Just let us go.
59
Ronan
Location: Eastern Europe — Forward Operations Vehicle
Time: 1147 Hours
The map blinks.
Once.
Then again.
A soft white pulse appears at the edge of the subterranean overlay—somewhere it absolutely should not exist.
I lean forward slowly.
Three years of watching screens instead of faces.
Three years of memorizing patterns because that was all Malenkov allowed me to have.
“Miles,” I say, keeping my voice neutral. “Zoom sector Delta–Nine. Layer six.”
He does it instantly.
The pulse sharpens into a thin vertical line—an elevation change. Upward. Gradual.
Not a tunnel Malenkov built.
Not one he controls.
My pulse spikes anyway.
“That wasn’t active ten minutes ago,” Miles says quietly.
“No,” I reply. “It wasn’t visible ten minutes ago.”
Aaron turns in his seat. “What are we looking at?”
“An exit,” I say. “One Malenkov doesn’t know about yet.”
Silence hits the vehicle hard.
Then Lena’s voice comes through the comm—tight, focused, alive.
“I see it too.”
I don’t take my eyes off the screen. “Confirm.”
“It’s old infrastructure,” she says. “Pre-Soviet, maybe earlier. It was masked by newer construction. Jonah didn’t just find a dead end—he found a bypass.”
My jaw tightens.
That son of a bitch.
Not Malenkov.
