The first part of Josh's plan was surgical, precise, and utterly ruthless. "We need to make him bleed first," Josh had said, pulling up schematics on his secure laptop. "Not a limb. A treasure. We hit his primary financial hub—a data center in Frankfurt masquerading as a investment firm. It's where he launders his bounty money and manages his shell companies. We burn it to the ground."
This was where Stella came in. Josh introduced her via a encrypted video call. Her face was illuminated only by the glow of a dozen monitors, her features sharp and focused, her fingers a blur over multiple keyboards.
"Stella, this is the asset. Asset, Stella. She's the best there is. She'll get you in, keep the eyes blind, and then erase the place from the digital map."
"Charmed," Stella said, not looking away from her screens. "Firewall's a joke. I own the building's HVAC, security, and power already. You have a seventeen-minute window once you cross the perimeter. Clock starts… now."
The assault on the data center was a symphony of controlled violence. Karl, clad in black tactical gear, became a ghost in the machine. Stella's voice was a calm monotone in his earpiece, guiding him. "Guard rotation in three, two, one… clear. Camera looped. Door unlocked."
He moved through the sterile, cold halls like a Reaper. The security teams were good, but they were static, predictable. He was a force of nature. He used suppressed shots for the first few, taking them down before they could raise an alarm. Then, when a patrol stumbled upon the bodies, it became a close-quarters nightmare.
He was everywhere at once. A knife drawn across a throat from behind. A precise double-tap to the chest of a man rounding a corner. He used the environment—smashing a man's face into a server rack, using the stun of the impact to break his neck. He moved with an economy of motion that was horrifying to behold. Every step, every turn, every trigger pull was a lethal calculation. Thirty-two highly trained security personnel fell in less than fifteen minutes, their blood staining the pristine white floors. The only sound was the hum of the servers and the wet thud of bodies hitting the ground.
He found the core server room. "Plant the charges," Stella instructed. "Primary and secondary nodes."
As he placed the final explosive charge, a movement flickered in his peripheral vision—a reflection in the dark glass of a server tower.
Another operative. Dressed in the same black gear as the downed guards, but moving differently. With a fluid, predatory grace he recognized on a primal level. This one was different. This one was a hunter.
The operative was placing their own charge on an auxiliary terminal across the room. They worked with the same lethal efficiency. Their head turned slightly, and for a split second, their eyes met his through their tactical goggles.
A jolt, like a live wire, went through him. He knew those eyes. The shape of them. The intensity.
Anya.
Before his brain could even process the impossibility, she moved. There was no hesitation, no recognition in her body language. Only professional assessment. She saw a rival operative completing the same objective. A complication.
In one fluid motion, she finished placing her charge, gave him a mock salute, and melted back into the shadowy aisle between the server racks, disappearing from view.
"Asset, status?" Stella's voice crackled in his ear. "You've got ninety seconds."
Karl stood frozen for a heartbeat, the world tilting on its axis. Anya. Here. Working for Nightingale? Working against him? Or was she, like him, hitting Nightingale's assets for her own reasons?
He shook his head, forcing the Ghost back to the surface. "Charges set," he growled into his mic. "Exiting now."
He turned and ran, the image of her disguised face, of those familiar eyes in an alien context, burning in his mind. The game had just become infinitely more complex. The hunter he'd spared, the woman he'd almost kissed, was now a wild card in the endgame. And she had seen him.