4 a.m. The black stretch of Interstate 66 lay silent and serpentine, coiled between desert and rocky cliffs. The wind was harsh, and even the stars seemed blurred by its force.
The six of them were spread out across three cars. Fox and Vulture rode in the very last one—a deep gray Porsche 930, old but mean, a beast that roared low when you floored the gas.
The convoy had six vehicles total: two SUVs leading the way, a semi loaded with arms in the center—driven by a "trusted friend" of Mr. D's, with a supposed ex-Special Forces guy riding shotgun. Behind the semi trailed an Audi RS6: Miami in the passenger seat, String at the wheel, Matriarch and the driver in the back, checking their gear.
Fox rested his right hand by the window, eyes fixed on the distant taillights ahead. He didn't speak, only glancing now and then at the tracker on his tablet.
Vulture chewed on a piece of jerky, unscrewed a water bottle, took a swig. "Seriously, this job just feels all kinds of wrong."
Fox didn't turn. "You ever had one that felt right?"
Vulture grinned. "You got me there."
They were less than a kilometer from the tunnel.
Up ahead, the two SUVs entered first—their lights swallowed by darkness. The semi followed, its rear still outside the tunnel mouth.
Then the first explosion ripped through the night.
Before Fox could speak, a second blast erupted, like hell itself opening beneath the tunnel entrance. Fire engulfed the semi's tail, the massive machine twisting, rolling, and erupting like a child's toy smashed to pieces.
The Porsche slammed its brakes, screeching sideways and leaving a scorched black streak on the road.
The RS6 braked hard too, nearly crashing into the Porsche.
The shockwave pinned them in place, as if the whole world had flipped upside down—fire poured into the tunnel, and then, louder than both blasts, came the sound of collapsing concrete.
The tunnel caved in.
Their comms filled with static and screeching, then—nothing.
It was like the air itself had been sucked out. All that remained was fire, grit, and the roar of burning, shattered metal.
"Motherfucker!" Miami's voice burst through the channel. "Did that truck just blow up? Shit—there were people in there—"
"Miami. Shut up." Fox's voice was cold as ice. "Don't talk. Watch."
A moment later, the RS6 door swung open. String ran toward Fox, eyes locked on the flames, voice trembling. "Both SUVs were in the tunnel… Those were mines, control detonators under the semi. Too precise—this was an ambush, not an accident."
"Who even knew the route? Everything was too well-timed," Matriarch said, getting out of the back seat, eyes red as she tried again to reach the semi driver—dead channel, dead people.
Fox glanced at his tracker. Five signals had been there a second ago—now only two remained. The other three, lost in the fire, would never move again.
"Shit," Vulture muttered, staring at Fox.
Fox said nothing, just raised his head, watching the burning tunnel, his gaze growing colder by the second.
This wasn't just the six of them on a solo run; they'd been part of the entire "transport group." Now—everyone else was gone. Only their cars, the ones that hadn't entered the tunnel, had survived.
Or rather, only they—by sheer luck—hadn't gone in.
Moments later, sirens sliced the sky, as remote surveillance satellites tripped the alarm.
"Incident site firepower exceeds protocol threshold, federal law enforcement has been automatically notified."
Fox's eyes flicked to the pop-up warning.
This wasn't just a smuggling job gone wrong.
This had become a federal case.
Within hours, the story was everywhere:
Southwest US rocked by mysterious arms transport explosion, FBI takes over investigation.
Explosion in Tunnel 66 leaves 11 missing, possible terror attack suspected.
Suspected arms smuggling triggers massive blast, no official comment yet.
Mr. D vanished less than an hour after the explosion.
All communications were cut. Encrypted emails deleted. His car found abandoned in a San Francisco parking lot.
Two hours later, someone anonymously delivered all the mission documents to the FBI—including files bearing Miami's and Matriarch's real names. Homeland Security joined the case quickly. The reason was simple: those weapons were never supposed to be in the US. No paperwork, no sender, no receiver. The media had their headline within the day: "Unknown Arms + Big Explosion = Terror Attack."
Day one of their life on the run, the city woke as usual. Only now, the six of them had no names.
Matriarch slipped into a dive bar in Mexico, got a new identity, and started working as a local enforcer, collecting debts with a fake passport. Miami built himself a shack at an abandoned racetrack near the border, changed his hair, and claimed to be a southern mechanic, fixing up used bikes for cash.
Their methods of going off-grid were rough, but they meant business.
But the FBI doesn't mess around.
Miami's ex-girlfriend had been a bartender in Vegas, living above his old garage. FBI agents worked backwards, tracing one nearly-erased phone number from the three surviving calls after the explosion.
One number. It led to her.
She was invited for coffee—a "casual" interview, no lawyer present.
Forty-eight hours later, Miami was arrested behind an auto parts warehouse, hands still greasy, wearing the same clothes as always.
Matriarch happened to be there, a bag of cold beer in hand. The FBI barely had to break a sweat—they took her in too.
