“I don’t care how,” I say. “Get it.”
Another pause. “Coordinates inbound.”
My phone buzzes again. A pin drops onto my map. A location high in the mountains, off a service road that leads into older training land Ridgeway uses sometimes for cold-weather exercises. It’s remote. Secluded. The kind of place you go when you don’t want to be found.
My vision tunnels. “There,” I breathe.
Chen’s voice is clipped, urgent. “That land isn’t officially active right now, but there are structures—old cabins, an equipment shed, a disused comms tower from a previous range project.”
A comms tower.
My mind snaps through possibilities.
If Hammond is coordinating with Stanton—or worse—he might use that tower to transmit data out.
Or to stage something bigger.
Or to disappear again.
“We’re mobilizing a response team,” Chen says. “Security Forces and a tactical element. You are not going alone.”
I don’t argue.
Not because I agree.
Because I’m already moving.
“I’m gearing up,” I say. “You want Riley alive? You want her out fast? You use me.”
Chen’s voice goes still. “Hawthorne.”
“I’m pararescue,” I say, voice low, steady. “I do recoveries. In storms. In hostile terrain. In bad visibility. Whatever Hammond thinks he’s done, he picked the wrong mountain.”
A beat of silence on the line, then: “Copy. Meet at the ready bay. Ten minutes.”
I’m already running.
The ready baysmells like oil and cold metal and men who don’t ask questions because they don’t need to.
I strap into gear like my body is on autopilot: harness, comms, gloves, the tools I’ve carried into hell and back. My team moves around me, faces grim, eyes sharp. Nobody cracks jokes.
They can see it on me.
They can feel it in the air.
Chen meets me at the edge of the bay, tablet in hand, jaw set. “We have probable cause for Hammond’s involvement with Stanton. Financial transfers. Off-book accounts. He’s been feeding them pieces of the program.”
My vision blurs at the edges. “Pieces,” I repeat, voice tight.
Chen nods. “But he needed the full offline backup. He couldn’t access it without Riley’s physical key and her cooperation. So he took both.”
I swallow hard.
Riley in a van with men.
Riley drugged.
Riley waking up to Hammond telling her this isn’t personal.
