“Three rooms first,” I tell him.
“On it.”
I look back at Solace. “Can they stand long enough to load?”
“I’ll make sure they do.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
Something shifts deeper in the corridor.
A shoe scrape.
A whisper behind the next door.
Time is thinning.
Petrakis wants movement between twenty-one-thirty and twenty-two hundred.
He has men, vehicles, and the advantage of owning the exits.
For now.
I step aside enough for Solace to see the corridor, but not enough to leave her exposed.
“We move fast,” I say.
Her chin lifts. “Faster.”
Despite everything, I almost smile. “Then faster.”
Cole’s lock gives with a soft click.
Solace draws in one steady breath and moves to the doorway before the woman inside can panic. “Help is here. Stay quiet. We’re leaving now.”
The woman answers with a sound too broken to be language.
Solace reaches for her hand.
“No one alone,” she whispers. “Not now.”
Cole moves to the second door as I take the third. The passage tightens around us with every second, too many bodies, too little space, every sound carrying farther than it should. From outside, the van engine grows louder, careful but close.
Dimitry clicks once from above.
Movement near the gate.
Fear has made them early.
Early men rush.
Rushed men make mistakes.
The second lock opens. Then the third.
Three women step into the corridor with Solace between them, pale, shaking, and trying hard not to make a sound.
One can stand on her own.
One grips the wall.
The last leans heavily against Cole until he takes more of her weight without comment.
Nine women total.
Too many for clean.
Enough to matter.
Steve’s van turns into the service lane, headlights off, engine low, automatic side door already sliding open.
I look at Solace. “Stay close.”
Her answer is immediate. “Always.”
Good.
Now we move.
Mytilene Port, Lesbos, Greece. 2120 hours
The first woman hesitates at the van door until Solace climbs in beside her.
After that, the others follow. Cole lifts the weakest inside as though she weighs nothing.
Jax helps another onto the bench before turning back for the last two from the container.
They move slowly, exhaustion stealing what little strength captivity left them.
“Easy,” Solace says quietly. “You’re safe now.”
One by one, the women disappear into the van.
Nine, including Solace.
I count them twice.
Several are gaunt from weeks of too little food before the container made everything worse. Dehydration shows in cracked lips, shaking hands, and the way two of them struggle to stay upright even seated.
Steve waits until the last door slides shut before looking at me. “Everyone?”
“Everyone.”
He nods once. “Dimitry. With us.”
“Moving.”
A moment later Dimitry drops into the passenger seat, rifle across his knees as Steve eases the van into the service lane without headlights.
“Talk to me,” Steve says.
“Left at the fuel tanks,” I tell him. “Then the maintenance road. Stay off the main quay. Meridian watches the obvious routes.”
He follows without question.
The van moves through the service lane without headlights, every inch of space occupied. Knees bump knees. Shoulders press together. No one complains. No one speaks loudly.
The women sit pressed shoulder to shoulder, some barefoot, some still bound until Jax cuts through the last restraints with steady hands.
Cole keeps one arm braced across the aisle to stop anyone falling when Steve turns.
Solace kneels between the benches despite my hand at her elbow.
“Sit,” I tell her.
“In a minute.”
There will be no minute. I see that already.
She checks faces. Hands. Breathing. Counts in whispers, matching my count without knowing it.
A light swings across the road ahead.
Steve slows.
Dimitry shifts in the passenger seat, rifle lifting just enough to matter.
“Maintenance crew,” I say. “Two men. No weapons visible.”
“Go around?”
“No. Wait.”
The men pass without looking toward us, more interested in arguing over a clipboard than the unmarked van sitting in shadow. When they move on, Steve rolls forward again.
From the rear of the van, one of the women starts shaking hard enough to make the bench rattle.
Solace turns immediately. “Look at me,” she whispers. “Only me.”
The woman does.
Barely.
Solace takes both her hands, even with her own wrists still marked raw. “One breath. Then another.”
I watch the woman follow her.
I watch the others lean closer.
And I understand something I have no time to examine.
Solace Montgomery does not need a weapon to move people.
Behind us, the port keeps working. Cranes move. Engines rumble. Men shout to one another. The noise swallows the sound of nine stolen women disappearing into the night.
Beside me, Solace checks each woman again, speaking softly, making sure no one has been left behind.
She never asks whether we made the right choice.
She already knows we did.
She refused to leave without the others.
I should have argued.
Instead, I opened every door.
Because she was right.
And because she looked at me like I was someone who opened doors.