02:35 – Location Unknown
Sohel regained consciousness to the deafening chop of rotor blades. The wind clawed at his bare skin, sending chills through him despite the desert night's heat. His body was dragged limply across rough tarmac until he was hauled upright by his bionic arm and shoved into the belly of a waiting helicopter.
Stripped to nothing but his underwear, his wrists lashed cruelly behind him, the pain in his skull pulsed with every heartbeat. Nylon ropes bit into his ankles as another body was pressed against his back, tied with the same cords. The faint, shaky breath told him who it was before he whispered her name.
"Mitali?"
A boot slammed into his jaw. White-hot pain burst across his face. He spat blood onto the steel floor.
"Not a word," growled one of the guards.
Sohel lifted his head and saw six rifles levelled on them, black M7 barrels glinting under the helicopter's dim lights. The Phoenix Company soldiers didn't blink, safeties off, fingers tense against triggers. The engine roared, rattling his skull until it felt like his brain was being pressed flat. The helicopter lurched skyward. He rolled, pressing unwillingly into Mitali's bruised body. She grunted softly, but neither dared speak again.
Sohel exhaled through bloodied teeth. At least now, they're taking me straight to Liora.
06:45 – Somewhere in the Iranian Desert
Hours blurred into pain and engine thunder. Through the tiny windows he caught glimpses of endless ochre plains, ripples of dunes swallowing the horizon. The helicopter dipped, descending to a lone helipad scratched into the sands. He smelt diesel and dust and saw fuel trucks idling in the heat haze.
The rotors never stopped spinning. They refuelled quickly, then shot back into the sky. No bearings, no horizon markers—Sohel couldn't guess the direction. His jaw throbbed. His skull pounded. He wanted to whisper reassurance to Mitali but knew another kick would follow. Instead, he closed his eyes and forced himself into a shallow soldier's sleep.
08:44
The final landing came with a bone-jarring thud. The guards dragged them upright, then flung them onto the blazing concrete of a helipad. Mitali cried out as abrasions tore open along the cuts in her arm.
A rail cart waited nearby, squatting on a narrow track that disappeared into the sands. With mechanical indifference, the guards tossed them onto the cart's metal floor and climbed aboard. The cart lurched forward, rattling across the rails toward what looked like a featureless hill.
Then, as they drew near, the hill split open.
A vast, sand-painted steel door groaned sideways, revealing a cavernous mouth carved into the earth. The cart plunged into the shadow, swallowed whole.
Inside, hydraulics hissed beneath them as the platform dropped thirty feet down into the dark. The cart rolled again through a narrow corridor of concrete and steel until it stopped before a gate.
The guards dragged the prisoners off and hurled them into a cell.
Lee Tonkin appeared in the doorway, his massive silhouette filling the frame.
"Stay put," he rumbled. "No escape. Try it, and you die."
The door slammed shut. Bolts clanged into place.
The cell was no bigger than six feet by six, its concrete walls pressing inward, its sandy floor scraping their skin. The air was heavy with dust and oil, and for the first time since capture, silence pressed down harder than chains.
"How are you?" asked Sohel, his voice low.
"Fine. You?" Mitali's reply was faint, threaded with the weight of exhaustion.
"Just a headache. Nothing more. Did they strip you too?"
"Everything but my panties."
A silence pressed between them. Finally, Mitali whispered, "What do we do now?"
Sohel exhaled slowly. "Liora didn't drag us into the middle of the desert for nothing. If she wanted us dead, we'd already be corpses in the sand."
"So?"
"He has a plan. Maybe to use us."
"Or torture us for information."
"Maybe", Sohel admitted. "We'll see when the time comes. Best we rest while we can."
10:32
The shriek of bolts yanked Sohel from shallow sleep. The cell door groaned open, flooding the darkness with harsh light. Two guards entered. One sliced the ropes binding their legs, leaving their wrists tied. The other shoved water bottles into their hands.
"Drink. Then get up."
They were marched down a corridor into a stone washroom that looked older than the base itself. Cold water stung their faces as they washed. Mitali glanced down at her bare chest and muttered, "Can I get a shirt?"
The guard only sneered and shook his head.
Minutes later, they were shoved toward a massive stainless-steel door. A guard swiped his card and leaned in for the scanner. The door slid open with a hiss. Sohel and Mitali were thrown inside.
The air was cool. The office, unnervingly red—walls, carpet, even the drapes. At the far side, behind a heavy wooden desk, sat Liora Schmidt.
She rose slowly, her cream suit catching the light. A knee-length skirt traced her movements as she walked forward, a strand of dark hair falling across her shoulder.
She snapped at the guards, irritation sharp in her tone: "Shame on you. Someone get the lady a shirt."
Sohel blinked, momentarily stunned by the genuine annoyance in her voice.
Then Liora closed the space between them, stepping into his shadow. Her perfume was faint but deliberate. Her eyes, cold steel.
"At the end", she whispered, her voice laced with triumph, "you had to come to me, Mr Clark. But don't mistake my courtesy for weakness."
Sohel said nothing. He only met her stare, unblinking.
A guard reappeared with a camo shirt and handed it to Mitali. Another returned bearing two t-shirts and trousers in the same desert pattern, which he tossed at Sohel. The fabric smelt faintly of oil and sun-baked dust.
"Sit down," Liora said, motioning to two wooden chairs set before her desk. Her voice had the soft, practised cadence of someone used to orders being obeyed.
Sohel sank into the chair with the slow care of a man who keeps his reactions close. Mitali folded her cuffs, her jaw tight, watching the room as if every surface might conceal a weapon.
"Listen to my words attentively," Liora continued, hands folded on the desk. "We are not playing tennis anymore. I brought you here for an important job. Do you understand, Mr Clark?"
Sohel inclined his head once. He said nothing.
Liora smiled, the expression almost warm. "Oh — and do you mind if I call you Samuel? Or Sam? I never liked formality." Her tone was casual, as if offering a kindness.
Sohel cut to the point. "What will you do with Mitali?"
Liora's smile remained, but there was steel behind it. She glanced at the guards, then back at Sohel. "I have no interest in her… personally. Although," she added, the word sharp as a knife, "my soldiers might be."
The sentence hung in the air like a promise and a threat both. In the red room, under the desert sun beyond the thick steel, Sam—Ghost, Major, or whatever name they used—felt the first true weight of the trap she had set.