Page 227 of Broken Oath

He didn’t offer empty comfort.

He simply stood close enough that she could feel his presence.

Steady.

Solid.

There.

Sarah forced herself to breathe.

“What can you tell from the photograph?”

Fathom opened the image metadata.

“It was taken from approximately eight hundred yards away. Long-range lens. The original coordinates were stripped, but weather patterns and terrain match the private airstrip.”

“So Theta is there.”

“Probably.”

“Probably isn’t enough.”

“No,” Rook agreed. “We verify before we commit the team.”

Sarah looked at him.

“They may move Wade before we finish verifying.”

“And if we hit the wrong site, they move him while we’re hundreds of miles away.”

He was right.

She hated that he was right.

“What about the person who took the photograph?” she asked.

“No identification,” Fathom said. “But it was uploaded into the Warden archive through a Silver Sword authorization.”

An ally inside.

Perhaps the same person who had kept Wade alive.

Perhaps the stranger standing beside the transport aircraft.

Sarah stared at Wade.

Eleven days ago, he had stood behind that fence.

Now Warden intended to move him before an extraction event.

The clock was already running.

“Find the airstrip,” she told Fathom.

“I’m working on it.”

“How long?”