Fuck.
“Get them ready to move.” Pav pivoted away from her and turned toward the door. “Zak. Give us a diversion. Fox and I are securing vehicles.” He glanced back. “Fox, on me.”
He pushed back into the chaos of the night, Fox tight on his six.
Snow was falling thicker now, fat flakes blurring in the faint moonlight, melting into the fabric of his balaclava. Heat rolled across the yard in suffocating waves from the conflagration that had once been an admin building.
The vehicles were where he’d spotted them earlier, close to the fence. Two jeeps. Old. Soviet-era but functional.
He cut across the yard in a crouch. Movement intersected his path. Two guards broke from cover, sprinting for the vehicles, rifles half-raised, panic taut in their posture.
Fox didn’t hesitate. “Two. You take left.”
“Copy.”
They split on instinct.
Pav angled wide, using the burning building as backlight and cover. The guard saw him a second too late—shouted, swinging his rifle around. Pav closed the distance in two strides. He knocked the barrel aside with his forearm and drove the rifle stock into the man’s temple. The guard crumpled without a sound.
To Pav’s right, Fox caught his man mid-turn, locked an arm around his throat and dragged him down behind the jeep. No gunshot. No wasted movement.
Pav yanked open the driver’s door of the first jeep. No keys. Of course. He pulled out his knife, jammed it into the ignition housing, and twisted. Wires sparked. The engine wheezed, then caught, vibrating through the frame.
Fox vaulted into the second jeep, his teeth flashing white in the red-black haze. “Like riding a bike.”
“If the bike was built in 1987,” Pav muttered.
Fox gunned the engine.
Pav tapped his throat mic. “Diversion?”
“Thirty seconds,” Zak replied. “Get back to the barrack. I’ll bring the fireworks.”
Pav swung the jeep around, tires churning snow.
“Thirty seconds, Zak,” Fox echoed. “No pressure.”
They accelerated in tandem back across the compound. The women had spilled out of the barrack. Harper moved between them—directing the stronger ones to support the injured, forming them into groups that moved as units.
She’d turned chaos into a system in under thirty seconds.
Pav’s knuckles hurt as he skidded to a halt outside the barrack. Fox pulled in beside him.
“Load up!” Fox bellowed as he exited the jeep. “Pack in. Now!”
The women surged forward. Too slow.
Pav scanned the perimeter. Guards were regrouping near the main gate—shouting, pointing, pulling themselves back together.
Ninety seconds. Maybe less.
BOOM.
The generator didn’t just catch fire—it detonated.
Flames punched thirty feet into the air. The shockwave jarred Pav’s teeth and knocked snow loose from the roofs. Every remaining light in the compound died at once.
Guards broke rank and scattered.
