Fifty-five lives. Fifty-five families destroyed. Fifty-five triggers pulled by the hands I used to touch Clare’s face.
The room spun. I gripped the desk to keep from falling.
Hellhound’s hand landed on my shoulder. Heavy. Grounding. “For him. Not for you. You didn’t choose this.”
I looked at him, my vision blurring. “Does that matter to the dead?”
He didn’t answer. There was no answer.
“Xavier, you need to see this.”
On the computer screen, files were scrolling past in a waterfall of data.
QUINTA GENERATION PROGRAM SUMMARY
Subject 1 - GHOST: DECEASED. Execution confirmed. Former Navy SEAL.
Subject 2 - CERBERUS: DECEASED. Execution confirmed. Former Marine Raider.
Subject 3 - HADES: DECEASED. Execution confirmed. Former SAS.
Subject 4 - BLACKOUT: MALFUNCTIONED. At Large. Former U.S. Special Forces.
“He killed them. Dresner executed his own operatives.”
“He’s cleaning house. You were next.”
“We were all soldiers. He took soldiers. Men who swore to protect. And he turned us into assassins. Then killed us when we broke.”
A wave of memory, triggered by the files, crashed into me.
The chair. The bite of leather straps. The smell of burning skin.
Dresner’s voice: “Pain is your teacher. Obedience is your salvation.”
Training. Hours of it. Knife work. Strange faces in scopes. The recoil of a rifle.
The water pumping station. The fall. The glitch.
I doubled over, gasping, burying the heels of my hands into my eyes to stop the images.
“Stay with us. We’re almost done.”
I forced myself upright. My chest was heaving. “How much longer?”
“Three minutes.”
I gathered all the papers, pictures there was and shoved them inside my tactical vest. There would still be time later to look at them in detail.
Then the alarm sounded.
The alarm wasn’t a bell. It was a digital shriek that cut through the heavy silence of the office, vibrating in the glass walls and rattling my teeth.
“We’re blown. Havoc, finish the download. Xavier, cover the door.”
I moved. My body obeyed the command before my brain fully processed it.
“Thirty seconds. Encryption is putting up a fight. It’s slippery.”
