Hidden - Strike

The first kill was silent. Korr’s knife found the carotid of a guard checking his phone. The second was not. Singh’s suppressed rifle coughed, and a Chechen dropped with a hole through his temple. But the third guard, hidden behind a fuel drum, saw the muzzle flash. He didn’t shout. He simply squeezed his radio twice.

He landed with a four-man team: Meier, the demolitions expert with a dark sense of humor; Singh, the comms wizard; and two local scouts, brothers from the border town of Safawi. The refinery was a maze of catwalks, distillation towers, and storage tanks, each one a potential coffin. Rashidi’s men—a mix of ex-Iranian Revolutionary Guards and freelance Chechens—patrolled in staggered pairs, their night vision goggles creating twin green eyes in the darkness.

But as he helped Dr. Halabi to her feet, his satellite phone buzzed. A text from Delgado. Hidden Strike

That’s when the lights went out. Then the emergency generators kicked in, casting everything in a bloody red hue. Over the refinery’s loudspeakers, General Rashidi’s voice echoed, calm and unhurried.

Korr stared at the burning refinery. Then at the highway. Then at the terrified, oil-slick faces of the people he had just saved. The first kill was silent

“Swim through crude?” one of the engineers stammered. “That’s insane. It’s toxic. We’ll drown.”

A coded signal.

“Singh, cut the main power feed to the refinery’s floodlights. Meier, rig the server room with a delayed charge. We’ll let Rashidi think we’re making a last stand. Then we go through the oil. We hold our breath, and we swim.”