"Or what? You'll shoot me?" His smile is cold. Dead. The smile of a man who's already decided he's willing to die as long as I die with him. "I've been waiting for this. Waiting for you to come after these compounds so I could confirm what I already suspected."
"I don't have time for this." I advance, weapon trained on his chest. Not his head—chest shots are more forgiving if Isabella moves or if he dodges. I want him down, not a firefight that gets her killed. "Move or die. Simple choice."
"Your demolition signature is very distinctive, Pascal. Shaped charges, wireless triggers, built-in delay for safe extraction." Lazarev's eyes are dark with satisfaction, with the twisted pleasure of a man who's spent years planning this moment. "The same pattern you've used for years. The same pattern I watched you perfect in Afghanistan."
"Our intel was right," I say. "You're one of the buyers. Purchasing Isabella's compounds through your Cayman shell."
"Was purchasing." Lazarev's weapon tracks between me and Isabella. "Until you placed the charges to destroy millions in product. The Iron Choir will want compensation. And I want something more personal."
Behind me, my remote beeps. The wireless trigger confirming charges are armed and counting down. Five minutes until detonation.
"We need to leave," Luc says urgently. "Now, Remy."
Lazarev's expression shifts. Something darker. More dangerous. More broken. "You think you can walk away? After Yemen? After what you did?"
"Yemen was your failure, not mine." The words come out flat. Cold. Without mercy, because mercy is what got twenty-three people killed. "You provided faulty intelligence. You said the compound was clear of civilians. You were wrong."
"I gave you the best intelligence I had!"
"Your best got twenty-three people killed. Families. Children." I step forward, putting myself between Lazarev and Isabella, weapon never wavering. "I executed the mission based on your intel. My after-action report stated the facts. The investigation traced the failure to your rushed recon and faulty analysis. You lost your clearance, your contractor status, your reputation. That's on you, not me."
"You destroyed my life!" Lazarev's voice cracks with years of projected guilt, of refusing to accept responsibility for his own incompetence. "You wrote that report knowing it would end my career!"
"I wrote the truth. You projected your guilt onto me rather than accept responsibility for your own failure." My finger stays on the trigger, pressure just short of firing. "That's why you've been hunting me. That's why you're buying weaponized compounds. Not for any tactical purpose. For revenge. Becauseyou couldn't live with what you did, so you decided I had to die for it."
The remote beeps again. Four minutes to detonation.
Lazarev's finger tightens on his weapon. "I'm not letting you walk away. Not this time."
"Then you die here when the charges blow." I step forward again, closing distance, weapon aimed center mass. "Your choice. Die now from a bullet, or die in four minutes when this facility turns into an incinerator. Either way, you don't walk out of here."
For a moment, I think he'll shoot. His finger's on the trigger, his eyes promising violence, promising he'll take us both down if that's what it takes.
Part of me wants him to try. Wants the justification to put a round through his skull and end this vendetta permanently.
But then Van der Berg's team opens up with another burst of suppressing fire, and Lazarev dives for cover.
"Run!" I shout.
We hit the loading dock at full speed. Van der Berg's team covering our retreat, laying down enough fire to keep the Iron Choir security pinned and Lazarev's head down. Doors slam, tires scream, and we're moving before anyone can organize pursuit.
The remote on my vest beeps. Two minutes to detonation.
"Drive faster," I tell the driver. Not a request.
The engine roars. We weave through port district streets at speeds that blur the warehouses into shadows. Behind us, muzzle flashes still strobe in the darkness as Van der Berg's team breaks contact.
One minute.
"Everyone down!" I shout, pulling Isabella against me, shielding her with my body as the driver takes a hard corner.
The facility erupts.
The shaped charges detonate in sequence. Containment explosions designed to incinerate without dispersing aerosols. Fire blooms through the facility's roof, turning night into day. Secondary explosions follow as other chemicals ignite, the temperature spiking high enough to see the heat shimmer from blocks away.
Twenty-five hundred degrees Celsius. Hot enough to destroy the compounds completely, hot enough to leave nothing but ash and melted metal, hot enough that anyone still inside when those charges blew is already dead.
I hope Lazarev stayed, hope he was stubborn enough, broken enough, to wait those final minutes thinking he could defuse my charges or survive the blast. Hope he died screaming in fire that burned hotter than Yemen ever did.
