06:50 — Outside Jabol, Iran
The glint of a rifle barrel flashed on the ridge to Sohel's left. It was the instant before he could register it that the world erupted.
A streak of bullets tore across the pass. Sohel's hands fought the wheel as the jeep bucked; sand and gravel exploded under the tires. The snap and staccato scream of automatic fire filled his ears. Then came a different sound — a high, whistling whoosh — and a rocket slammed down in front of the convoy, detonating with a thunderous blast. The windscreen shattered, a lethal web of glass and dust. Smoke pushed into the cabin, stealing his sight.
Sohel slammed his left hand over his face. A shard of glass had found him; pain flared as it pressed against the inside of his cheek and grazed his gum. Each breath rasped salt and metal.
Beyond the smoke he saw movement: an SNA vehicle, headlights cutting through the haze, racing up behind them. Another bullet chewed the back of the driver's seat and hopped up, missing Sohel's ear by inches. The pass had become a furnace of noise and motion. The cruel memory of Liora's smile and Mitali's humiliation burnt in him, and he shoved the accelerator harder.
The world lurched. The jeep lifted as if from a giant slingshot — a rocket had detonated beneath it. Sohel hit the ground as the vehicle collapsed into flames behind him. He rolled clear and hit the rock-strewn dirt hard, pain arcing through his shoulder. The jeep was a smoking carcass.
He scrambled up and ran in zigzags, the air filled with shrapnel and the sharp staccato of rifle fire. A jagged sheet of tin glinted on a little rise ahead; he dragged it free and found, beneath, a heavy hatch leading into a reservoir. Cold, ice-melted water pooled inside — stored, channelled by pipes into towns and desert stops. He clambered down and slid into the water, the chill searing his skin and stealing the burn of the moment like a blade.
In the dark water, he had a moment to think. Someone had set this — the ambush, the timing. He realised, with a sick clarity, that he'd been played: sent forward to draw attention while the rest moved to the army truck from the north. Let himself be captured, and the SNA could recover him and the cargo. But escape would give Liora all the reason she needed to hurt people he loved. He wasn't going to run to safety at the first chance.
He waded deeper, reached up, and slid his fingers behind the jagged shard in his cheek. It came free with a sucking, metallic pain. He snapped it in half and pocketed the pieces against his chest.
The tunnel water narrowed his world to breath and a heartbeat. A bullet thudded into the reservoir a few feet away; someone was searching, following. Sohel pushed off and swam against the current, the flow trying to drive him back. The tunnel's slope changed; the water level crept higher. He realised with blunt panic: valves somewhere had been shifted to flood the system. They meant to flush him out.
The ceiling scraped his fingertips. He moved forward, one hand grazing the damp rock until his fingers found a hollow — a pocket in the tunnel's roof. He wedged himself in and used the rock to haul upward, lungs burning. Water pressed at his waist, then chest. He pushed on, each upward shove stealing oxygen.
When his arm finally struck something hard, his body convulsed with relief. A hatch. He hauled himself up, fingers slipping on rusted metal until his shoulder found purchase. He shoved the hatch, felt it yield, and pulled, the weight of the pump-iron lid scraping until a wedge of pale morning speared into his face.
Sohel hauled himself out into blunted sunlight, gasping, coughing saltwater and grit from his lungs. He lay on his back for a long moment, heart dragging like an anchor. Around him the pass still smoked; distant shouts and gunfire whispered and then faded. He tasted oil and dust and the metal tang of the shard in his mouth.
He had survived the trap that had been sprung for him — but survival was only the thin edge of the knife. He was bruised and cut and now free in a dangerous landscape. Somewhere out there, Lee was watching, Liora was planning. The convoy might have been scattered; the cargo might be on the move. The clock kept counting down.
Sohel rolled onto his elbows, shoved himself to his feet, and moved off the road. The desert swallowed his footprints as if to erase the evidence of his passage. He had no plan yet, only an immediate and narrow one: find Mitali and the others, inform SNA if he could, and then, somehow, find a way back to the red room and repay Liora in the only currency she understood.
He tightened his watch and the wheel of fate that was still in his chest and walked toward the ruined jeep and the scattering of men and smoke, every nerve humming with the single, steady thought that had driven him since they took Jacob: finish it. Finish this.
Sohel collapsed onto the burning sand, every muscle failing him at once. The heat pressed into his back, the desert sky a blinding sheet above him. He tried to push himself up, but the weight of fatigue dragged him down. His vision darkened, and within moments he sank into unconsciousness.
When he finally opened his eyes, hours seemed to have passed. The sun had shifted, the light harsher. The first thing he saw was a pair of shining leather stiletto heels planted in the sand before him. His gaze climbed—slender legs, a dark green suit skirt, and then her face. Liora stood over him, a faint smile curling her lips.
"Congratulations, Sam," she said lightly. "Mission successful."
She turned and began walking toward a waiting helicopter, its blades already whining. Two guards hauled Sohel upright by his shoulders, their grips like iron. He was shoved into another jeep as Liora's helicopter lifted into the sky, its shadow cutting across the desert. The convoy turned toward the hidden army truck, dust clouds rising in its wake.