An hour later, Dade said, "It's open."
Cole and the others moved over. Inside the safe sat a small pressurised cylinder—plain, unmarked, almost ordinary.
"Is this the Rabbit's Foot?" Cole lifted it, turning it in his hand.
"That's it," Jason Tate said. "The liquid inside carries a viral payload. Embed it in a micro-missile and it disperses on detonation."
Jason drew a knife, cut into his arm, and removed a micro-chip, sliding it into the slot on the cylinder. Cole followed, inserting the identical chip taken from Professor Smith. Jason typed a short string of encrypted code.
"Now we can destroy the Rabbit's Foot whenever we want," he said. "The program's implanted. One press and it's gone."
He reached for the trigger, and Cole stopped him. "You're saying we can destroy it anytime, as long as the chips stay inside?"
Jason nodded. "Yes."
"Then we hold it." Cole studied the cylinder. "We control the failsafe—that makes it leverage. And it's worth a fortune."
He resealed the cylinder in its case. The CIA, Davian—others would come. If the world wanted this badly enough, it could pay for the privilege of never using it.
"Besides you and Smith, does anyone else know this chip protocol?" Cole asked.
"Only my mentor and me," Jason said. "It was our last-resort safeguard."
"Good. Then we keep it between us. We'll decide later how to use it. For now—move."
Cole closed the safe. The group lifted off in two helicopters and headed for the Sahara Desert.
⸻⸻
Not long after they left, two Hummers rolled through the gates of Shaw Manor. A heavily armed team fanned out, swept the grounds, and came up empty.
"The target's gone," the squad leader reported into his headset.
A rocket screamed in. The courtyard erupted—both vehicles gone in a single blast.
High on the ridge, Adolfson lowered his RPG-7V and allowed himself a thin smile. "Mission accomplished." He thumbed a message to Owen Shaw. Per last night's order, Klaus, Adolfson, and Letty had remained behind to secure the perimeter. Any hostile presence was to be erased. Done.
⸻⸻
The Sahara Desert. The largest sea of sand on Earth—over nine million square kilometres of scorched isolation. From the Atlantic to the Red Sea, heat shimmered like molten glass.
Two helicopters cut across the horizon, sunburning their skins. Inside, tempers rose with the temperature.
"Cole, we're on coordinates," Christmas shouted over the rotors. "Where's this base? There's nothing out here."
Radar showed only dunes. Even top-tier scanners painted a blank.
"Patience," Cole said. Under his breath, he gave the authorization. "Open the base."
Deep beneath the sand, something moved.
"Look!" Yin Yang pointed. A giant ring of desert split open as a circular platform rotated aside, sand cascading, hydraulic smoke hissing. Steel ribs and armoured walls gleamed in the light.
Christmas stared. "Holy shit… this is your base?"
"Not bad," Cole said. "Beats planning ops in a tattoo shop."
Ross said nothing, but the scale spoke for itself.
Christmas eased the helicopter down. The second bird settled in behind. Floodlights snapped on in sequence, revealing a fortress carved under the desert floor: a hangar the size of four football fields, two F-22 Raptors, a C-17 Globemaster III, and four UH-60 Black Hawks resting under an arched steel canopy.
They disembarked, boots ringing on deck.
"Jesus," Caesar muttered. "Feels like we just stepped into a damn black-site."
"How much money do you even have?" Jason asked, eyes wide. "Just that hardware's north of five billion."
Cole didn't answer. Even he was impressed—the place mirrored the subterranean fortress from G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra, minus the theatrics.
Ross took it in with a slow turn. "Looks like we made the right call."
"This is just the surface," Cole said. "The real interior's below."
He pressed his palm to the biometric scanner. Verified. The elevator doors slid open and the platform began to descend—into the heart of The Round Table's new domain.