The operational planning begins immediately. Victoria takes point on intelligence, mapping Webb's compound from the data we harvested, building the tactical picture that the assault team will need.
Kane and Stryker huddle over approach vectors, their voices low and certain, two men who have been reading each other's operational instincts for so long that half the conversation happens in glances.
Dylan cleans his rifle with the methodical patience of a man preparing for the last mission that matters. Each component removed, inspected, cleaned, reassembled.
Dar and I build the digital assault package. Webb's compound has air-gapped systems, internal networks isolated from the internet, which means the only way to breach them is from inside the facility. On-site. In person.
In the field.
"The cyber component requires physical access," I tell Kane when the operational outline takes shape on the central display. "Air-gapped systems can't be reached remotely. Someone has to be inside the compound with hardware capable of bridging the gap."
Kane looks at me. "Someone."
"Me." The word comes out steadier than I expect. "Dar and me. She runs offensive capability. I bridge the air gap and manage extraction. We built the tools together. Nobody else can run them."
The room shifts. Stryker glances at Kane. Sarah's typing stops. Dylan looks up from his rifle, his eyes meeting mine with an assessment that carries the weight of every field operation I've supported from behind a screen.
Dar's hand finds my thigh under the desk. Not the coded taps she uses when we're surrounded by people who might be reading our body language. Just pressure. Warm, steady, grounding. Herfingers curl against the muscle, and the touch says what she won't say in front of the team:I'm going with you. Don't you dare try to talk me out of it.
I don't. I wouldn't. The woman who broke into my system is the only person I'd trust beside me when we walk into someone else's.
"You've never been in the field," Kane says. Not a dismissal. An observation. The kind of factual assessment that precedes operational decisions.
"No, sir."
"You understand what that means."
"I understand that every mission I've supported from behind a screen required someone to walk through the door. I understand that this time, the door requires me."
Kane holds my gaze for a long moment. Behind him, Stryker nods once, the smallest possible gesture of endorsement from a man who doesn't offer it lightly.
Kane turns back to the operational display.
My name goes on the field roster.
I stare at it on the screen. Tommy Hale, listed beside operators who have spent careers walking through doors I only ever watched through cameras. The letters look different in the mission font, sharper, more permanent, and the weight of them sits in my chest like a second heartbeat.
Dar's hand is still on my thigh. Her thumb traces a slow line along the inseam of my jeans, and the deliberateness of it, the way she maintains contact while the room buzzes with operational planning, is the most possessive thing she's ever done in front of other people.
Her fingers tap three characters against my leg. Code. The same message from the server room floor, from the reboot, from every moment we've built between crisis and confession.
I read it. Understand it.
My hand covers hers under the desk. Squeezes once.
Outside, the mountain holds us. Below, the servers hum with intelligence that will end a war. Above, Montana's sky is dark and full of stars that neither of us has time to see.
22
DAR
The night before the operation, the base hums with preparation. Equipment checks echo down corridors. Boots move with purpose instead of routine. Somewhere in the armory, Stryker is running through tactical loadouts with the patient focus of a man who has done this a hundred times and treats each one like the first.
Tommy's quarters are quiet.
I'm sitting cross-legged on his bed with my laptop open, reading code, because code is the only language I've ever trusted to tell me what's real. The screen casts blue-white light across the mattress, and the cursor blinks at the end of a subroutine I've read three times without processing a single line.
My brain keeps sliding off the syntax like rain off glass, redirected by the gravitational pull of what happens tomorrow.
