They stepped into the room.
Jack's right hand hovered near his waistband.
"Jack," Cole said, calm and flat. "I warned you once. You don't have much of a shot here—especially dragging two pieces of dead weight."
He hadn't expected Jack to bring Ada and Elsa after seeing what the team could do.
"It's you," Elsa blurted, recognising Cole as the man who'd sold her the xun.
"Hello, granddaughter of Instructor Hans," Cole said with a brief nod.
"Who are you calling dead weight?" Ada snapped, chin high behind gold-rimmed glasses. "I'm a geologist. Hand over the key. This gold belongs to the United Nations."
BANG!
The round hissed past her cheek and scored a thin red line. She froze, eyes wide.
Jack hadn't expected Cole to fire that fast; he hadn't even had time to react.
"That shot would have killed you if I'd raised my hand a fraction," Cole said, voice level. "Out here, your credentials mean nothing. And the 'UN ownership' line? Spare me. This stash is ownerless. Whoever reaches it and holds it—owns it."
He holstered the pistol. Ada swallowed and stepped back, finally understanding why Jack hadn't wanted her in the room. Her academic pride didn't buy survival here.
"We're all from the same side of the world," Jack said, moving between them, trying to cool the air. "No need to spill blood. We can talk terms."
Cole's mouth curved, humourless. "Terms."
Jack forced it: "The Earl has reach. Work with him and you'll have protection, favour, a clean lane to move."
Yin Yang laughed once, dry as gravel. Cole's smile didn't reach his eyes.
"Do you know who we are?" Yin Yang said. "Mercenaries. We don't chase favours. The CIA comes to us when they're short. A dusty title doesn't move the needle."
Jack's face tightened. He'd thought they were terrorists; learning they were mercenaries changed the math. Maybe the Earl could buy time by dealing with their employer—but Cole cut that thought off with a look.
"We're not here to play court," Cole said. "Adolf, the route, the gold—that's our contract."
The door opened and Simon Riley and Lee Christmas slipped inside, steady and unhurried.
"Mission accomplished," Simon said. "All of them—dead."
Colour drained from Jack's face. The Earl's men—gone. Everyone who'd come to contest the prize—erased. That left only them.
"We're out," Jack said quickly, hands lifted. "Let us walk and we'll stay clear."
Cole didn't answer. He turned to Yin Yang. "You wanted to test him. Now's your chance."
Yin Yang's eyes lit. He stepped forward. "Beat me and you all live."
Jack had no real choice. The room cleared a space. Elsa gripped her own elbows. Ada pressed against the wall, silent.
They squared off.
Yin Yang edged in southpaw, chin tucked, hands loose and predatory. Jack kept light on the balls of his feet, eyes flicking over the room—chair, curtain rod, side table, a cracked glass, a wall lamp hanging by a wire.
Yin Yang tested range with a ghosted hand-fight—parry, peel, wrist tie—then snapped to underhook. Jack slipped, hooked a chair with his heel and slung it up as a barrier. Yin Yang didn't bite; he drove through it, shoulder to sternum, pinning Jack to the wall in a clean body-lock. Jack posted, bounced off plaster, and stabbed the curtain rod down like a short spear.
Yin Yang caught it mid-lunge, twisted, and used the same rod as a lever—wrist turn, elbow crank—forcing Jack to abandon it or lose the arm. Jack abandoned, rolled out, and smashed the lamp into the floor. The bulb burst—glass skittering. He kicked the shards into a loose field between them.
They reset. Breath already louder.
Yin Yang pressed again—clinch entries like machine rhythm: collar tie, snap-down, knee to thigh, foot sweep hunting the outside edge. Jack gave ground, slid on glass, and used the slip—palming the side table straight into Yin Yang's shins, then whipping a blind back-elbow over the top. It grazed. Yin Yang's answer was surgical: short hook to liver, thumb knuckle under the jaw hinge, then a calf kick that deadened Jack's lead leg.
Momentum shifted. Jack felt it.
He went ugly-fast—grabbed the chair, slung it as a false line, ducked under, and tried a Bourne-style trap: jacket collar yank into knee. Yin Yang framed with forearms, took the blow on bone, and countered with a hip toss. Jack rotated mid-air, caught the sill with both hands, and snapped back into the room—only to meet a palm heel under the ribs that stole a breath and left him coughing.
Minutes stacked. The room narrowed. The floor took footprints in dust and a thin bloom of red where glass had kissed ankles. Sweat made grips treacherous. They fought like a single-take—no resets, no cheats—just pressure and answers.
Jack's improvisation kept him alive: he bounced a water carafe into Yin Yang's face to win half a second; he used the curtain as a snare, looping it around a wrist to blunt a choke; he raked a chair leg along the shin to break stance. Each trick bought space. Each cost energy.
Yin Yang's game never changed: close, off-balance, punish. He fed Jack into corners, pinned him with head position, and layered pain—knee to quad, stomp to instep, forearm across the trachea—nothing flashy, everything efficient. A slip became a snap-down became a mat return that bounced Jack off the floorboards. Jack rolled, came up slow. His left eye swelled. His breathing rasped.
Twenty minutes bled to thirty. The pace didn't drop; the edges did.
Yin Yang finally hooked deep—inside trip to the glass field. Jack tried to post, palm slid on blood, and he ate a knee to the ribs that folded him. Yin Yang caught the neck on the way down, rode a knee across the belly, and locked a crucifix variant—one arm trapped under a shin, the other pinned with a wrist ride. Jack thrashed, bridged, nearly turned—but Yin Yang floated with him, tightening with the patience of a vice.
"Enough," Cole said.
Everything froze. Yin Yang released at once and rose. Jack stayed kneeling a beat, then pushed up, chest heaving, one arm wrapped across his ribs. He swallowed his pride and his blood.
"I won't interfere," he said. "Thirty million—for the three of us."
Cole held his eyes, unreadable. Then a small tilt of the head toward the door.
"Deal. Go."
Jack nodded, wordless. He gathered Elsa and Ada and got them out. Cole didn't watch them leave. He was already turning the mission back on track.