They didn't fight it. As if they'd always known this moment was coming.
In a safehouse on the edge of California, Fox sat in front of a rebuilt Dell, Vulture sharpening pencils with a knife in the background.
String was in the corner, clacking away at code, chewing on a stick of instant coffee, eyes bloodshot.
The RS6 was hidden in the garage, sporting its third set of plates and second new paint job.
They had two days—maybe less—before the FBI closed in. They had to decide.
"Miami and Matriarch—caught," String finally said, her voice dry, scraping out of her throat.
"I know." Fox didn't look up, eyes on the endless refresh of anonymous BBS and dark forums. "Location, time, method—all as expected."
"You don't even care?" String's voice shook. "We barely made it out alive—Miami, man, prison will kill him faster than a bullet."
"We're all in the endgame now," Vulture said softly.
Fox finally looked up, eyes sharp as blades.
"Miami and Matriarch haven't been charged yet," he said quietly. "Our identities aren't exposed. As long as they don't give us up, the FBI can only hold them—see if they'll crack."
"How long do you think they'll last?" String asked.
"That doesn't matter." Fox's voice was glacial. "What matters is we need something to trade for our lives."
"You mean—?"
"Mr. D." Fox nodded. "Anyone can see he gave us up to save himself. If we can unmask him, at least we have leverage in the media and with the Feds."
Vulture gave a low chuckle. "So, where do you start?"
"Money." Fox was resolute. "Guys like that—resources get them out, cash keeps them gone. After he vanished, the only trail is his emergency money."
"You got a lead?" String asked.
Fox spread out his tablet—a trace map unfolded.
"He routed everything through an offshore UAE account, laundered it through crypto. But a small transfer, before the wash, landed in the name of a shell company in San Francisco."
Vulture squinted. "What's it called?"
"Crownridge Consultants." Fox smirked. "Registered three years ago by his wife."
"He was married?" String frowned. "I pegged him for the type who only sleeps with lawyers."
"No one's squeaky clean." Fox closed the tablet and stood, that cool resolve of a fugitive settling back on his face.
"This isn't just running. This is payback. We're not hiding—we're going after his books. If they touch ours, we touch his wallet."
Meanwhile, in a high-security Texas detention center, Matriarch and Miami were marched into separate interrogation rooms.
Behind the glass, the agents had three plans: break them by words, emotions, or sheer pressure.
"It wasn't me, I'm innocent, I don't know anything—there was this guy, called himself Mr. D, tried to sell me insurance, got me to sign something, I swear I didn't—stop hitting me—it hurts!" Miami bawled, following Fox's advice: pin everything on Mr. D, play dumb, act weak. However hard they hit, he'd keep crying—never let them see his limit. In short: play the fool.
What they didn't expect was Matriarch, the moment she sat down, to start with:
"A guy named Mr. D made us do it." She spun a tale of a stranger on the street who got her to sign a petition supporting same-sex marriage, and she just went along with it.
They tried everything.
Isolated interrogation.
Prisoner's dilemma mind games.
Sleep deprivation.
Emotional manipulation.
On day five, they even strapped both to polygraphs.
But the lines on the machines and the confessions from their mouths were consistent.
"We were set up by Mr. D."
The FBI lead investigator stared at the report like it was a kid's jigsaw puzzle.
"This woman says she signed a petition for gay marriage and got sucked into this… you believe that?"
The Homeland Security intel chief slammed his coffee on the table. "I believe she's playing us."
"Polygraph says she's clean."
"Polygraph ain't God."
They grilled Miami again, looking for any slip—a stutter, a stray glance. He broke down crying again, insisted he was just a mechanic, the worst thing he'd ever done was paint a car with illegal metallic paint.
"I've got a serious phobia," he added, red-eyed. "Soon as I see the FBI logo I can't breathe. You want proof, get me a doctor." The polygraph spiked like a rollercoaster. One agent massaged his temples and walked out, leaving another to repeat the same tired lines.
Matriarch, before being led back to her cell, glanced at the camera and murmured:
"You've got the wrong people."
That "wrong people" line stuck like a splinter in everyone's throat.
They all knew—these two couldn't be the masterminds. Might not even be in the loop.
But the system doesn't run on logic.
It runs on procedure.
After the 48-hour session was logged, an email left the Joint Intelligence Operations Center, was forwarded to the Justice Department, CC'd to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
The conclusion was seven cold, simple words:
"Hold for charges. Enter the system."
A few hours later, Matriarch and Miami were transferred to the federal holding facility—kept apart, each in solitary.
They wore sunglasses, handcuffs hidden under long-sleeved uniforms, moved quickly through the airport so no one would see their faces.
And no one knew who they were taking the fall for.
Meanwhile—
Fox stood in front of a map, hair tousled by the night wind. Vulture sat on the back bumper, flipping through a batch of freshly cracked encrypted data.
String glanced up from her battered old hacker laptop, blue light reflecting in her eyes.
