"Vega, Santos, you're on the ridge. Overwatch. Cover the yard approach." He looked at the remaining six men. "We go throughthe maintenance yard. Split at the fuel storage. Three left toward the warehouse rear, three right toward the dock containers. Hit them from behind. Controlled fire, watch your angles, our people are in both buildings."
The men moved. Fast, quiet, the discipline of men who'd trained for this.
Hawk looked at me. One second. The faintest nod.
"Stay with Tyler," he ordered. "You've done enough."
Hawk and his team broke into a run, boots crunching on the dry wash gravel, rifles held low across their chests, their shapes dissolving into the dark scrub one by one until all I could see were shadows and all I could hear was the fading rhythm of their footfalls against the desert floor.
Tyler and I stood beside the truck. The laptop hummed on the hood. The comms unit, repositioned to the truck's roof, crackled with renewed clarity from the higher ground.
I could hear everything now.
On Alpha, Declan: "Hostiles regrouping on the warehouse floor. They're pulling back toward the east wall."
On Bravo, Irish: "Dock bay is secure. Nolan, I've got twenty more crates in the second row. DX-4510 through 4530."
"Confirmed." My voice was steady again. The numbers were clean. Twenty more matches. Twenty more nails.
And then, on Alpha, a new sound. Not from Declan's team. From behind the Wolves' positions. The sharp, controlled crack of rifle fire hitting from an unexpected direction. Shouts in that same foreign language. The sound of men realizing they were caught between two forces.
"Contact rear!" A voice I didn't recognize. Wolves. Panic in it.
Hawk's team had arrived.
"Friendly fire from the east!" Declan, immediate, sharp. "All Alpha hold fire east. Backup is in the building."
The gunfire intensified for thirty seconds. Concentrated, overlapping, the sound of a vice closing. Then it tapered. Sporadic shots. A shout. Then quiet.
"Alpha, warehouse floor clear." Declan's voice carried something it hadn't before. Relief. Bone-deep, exhaled. "Backup team has the east wall. Remaining hostiles are down or surrendered."
On Bravo: "Bravo confirms dock bay fully secure. No remaining contacts." Irish, and then, quieter, on the private frequency: "Nolan. Tell me you're hearing this."
"I'm hearing it." My voice broke on the second word. "I'm right here."
A pause. When Irish spoke again, the brightness was back. Tired, strained, but unmistakably present: "Tell me those serial numbers are matching."
"Every single one."
"Then it was worth it." A breath. Then, switching to Alpha's frequency, Irish's voice softer but still carrying: "Dec. I'm coming to you."
A pause on Alpha. Then Declan, low: "Copy. East wall. I'll be here."
Tyler reached for the comms. His hand was steady but his voice wasn't, the first crack I'd heard from him all night. "Tank. Status."
Three seconds of silence. Then Tank's voice, deep and sure: "I'm good, Tyler. I'm right here."
Tyler closed his eyes. Just for a moment. His throat worked, his jaw tight, and his exhale shook in a way that stripped the FBI agent back to the man underneath. The man who'd nearly lost the person he loved once before and had just spent the last twenty minutes listening to it almost happen again.
"Copy," Tyler’s voice was quiet. The single word carrying everything he couldn't say on an open channel.
"See you soon." Tank. Warm beneath the fatigue. A promise made on a frequency that everyone could hear and no one would comment on.
I sat on the hood of the truck. Tyler stood beside me, arms crossed, watching the compound's silhouette against the stars. The gunfire was over. The radio chattered with cleanup, men calling positions, confirming rooms, reporting status. Four Phoenix members wounded, all non-critical. Nineteen Wolves' combatants down or in custody.
The database glowed on my laptop. One hundred and forty-seven confirmed matches. Military hardware worth millions, every piece traceable to a destruction order signed by Raymond Holt. The evidence was irrefutable.
I opened the secure email address Vasquez had given Tyler months ago, attached the complete verification file, the matched serial numbers, Declan's recon photos, and every financial record linking Holt to the destruction orders. The upload bar crawled across the screen. When it finished, I hit send. The evidence was out of my hands now, replicated on a federal server that Holt's people couldn't touch.
