Page 7 of Code Name: Reaper
“Estimated travel time to target location?”
“Fifteen minutes, maybe less.”
My cell vibrated a few seconds later with an alert from Hornet.PRIORITY: FSB team en route to target location. ETA under 15 minutes. Move fast.
“Fuck.”
The driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “Problem?”
“Russians. How much faster can you get me there?”
“Ten minutes if I push it.”
“Push it harder. I need to be there in five.”
After tellingthe driver to drop me off a block over, I sprinted through Berlin’s darkened streets. Every shadow could hide a Russian operative. Every parked car could be surveillance. Every second that ticked by brought the FSB team closer to Amaryllis.
My heart hammered against my ribs as I approached Zossener Strasse. The street was too quiet—the kind of stillness that made every footstep echo like a gunshot.
The building loomed ahead, its gray concrete facade blending into the night like a tomb. Six stories of anonymous windows stared down at me, and behind one on the fourth floor, Amaryllis had no idea death was racing toward her at sixty miles per hour.
I pressed myself against the building’s entrance, weapon drawn, scanning my surroundings one final time. Still clear. But that could change in seconds.
The electronic lock system blinked red in the darkness. Standard residential security—designed to keep out burglars, not FSB kill teams. The intercom buttons glowed like tiny beacons, each one representing lives that could become collateral damage if this went sideways.
My cell buzzed again.FSB ETA 5 minutes.
Five fucking minutes. I could be up those stairs and on our way out in two if she didn’t fight me. But Amaryllis would fight. She always fought.
I checked my weapon again—magazine secure, chamber loaded, safety off. My communication equipment crackled with static from coalition coordination, but I switched it off. Whatever happened in the next few minutes, I was on my own.
Nine days of hunting. Nine days of Amaryllis staying one step ahead of everyone—us, the Russians, Prism’s people. Nine days of her surviving on instinct and luck while I’d gotten nowhere but dead ends.
Now, it came down to this—four flights between me and her before trained killers arrived to put a bullet in her head.
Time to end this shit.
3
AMARYLLIS
After nine days of never staying anywhere longer than a night, switching between trains, buses, and walking through half of Europe, I’d landed in a safe house in Kreuzberg, which I hoped would serve as my base for longer than twenty-four hours. I’d moved through Vienna, Prague, and a dozen smaller cities whose names blurred together in my memory, until exhaustion finally forced me to take a break.
Rain drummed against the small windows as I hunched over my laptop in the dining room of the place I’d found through a contact who owed me more than money.
Seven months of searching for Mercury. Nine days since I’d gone rogue. And I was still no closer to finding her. Three separate data streams showed the same frustrating pattern—dead ends, encrypted communications I couldn’t crack, and financial transfers that disappeared into shell companies across Eastern Europe.
The latest interceptsfrom Prism’s network mentioned “asset management” and “cleanup protocols,” but nothing specificenough to pinpoint locations. Every lead turned into another maze of false identities and ghost accounts.
My facial recognition software had been running continuous scans of transportation hubs, hotels, and government buildings for the past week. Every contact, every asset, every source knewnothing. The network of people I could trust had shrunk to almost zero. That left?—
A sound from the rear of the house made me freeze. Not the random settling noises I’d learned to filter out over the past few hours. This was purposeful. Methodical.
Someone was at my fucking rear door.
Hostile. Had to be. No one approached a safe house accidentally, and my contact wouldn’t come without advance notification. The place was supposed to be uncompromised, which could mean someone had burned me.
I closed the laptop and moved to the kitchen window, staying low. Between the rain and the darkness of night, I could make out a figure near the service entrance. Professional posture, measured movement.
