Knives. Ammo. Silence.  

The helicopter blades cut through the dawn like a warning. The KAS didn't ride in unmarked vans. They didn't carry paperwork. And they never waited for permission.

Inside the black hawk, the four men sat in practiced silence. Not the nervous kind. The kind worn into bone.

Zubair didn't speak, eyes closed behind a pair of tinted lenses, fingers resting on the curved hilt of the blade at his thigh. He never wore a sidearm unless protocol demanded it. Knives were faster and more reliable than bullets, he always said. A gun could jam, but someone would have to tear off his arm to stop him from using a knife.

Across from him, Alexei hummed under his breath, cracking his knuckles one by one. He wasn't smiling—not yet—but the corners of his mouth curved up like mischief was only a breath away. He wore his blades inside his sleeves, one tucked at the back of his belt, and a single silenced Glock strapped to his chest. All matte black. All clean.

Elias was sharpening a scalpel.

Not a knife. A scalpel.

It glinted under the cabin light, and he moved it across a cloth like it was a ritual. His medkit was already packed and anchored beside his foot, restocked, labeled, and perfectly balanced. On the battlefield, Elias didn't run. He didn't shout. He just moved in straight lines, stitching men back together—or helping them die easier.

Lachlan adjusted the strap on his thigh holster. He was the only one chewing gum.

"Drop zone's five clicks out," he muttered, glancing down at the terrain map strapped to his wrist. "We're hiking in. No air cover."

"Means it's real," Alexei said, voice dry. "I hate when they get lazy."

Zubair opened one eye.

"It's a lab," he said simply. "Underground. Not on any map. The coordinates are buried in declassified N-intel. But someone found it."

"Someone," Elias repeated. "Or something?"

No answer.

The team didn't need details. Just outcomes.

Lachlan pulled a combat knife from his vest and began running it along the flat of his thigh, testing its balance. "What's our window?"

"Thirty minutes," Zubair said. "In. Extraction on the ridge if we're clean. If not, scatter."

"Same protocol as Country V?" Alexei asked.

"Same stakes," Zubair confirmed.

The Country V op had ended with twenty-seven bodies, an exploded lab, and no trace of who set the fire. They left through sewers. Zubair had walked out with a broken rib and someone else's blood on his boots. Alexei had laughed the entire way.

The helicopter began to descend, and no one flinched.

------

They hit the dirt like ghosts. No call signs. No barking orders. Zubair led.

The forest was thick, real, ancient, Northern. Snow hadn't fallen yet, but frost glittered along the edges of the pine needles, and every breath came out like smoke. Silence wasn't optional here. It was sacred.

Each step was measured.

Lachlan took the rear. Alexei swept left, Elias right. They moved like a single thought.

At the edge of a rock shelf, Zubair raised one hand.

Below them: concrete. A single hatch was disguised beneath brush and cold soil. No surveillance cameras. No motion sensors on the surface.

Alexei crouched. "They're confident. I like that."

Elias slipped a tiny glass capsule from his sleeve and rolled it between his fingers. "Still want to breathe after we go in?"

Lachlan smirked. "I'd prefer it."

Zubair didn't waste time.

He tapped three fingers to his temple, and the team fell into place.

Elias injected each of them with a pre-dose of biowarfare neutralizer. Standard in case of exposure to any type of pathogens or nuclear materials. There were no side effects…aside from the bitter metal taste at the back of your throat.

Alexei pulled a fiber optic scope from his pack and fed it under the hatch. "One guard. Sitting. Not watching."

"Sleeping?" Lachlan asked.

"Dead," Alexei scoffed as if there was no other option. Then again, with him, there wasn't.

The hatch opened with a soft whine. No alarm.

No one said a word.

------

Inside, the hallway was sterile. Bright. White tile with red streaks.

Blood.

Lachlan pressed forward first, gun low. "No bodies. No gunfire. No struggle."

Elias touched a smear of blood with a gloved fingertip. Sniffed. "Still warm."

Alexei's voice darkened. "Too warm."

They moved deeper.

The first lab room looked like something out of a government sci-fi wet dream. Medical chairs. IV stands. Suspended tanks with cloudy fluid. One was cracked.

Zubair crouched beside the tank and ran his hand along the rupture. He didn't speak. But his jaw tightened.

Alexei broke the silence. "Whoever was in here left fast."

Elias pointed toward the far wall. "Or never left."

Lachlan turned his flashlight, shining the light in a new area. There was something smeared across the tile in jagged writing. Not English. Not anything they recognized.

But the blood was human.

The hallway beyond was darker.

Alexei took point, knives drawn. "I hate hallways," he muttered. "Too many doors. Too many surprises."

Elias nodded. "You hate surprises."

"I don't hate them," Alexei replied, a ghost of a smile on his face. "I just like mine to bleed."

Zubair paused them before a sealed chamber. "This is it."

He inserted the flash drive from earlier into the keypad port. It hummed. Clicked.

The door unlocked.

Inside, a woman lay on a table, eyes closed, monitors still beeping. Still alive. Alone.

Elias moved first. "Vitals normal. No sedation. Just… sleeping?"

Alexei narrowed his eyes. "No restraints. That's not right."

Lachlan scanned the room. "She's the target?"

Zubair gave a nod. "Alive. Extract only."

Lachlan's hands tightened on his weapon. "This is a trap."

"Then we need to leave before the ones who've set it realize that we are here," Zubair grunted. "Move."

------

Back on the surface, the snow had started to fall.

The woman was in the evac stretcher, still silent.

They'd found no one else. No files. No guards. Just her.

Alexei didn't like it. Elias didn't trust it.

And Zubair said only this: "Orders change. People don't."

They loaded into the evac chopper in silence.

Lachlan glanced back at the hatch once more as it sealed beneath them.

Knives. Ammo. Silence.

Some missions didn't need more than that.

But this one had a feeling behind it.

Like a breath held too long.

And a countdown that had already started, only no one knew what would happen when the timer went off.