Page 73 of Wraith: Lethal Impact

His hand stays on her leg. That's the whole argument.

Bronco and Rook drag two Consortium bodies out through the north doorway, the dead men's tactical vests heavy with magazine pouches. Rook sets the recovered tablet on the poncho beside Cipher's knee and says nothing.

I strip the first body in twenty seconds—two magazines of 5.56, compatible with the M4. The second body yields another two mags and a suppressed MP5 with three thirty-round magazines.

Six rifle mags total. Two SIG mags. Three MP5 mags. The Ka-Bar. The folding blade.

It still isn't enough. But enough stopped mattering the moment they took Lily.

Hammer sets the satchel on the Land Cruiser's tailgate and counts it out loud for my benefit. "Four charges. Two cutting, two frame." He buckles it shut. "After that we're kicking doors."

"Julian." Ivy nudges the tablet against his knee. "The fallback frequency."

He pulls the laptop from the Pelican case—the battery backup still has charge—and balances it across his thighs where he can keep one hand on her leg.

"Switching to the fallback frequency." His fingers move across the keyboard. "If the primary was cloned, the fallback should be clean—different encryption protocol, different relay path."

The laptop hums. Static crackles. Then⁠—

Voices. Chatter on an unsecured radio frequency bleeding through the scanner. Thai and English, mixed. The unmistakable cadence of operational communications.

"That's from inside the installation." Cipher's expression sharpens. "They're on an internal tactical net. Unencrypted. They think the ambush held us."

"What are they saying?"

Cipher listens. Translates. "Evacuation order. They're preparing to move the cargo to a secondary location via the northern fire road into Myanmar. Timeline is..." He pauses, listening. "Forty-five minutes."

Forty-five minutes. After that, Lily, Andrea, and every other captive in that installation disappear across a border and into a trafficking network that spans three continents.

They'll never be found.

"Hammer, Rook, Bronco, and I will breach."

"The service entrance and loading dock will be guarded. The drainage culvert feeds into the lower level and is probably unmonitored." Cipher pulls up the satellite overlay on the tablet.

"Probably."

"Best I can give you." Cipher holds my gaze. The hacker who can crack any system and neutralize any digital threat is kneeling in the mud with one hand on his woman's leg, offering me probably. "I'll monitor the internal chatter and relay updates on the fallback frequency. If their plans change, you'll know."

"Keep pressure on that wound."

"Bring her back." Ivy catches my wrist, her grip weak but certain. "She saved my life. You bring her back."

I nod once. No words. Words are a currency I can't afford right now. Every syllable not directed at the breach is wasted oxygen.

The drainage culvert is a concrete tube, three feet in diameter, half-filled with stagnant rainwater. A foul cocktail of jungle rot and industrial runoff. The entrance is a rusted grate set into the hillside, hidden beneath thick undergrowth at the base of the eastern ridgeline.

Hammer works the grate with a pry bar instead of a charge. The rusted bolts shear with a muffled crack.

Four still in the sachel.

I go in first.

The crawl is brutal. The concrete scrapes against the ceramic plates in my carrier, and the stagnant water soaks through my pants in seconds.

The claustrophobia is immediate.

My doctrine is built on elevation, distance, and open sightlines; this black three-foot pipe strips away every advantage I possess and forces me into the blind confinement I despise. I hold the M4 ahead of me, weapon light off, navigating by feel where the pipe runs black, and keep moving forward.