"Dead," Ghost said without hesitation. "He won't be showing up in any courtroom."
"Rachel uploaded everything," Echo said, stepping forward. "We scrubbed, cross-checked, and dumped it into a secured, multi-route chain. Raw footage. Signed orders. Payment logs. Everything they buried, we exposed."
Anders shifted his weight slightly. "I saw it."
He paused.
"It's a goddamn firestorm."
Ghost said nothing.
"Hale?" Anders asked.
"Gone," Predator said. "Last confirmed ping was sixty miles south of the border, private airfield. We missed him by minutes."
The room went quiet. The hum of the fluorescent lights seemed louder in the silence.
Then Anders's encrypted phone buzzed against the table, a sharp vibration that cut through the stillness. He glanced down, checked the display, and answered without stepping away.
"Commander Anders."
A beat. His shoulders straightened slightly.
"Confirmed?" he asked. Another pause. "Understood. Route him straight to Norfolk. Deconflict local. I want eyes on him the second wheels touch down."
He ended the call and looked up at the room.
"Hale's been caught."
Every head turned toward him.
Ghost's hands curled into fists at his sides. The coward had run. Top-level clearance, military training, arms trade connections, and he'd folded the second the heat was on.
"He was intercepted in Guayaquil," Anders said. "Ecuadorian customs flagged his fake passport before the jet could refuel. He's in custody. Being flown back to the States right now."
Torch exhaled hard. "Well, that's something."
"Yeah," Reaper muttered. "About time."
Ghost stayed silent. Hale didn't deserve a bullet. He deserved exactly what he was getting, a cage, a black site, and every second of fear that came with knowing he'd betrayed the men who would've died for him.
Anders's voice cut through the moment. "He'll be in a black site by nightfall. Debrief starts the second his boots hit U.S. soil." He looked to Rachel. "What you did made that possible."
Rachel held his gaze. "Then it was worth it."
Anders gave a small nod. Approval. Maybe even respect.
"What happens now?" Ghost asked.
Commander Anders was quiet for a moment. "Langley's dead. Hale's in custody. The rest, twelve confirmed names, possibly more, are being rounded up. Their infrastructure's collapsing. We're seizing assets, freezing accounts, scrubbing every shadow we can reach. Whatever they built... it's done."
He looked around the room. "The threat is neutralized."
Ghost gave a slow nod. "And the team?"
"You're officially off duty," Anders said. "Three weeks. No missions. No call-ups. Use the time. Disappear, unwind, do whatever the hell it is you do when the world isn't on fire."
Torch gave a quiet snort. "Is the world ever not on fire?"