"Got it," she said.
"Where?"
"California desert, near the Mojave. There's an 'enclave estate'—officially a tech company's test ground, actually a private paramilitary base. A big recent purchase: independent power grid, two remote jamming towers, three satellite uplink terminals. And a new identity, passport says 'David R. Bishop.'"
"Mr. D," Fox said softly.
Vulture gritted his teeth. "He's got the balls to hide out in the US?"
"He thinks we don't have the guts to come back for him."
Fox slowly pulled a photo from the drawer—the selfie of the six of them at that Chinese restaurant. Two faces had already been crossed out in black marker.
"We should see if he remembers that dinner."
It took them eleven days to lock down the location—the northwest edge of the Mojave, an unmarked zone on the map. A former Defense Department site, now leased to a private security firm, supposedly for "data and comms testing." The name sounded technical, but you couldn't even get a Wi-Fi signal out there.
Fox stood at the front of the SUV, binoculars up, eyeing the outline of the camp in the distance. There was a squat main building at the center, ringed by barbed wire and four guard towers, with patrol cars and cameras moving on the inside perimeter.
They spent five days observing the guard rotations, hacking two backup power lines, and taking out an outer perimeter drone patrol.
Nothing went wrong.
It was too smooth.
"We go in from the west," Fox said, crouched over the map on a sand dune, voice crisp. "There's a blind spot—no cameras. The slope lets us breach the fence from above."
"The buildings at the entrance don't have infrared," String added, tapping her screen. "I can kill their surveillance for fifteen minutes."
Her voice was as calm as ever, like a student reading a textbook. She wore gray tactical gear, hair tied in a neat ponytail, the only bit of color a blue stud earring.
"Driver, you take point. Confirm the main house's position," Fox said, turning to him. "Then we hit from three sides. Clean, quick—target is Mr. D. We want him alive."
Driver nodded, grinned with the same cocky swagger he'd had back when he was driving Uber. "Alive's a tall order. Maybe we just break a leg and drag him back?"
Vulture didn't laugh. He just pulled an AR-15 from the trunk and quietly checked the mag.
The wind was soft that day, heat waves shimmering on the horizon. It all felt like textbook tactics.
They launched at dusk. The first fence was silent, the second line of cameras really did go dead. Driver led the push, hugging the walls, advancing toward the inner ring.
Then—all hell broke loose.
The first explosion wasn't a landmine, but a remote charge under the exhaust. As soon as Driver crossed the threshold, the blast flipped the whole car.
Spotlights snapped on. Both flanking towers opened fire, bullets pouring down like rain, pinning them in the sand, heads barely up.
"They've been waiting for us," Fox said coldly into his mic. "Fallback—east exit!"
"Can't." For the first time, String's voice trembled. "We're in the crossfire. Two cars are toast. Comms are still jammed."
"Can you shut down their wireless?"
"I can, but I need to reach the main control—"
Before she could finish, a second barrage hit directly behind them. The explosion sent sand everywhere, flipping String and Fox straight off their feet. The comms went to pure static.
When Fox came to, there was sand in his face, blood in his mouth. He'd been blown off course, two gunshot wounds and a gash under his ribs—every breath felt like knives.
Not far away, String lay behind a rock, shot in the abdomen, blood pooling under her. She didn't make a sound, her hand still on the keyboard, trying to hack the wireless system.
Fox crawled over, propping himself up to turn her face toward him.
Her eyes were open. Her lips moved, almost forming: "Sorry."
Then her head dropped.
Fox didn't say a word, his eyes shattering like glass. He took her headset, tucked it into the innermost pocket of his jacket.
Gunfire kept roaring.
He staggered up—his left leg was numb, dragging himself east, holding an M4 in one hand. Bullets shredded the sand behind him. It was as if Mr. D had unleashed the whole base against them.
Every step felt like his shoulder would rip from his body.
He was almost done for.
Then the explosions changed rhythm—not hitting him, but blowing up in the other direction.
And then, shouting.
Gunfire—close-quarters fighting—screams.
Vulture was there.
He ghosted through the line, flanked the towers, blew up a fire control post with a single shot, cleared two defensive arcs with grenades. His rifle never missed a beat—every bullet felt preordained.
Two minutes later, swirling dust everywhere, Vulture reached Fox, scrapes on his arms.
No wasted words—he grabbed Fox, threw him over his shoulder, sprinted for the dunes. Fox's consciousness faded.
"Don't die, Fox. If you die, all these idiots I killed die for nothing."
Blood on his lips, Fox managed a low laugh. "Now I get it… your callsign, 'Vulture'—fits you."
Vulture, breathing hard, tossed Fox into the passenger seat, one hand on the wheel, the other slapping a tourniquet on Fox's leg. "How's that?"
Fox's eyes closed, voice faint: "Because you always drag me out of the bodies."
Then he blacked out.
All he knew was two things: two of his six best friends were gone forever—and their revenge wasn't over yet.