They appeared on the eastern access road—the road I'd drawn on the whiteboard, the service approach I'd said would bedark and empty. Four vehicles in formation, moving fast, high beams sweeping the basin.
"Contact." My voice came out flat, calm, the register that only surfaced when calm was all that kept people alive. "Four vehicles inbound, eastern approach. Two minutes out."
"We heard them." Diego's voice came back, his breathing uneven from movement. "Irish and I are crossing the fence now. Twenty yards from the center housing unit."
"Abort. Both of you. Get out now."
"Negative." A brief pause. The sound of boots on gravel. Then Irish's voice cut in, tight, all humor stripped. "Door's open. We're going in."
I wanted to argue. Every instinct said pull back. But I knew that tone.
"Copy. Find volunteers fast. Give them the choice and take only the ones who want out. Tank, Axel—we need backup. Now."
"Already moving," Tank rumbled through the comms. "Sixty seconds."
"Coming from the north," Axel added.
The comms crackled with movement. I could hear Diego inside the housing unit now—the low cadence of Spanish being spoken fast and gently. Irish's voice underneath:This way. Come on. Quickly now.The shuffle of bodies trying to be quiet in a building where noise had always meant trouble.
"Diego, status." My hand was back on the comms. "How many?"
"Eight." His voice tight and moving. "Eight volunteers. Older woman, three younger men, two couples. The rest are too scared to leave, or don't believe us yet. Irish and I are moving now. Out the north side, down the fence line to the extraction point."
"Go."
The guards. I'd lost track of them during the transmission. Now I saw both jogging toward the office trailer, hands on theirradios. They'd heard it too—the alert, the incoming vehicles. Their posture had changed. The lazy confidence replaced by sharp readiness.
One of them looked directly at our window.
The flashlight beam came up a second later, the white cone sweeping across the trailer wall and finding the window. Finding me. His eyes locked with mine through the glass—half a second of recognition, the instant where training kicks in and tells a man that the shape behind the window is a threat. His mouth opened to shout. His hand dropped to his hip.
Declan's rifle split the night.
The guard's leg buckled. The round took him in the thigh, exactly where Declan had promised. He went down screaming, his weapon clattering across the hard-packed ground. The second guard broke into a run toward his fallen partner, pistol already up, swinging in erratic arcs as he tried to locate the shooter. He was looking for the sniper. He wasn't looking at our window.
I needed two seconds.
My hand dropped to my hip—not the tranquilizer pistol on my left side, the one we'd brought for clean evidence, but the Beretta on my right. The plan had been tranquilizers. No killing.
But the plan had died the moment those headlights appeared, and the man swinging a pistol in our sniper's direction wasn't interested in clean evidence.
I saw the vest beneath his shirt as he ran. Bulletproof. Center mass would stop him without killing him.
I threw myself through the window. Rolled over my right shoulder, the grass and packed dirt slamming against my back. Came up on one foot and one knee, Beretta already leveled. The second guard heard the thud. Pivoted toward me. His pistol swinging around?—
Too late.
I fired twice. The muzzle flash threw orange light across the dirt between us. Both rounds hit center torso. The vest caught them. The guard staggered back, the impact knocking the wind from his lungs, his body folding around the force before his legs gave out. He went down stunned, gasping, his pistol falling from fingers that had forgotten how to grip.
Before I'd fully come up from the roll, Ghost was already past me.
He moved with the silence that had earned him his name—no wasted motion, no wasted sound. Kicked the guard's pistol away. Dropped to one knee. Drew his tranquilizer pistol and pressed it against the Wolf's neck. A single sharp hiss. The guard's eyes rolled back. Out. Clean.
Ghost scooped up the Wolf's sidearm and tossed it underhand in my direction without looking. I caught it. Sig Sauer. Heavier than my Beretta.
Ghost was already moving toward the first guard—the one Declan had dropped. The man was still down, clutching his thigh, his pistol forgotten on the ground three feet from his hand. Ghost reached him in five steps. Reloaded a fresh dart. Fired once into the guard's neck. The cursing stopped mid-syllable. Ghost collected the second pistol, holstered the tranquilizer gun, and drew his Glock.
Two pistols. One in each hand. The restless kid from the compound gone, replaced by something precise and lethal that I was glad was on my side.
