The capillaries dilate. The fog in my brain burns away, replaced by a crystalline, vibrating focus. My vision sharpens. The edges of the tunnel recede.
The cold doesn’t leave, but it drifts distant. The exhaustion shoves behind a chemical wall. I borrow time, burning the furniture to keep the house warm, but I don’t need to live forever. I just need to live long enough to kill the bastards who took Iris.
I gasp, the air rushing into my lungs, tasting of pine and violence.
I holster the SIG and grab the comms unit.
It’s a brick. Heavy. Ruggedized rubber and steel. I extend the antenna and key the mic.
“Overlord. This is Asset One. Do you copy?”
Static. The storm chews up the signal. The mountains bounce the waves.
I adjust the squelch, trying again.
“Overlord. Asset One. Blind transmission. Status: Burned. The package is gone.”
I wait.
The wind howls as the snow piles up on the wreckage, burying the dead truck.
Ten seconds. Twenty.
Then a voice cuts through the static. Clear. Calm. The voice of a man waiting by the radio for three hours. The voice of a man who doesn’t sleep.
“Asset One. This is Hutch. Report.”
Declan Hutchinson. The chief. The man who pulled me out of the gutter ten years ago.
“Ambush,” I rasp the words fast, fueled by the epi. “Three vehicles. Tactical squad. High-end gear. They took her. Heading south.”
“Status of the Asset.”
“Alive.”
“And you?”
“Angry.”
“Hold position. We’re ten miles out.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” I let out a dry, broken laugh, and then give rough directions on how to find the wreck. I check the load on the SIG. Twelve rounds. Plus the twelve in the spare. It isn’t enough for a war, but it’s enough to start one.
“Are you injured?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re lying.” Hutch lets out a weary sigh, heavy with the weight of a command he knows I won’t follow. “Cipher is on the line. Patching him in.”
A new voice enters the feed. Younger. Faster.
“Boyd. It’s Cipher. I’m tracking her signal.”
The one I slipped into her coat, because there can never be too many plans. The small, wafer-thin disc I slid into the liningof the parka while she slept. A frantic, paranoid insurance policy I prayed to never need.
“You have a lock.”
“Intermittent. The storm scatters the signal, but I have a vector. They’re heading to a logging road near the pass.”
