Rorke and Rome fanned out, rifles at the ready. But Rome couldn’t tear his gaze from the sight in front of them for long. The SUV sat there, the driver and side doors hanging open.
His brother-in-arms lay packed into the snow at the base of a tree.
He recognized it as deliberate—Rivers had dug himself in to slow the bleeding to stay alive until help arrived.
At his back, the rest of the guys cleared the area of threat, leaving Rome free to approach. Cannon was on his knees next to Rivers.
Rome dropped beside him. “Rivers,” he croaked.
Rivers opened his eyes. The brown depths were focused. Present.
The man was hurt but he was still there.
Rome started digging him out of the snow. Cannon dug in too, and then all of them surrounded their fallen teammate.
When they unearthed him and saw the extent of the blood, Rome’s gut turned to water.
It hit all at once. What his mind had failed to see until this moment.
“The women? Where are the women?” he burst out.
“Jesus Christ! Where are they?” Monk echoed, jumping up and running a few steps before stopping and staring down at the ground.
“Sat phone.” Rivers’s voice was stripped by blood loss and pain. “Bullet clipped it. I didn’t take…a full hit.”
“But enough.” Cannon’s expression was even grimmer than it had been when they came off that mountain. “How did this happen?”
Rivers lifted his hands a few inches off the snow. He gripped the satellite phone that had probably saved his life. “Message came through. On the secure channel.”
Rome jerked his head up to meet Monk’s stare. It was just as wild as his own must be.
“Order to…move the women. Get them to a rendezvous.” Rivers panted with the exertion of speaking.
Rome’s world spun in a sick revolution, and his brain couldn’t catch up.
“Blackout channel?” Cannon asked.
Rivers shook his head slowly. “Regular command.”
The silence that followed was the loudest thing Rome had ever heard in all his years in Blackout.
Whoever sent the order wasn’t in their closed network—they were outside it. Most teams never knew the exact location of other bases. And no one knew Sierra’s location. Only Jolie and Stina had ever been inside the base, and they were hooded.
But someone knew Sierra’s region…and they knew the women were there.
Someone had known long enough to build a plan.
This threat hit too close to home. And too close to Cipher’s modus operandi.
Rome didn’t trust himself to speak as he scanned the area, already knowing from Monk’s face that he was looking at footprints in the snow and tire tracks.
Younger was already on the satellite phone, calling for an air evac. Townie assessed Rivers’s wound with stoic competence.
But none of it might be enough—for Rivers…or for the women.
“Stina. Jolie. Where are they now?” Rome’s throat clamped around the syllables.
Rivers’s throat worked. “Taken. Vehicle. Black. I didn’t get plates. I’m so fucking sorry.”
