That word is the problem.
“How old?” I ask.
The man hesitates.
I turn my head slightly.
That is enough.
“Pre-Ascendancy,” he says quickly. “Military-grade. Western. Deep black.”
The room stills.
That signal does not exist anymore.
I walk to the glass wall overlooking the lower levels of the facility. Rows of concrete corridors vanish into shadow, each one housing a man who was carefully selected not for what he knew—
—but for what breaking him wouldmean.
“You were told these men were isolated,” I say softly.
“Yes, sir.”
“You were told there was no way for them to communicate.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And yet,” I continue, my voice level, “one of them heard something.”
Silence stretches.
Then a technician whispers, “The Ghostline channel.”
My fingers curl slightly.
So.
Pierce now knows his men are alive.
Interesting.
No—inconvenient.
“Trace it,” I say.
“We tried. It was gone in under three seconds. Whoever sent it knew exactly how long they had.”
Of course they did.
I turn back toward the room, my expression unreadable.
“Then we find the leak the old way.”
A guard steps forward. “Sir?”
“We punish,” I say. “Publicly.”
Understanding ripples through them.
