"Through Beth Anderson. Remember her? Kidnapping victim from a few years back. We helped coordinate her extraction through some mutual contacts. She moved to Texas, got involved with a firefighter named Sledge. Sledge is friends with Bulldog. Bulldog reached out when his team hit a wall trying to locate Steele."
Steele. Mara's breath caught. Now she had a name. Not his real one, probably just a call sign. But it was something. Something more than "the American operator." Something that made him more real.
"Small world," Mara muttered, reading through the messages.
Quinn nodded. "Beth vouched for us. Told them we were the real deal. They want to talk. Face to face, or as close as we can get over secure video."
"When?"
"Whenever you're ready. I've got the link set up. Encrypted. Routed through enough proxies that tracing it would take someone with resources we don't usually worry about."
Mara looked at the screens showing the three possible holding sites. Satellite imagery. Thermal patterns. Guard rotations Quinn had pieced together from fragments of intelligence. Three locations. One of them held the man with thedark eyes and the calm voice. The man who'd looked at her like he'd seen something worth dying for.
"What's our confidence level on the locations?"
"Site one, seventy-two percent. Basement structure, recent security upgrades, communications traffic consistent with holding a high-value prisoner. Site two, sixty-eight percent. Similar profile, slightly less activity but better positioned for quick relocation. Site three, forty-one percent. Long shot, but it fits Nazari's historical patterns."
"And Delta's intelligence?"
"They've got the same sites flagged through their own analysis. Ghost, their comms guy, is good. Really good. Not as good as me," Quinn added with a tired smile, "but good enough to arrive at the same conclusions independently."
Mara studied the maps. Three locations. Seventy-two hours before the window closed and Nazari moved Steele somewhere they couldn't track. She thought about the way he'd looked at her in that desert. The calm acceptance. The way something had passed between them in that moment before she'd run. The way she couldn't shake the feeling that leaving him behind had been wrong in a way that went deeper than tactics.
He'd been wrong about that calculation. His life wasn't worth less than the mission. It wasn't worth less than anything.
"Set up the call," Mara said. "Let's see if we can work with these people."
Quinn's fingers flew across the keyboard. "You sure about this? Once we make contact, once we start coordinating, there's no going back. They'll know we exist. They'll know what we do. That's operational security we can't get back."
"They already know we exist. They saw us in that compound. Saw us extract the civilians. Saw us leave their team leader behind." Mara's jaw tightened. "The only question is whetherwe're going to help them get him back or leave them to figure it out on their own."
"And if this goes wrong? If it compromises L'Abri Sûr? If it brings attention we can't handle?"
"Then we deal with it. But right now, an American operator is in enemy hands because he bought us time. I'm not okay with that." Mara looked at Quinn. "Are you?"
Quinn held her gaze for a moment, then shook her head. "No. I'm not." She turned back to her keyboard. "Give me five minutes to finalize the connection. I'll route it through the main screen so everyone can see."
Mara stepped out into the hallway and found Sloane waiting. The older woman looked like she'd gotten even less sleep than Mara had, dark circles under her eyes and tension in her shoulders that spoke to hours spent weighing options and calculating risks.
"You're really doing this," Sloane said. Not a question.
"Yes."
"Coordinating with Delta Force. On an unauthorized rescue mission. In hostile territory. Against a target who will absolutely execute his prisoner if he thinks we're coming."
"Yes."
Sloane exhaled slowly. "I hope you know what you're doing."
"I don't," Mara admitted. "But I know what happens if we don't do it. And I'm not okay with that outcome."
"Neither am I," Sloane said quietly. "Which is why I'm not stopping you. But Mara, if this goes wrong, if it blows back on L'Abri Sûr, if it compromises the work we've been doing for nine years?—"
"Then it's on me. Not you. Not the team. Me."
"That's not how it works and you know it. We're all in this together. We always have been." Sloane moved closer. "But Ineed you to be clear-headed about this. Need you to separate the guilt from the tactical reality. Can you do that?"
Mara thought about it. Really thought about it. About Steele's face in the darkness. About his voice telling her to go. About the way something had shifted when their eyes met. About the choice he'd forced her to make and the weight of it pressing down on her chest like something physical. About the fact that this wasn't just guilt anymore. It was something deeper. Something she didn't have words for.
