You'd be wrong.
"Thermal shows thirty-plus heat signatures in the main structure." Tyler's voice was low, steady, coming through the earpiece. He was set up on a ridge a quarter mile out, coordinating with his FBI backup. "Clustered toward the back. That's probably the victims."
"Guards?"
"Eight, maybe ten. Perimeter patrol, two at the front entrance, rest inside." A pause. "But there's something else. Vehicle convoy approaching from the north. Three SUVs. ETA ten minutes."
My blood chilled. "Chen?"
"Unknown. But I don't think it's coincidence."
Axel cursed under his breath. "We hit now. Before those vehicles arrive."
"Sarah's team is still three minutes out?—"
"Then we buy them three minutes." Axel turned to face the assembled Phoenix members, his voice dropping into that cold command register that made men follow him into hell. "Listen up. This is a rescue mission. Priority one is the victims—we get them out, we get them safe. Anyone in Devil's Dust colors is a target. Anyone in tactical gear who isn't FBI, same. Clear?"
Murmurs of assent. Weapons checked. Nerves steeled.
"Irish, Blade—you're with me on the main entrance. Hawk takes the east with the second team. Declan—" He looked toward the ridge where the Irishman had set up his sniper nest. "Anyone who isn't ours comes through that north road, you light them up."
"Copy that." Declan's voice crackled through the comm.
"And Kai—" Axel's eyes found mine in the darkness. "You're on medical. Stay behind the assault line until we've cleared the building. Then get those people out."
I nodded. No argument this time. I knew my role.
"Move out."
The assault was silent and brutal.
Phoenix hit the farmhouse like a wave. Irish took out the first perimeter guard with a knife—quick, efficient, no sound but the wet gurgle of a severed windpipe. Blade dropped the second before he could raise his radio. The front door guards never even saw Axel coming.
I followed twenty feet behind, med bag heavy on my shoulder, watching shadows move through the darkness. Gunfire erupted from somewhere inside—muffled, staccato, the distinctive rhythm of a firefight. Then silence.
"Main floor clear." Axel's voice, controlled but breathing hard. "Moving to the back."
"East side clear." Hawk. "Joining you."
I pressed against the farmhouse wall, waiting for the signal. Through a broken window, I could see Phoenix members moving through the structure, clearing rooms, checking corners. Professional. Lethal.
Then Blade's voice: "Found them. Christ—there's a lot of them."
"Status?"
"Alive. Locked in some kind of... it looks like horse stalls. They converted the whole back section into cells." His voice cracked, just slightly. "There's kids in here, Axel. Little kids."
"Get them out. Kai—you're clear to enter."
I moved.
Once more, the smell hit me first. Again.
Different from Viper's warehouse but the same horror underneath—human beings kept in conditions no human should endure. The back section of the farmhouse had been gutted, walls torn out to create a long corridor lined with makeshift cells. Chain-link fencing. Padlocked doors. Buckets in the corners.
And people. So many people.
Women clutching children. Teenagers with hollow eyes. Men who flinched when we approached, expecting violence. Thirty-seven lives, warehoused like product, waiting to be sold.
