Page 8 of Rescuing Ally: Part 2
“Fuck,” Walt breathes as we watch the assault continue. “That’s Trac-tech equipment. Ghost-class thermal. Government contract only.”
“And look at the build on the two at the back,” I add. “Similar profile to Sentinel operatives. Same stance, same kit configuration.” I can’t be certain—Kazakhstan was a blur of smoke and blood and explosions—but the physical signature feels familiar. Like a scar you recognize by shape, not sight.
The footage captures what happens next. Gas canisters roll across the floor. Max collapses from a tranquilizer dart. Jenna fires until her gun empties, then swings it like a club before succumbing to the gas. Rebel takes a dart to the shoulder, yanks it out, and keeps fighting until a second one drops her. Mia and Malia fall to the gas.
Then Harrison reappears, blood streaming down his arm, his face a mask of fury as he stands over Ally. He extracts something from his tactical vest—a syringe.
“What’s he giving her?” Blake asks.
“Something specialized,” I reply, demolitions training kicking in as I analyze the delivery mechanism. “Not a standard tranq. Look at the delivery system—that’s a pressure injector. High-velocity deployment. Military grade.”
The rest of the feed shows the extraction. Women dragged through the hallway, unconscious. The elevator security camera captures them loading Ally, Jenna, Rebel, Malia, and Mia into what appear to be large equipment cases. Then they move to the roof.
“The roof?” Blake’s brows tug together. “What the fuck?”
“Mitzy,” Ethan barks into his comm. “We need rooftop footage. Now.”
Her voice crackles back, “Working on it. Roof cameras were compromised, but I’ve got fragments from the perimeter sweep.”
The screen flickers, switches to a grainy night-vision feed. At first, it’s just static darkness, then movement. Shadows against the sky, whirring blades cutting the air.
“What the hell,” Rigel breathes.
Drones. Not surveillance models. Not the little quadcopters used for recon. These are military-grade transport drones, featuring heavy lift capacity, near-silent operation, and massive payload potential. Six of them hover above the roof like mechanical vultures.
“They used drones for extraction?” Walt’s disbelief mirrors my own. “That’s?—”
“Brilliant,” I cut in, mind already calculating lift capacities, flight ranges, and acoustic signatures. “High-risk, but fucking brilliant. Low radar profile, especially at night. No heat signaturelike a chopper. Virtually invisible to perimeter security. Relatively silent.”
The footage shows figures loading the equipment cases, which hold our women, onto harness systems beneath each drone. Then they rise and vanish into the night sky.
Hank’s face transforms as he absorbs every frame. His eyes go glacier-cold. His jaw locks. His breathing slows to a predator’s patience. The mask slips into place—the one I recognize from our darkest ops. Our worst recoveries.
This is Hank at his most lethal.
“Timestamps,” he says. “Cross-reference with perimeter breach alerts.”
“Already calculating,” Ethan responds, fingers flying. “They had a sixty-eight-minute head start before we arrived.”
“Sixty-eight minutes, fifteen seconds and counting,” I correct automatically, my brain already mapping distances, potential extraction routes. “We need Mitzy to run calculations on probable range and capabilities of these things.”
Mitzy’s voice cuts in through the comm. “I’ve tracked the initial flight path. They headed west, out over the ocean. Lost them after about three miles offshore.”
“Ocean extraction,” Hank mutters. “That means a vessel.”
“Rendezvous with a ship,” I agree, connecting the dots. “The drones don’t have the range for a full extraction, just the initial phase. Could be anything waiting out there—yacht, fishing trawler, cargo vessel.”
“Checking maritime traffic now,” Mitzy reports, the clatter of her keyboard audible through the comm. “Four commercial vessels passed within the projected flight path window. Cross-referencing against satellite imagery to identify any vessels running dark.”
I’m running mental calculations—drone flight endurance, ocean currents, shipping lanes—when Forest’s voice cutsthrough the chaos. The Guardian HRS founder looms in the doorway, his face weathered granite as he surveys the destruction.
“Stitch is missing too,” he says without preamble, each word precisely measured. “Her apartment was hit simultaneously. Professional. Clinical. Same approach.”
The air stills around us. Stitch—Malfor’s prodigy, until he sold her out and left her to rot in federal prison. The woman Mitzy recruited for her incomparable skills as a hacker.
“Full lockdown,” Forest orders. “All operations suspended. All personnel are confined to quarters or duty stations. Sigma protocols are active.”
Sigma protocols. Our nuclear option. The glass-breaking contingency for when Guardian HRS itself has been compromised.
