The debrief with Danish intelligence lasted fourteen hours. Adrian sat in a secure interview room in Copenhagen's intelligence headquarters, answering questions about Reisner's organization, about Phase Three's scope, about everything he'd learned over months of investigation. Johansen coordinated the interrogation personally, her initial skepticism transforming into grim understanding as Adrian's testimony corroborated the intelligence Fischer had provided."Paris has fallen," Johansen informed him during a break in questioning. "Complete infrastructure collapse. French authorities are estimating casualties in the thousands, with numbers rising as emergency services struggle to respond without functional communications or power."Adrian felt the weight of that failure settle over him. They'd prevented two cascades but failed to stop the third. Thousands of people dead because he hadn't been fast enough, hadn't convinced the French official quickly enough, hadn't found a way to preven

The operations center was vast, occupying what must have been the entire fourth floor of the building. Wall-mounted displays showed real-time feeds from across Europe—power grid systems, government communications networks, emergency response centers. Workstations were staffed by operatives monitoring data flows, coordinating operations, tracking the cascading effects of infrastructure decisions. It was more sophisticated than anything Adrian had imagined. This wasn't just a command center for sabotage—it was a continental monitoring system capable of tracking and influencing every aspect of European infrastructure. "Impressive, isn't it?" Reisner said, gesturing to the displays with something approaching pride. "Fifteen years of development, billions of euros in investment, cooperation from hundreds of specialists across multiple countries. This isn't just my vision, Mr. Cross. This is a collective recognition that European civilization requires fundamental transformation." Adrian

Vienna revealed itself through rain and darkness as Adrian's team approached the city in the early hours of the morning. The cascade had activated sixteen hours earlier, and even from a distance Adrian could see the evidence—neighborhoods dark without power, emergency vehicle lights creating scattered points of illumination, the eerie absence of the normal glow that defined modern cities at night. They were too late to prevent this one. Now they could only try to stop the next. The journey from Brussels to Vienna had been tense and silent, each member of the team processing the reality that Richter had outmaneuvered them. While they'd celebrated saving Brussels and Rome, thousands had died in cities where they hadn't positioned resources. It was a defeat disguised as a partial victory, and Richter had probably been counting on exactly that response. "The Austrian government has declared a state of emergency," Fischer reported, monitoring news channels on her phone. "They're impleme

The news from Stockholm came in fragments—emergency broadcasts, scattered social media posts from areas that still had cellular service, reports from Swedish authorities overwhelmed by the scope of the cascade. The death toll was climbing rapidly, already surpassing what had happened in Vienna and Munich combined. Adrian stood in the observation room adjacent to Richter's interrogation cell, watching her through the one-way glass. She sat calmly, apparently unconcerned about the suffering she'd just enabled. She'd played him. "We need to extract Madrid," Fischer said, her voice tight. "We have seventeen hours. If she withholds information again—" "She won't," Adrian interrupted. "Because she understands now that her survival depends on Madrid not falling." "You can't guarantee that," Coleman observed. "European authorities want her prosecuted regardless of cooperation. And after Stockholm, public pressure for her execution will be intense." Adrian knew Coleman was right. Richter

The pursuit from the Tervuren facility lasted through the night, with Belgian and European security forces coordinating to intercept Adrian's team across multiple borders. They crossed into Germany using routes Coleman had prepared in advance, abandoned vehicles at strategic locations, and fragmented their movements to make tracking more difficult. By dawn, they'd reached a safe house outside Frankfurt, exhausted and running on desperation more than actual capability. They had the intelligence extracted from Richter's systems—detailed operational plans for Warsaw and Prague, specifications about control nodes and operatives, technical documentation about cascade activation sequences. And they had thirty hours until Warsaw's cascade activated. "Polish authorities won't cooperate," Fischer said flatly as they reviewed the information. "Warsaw's operation has been authorized through official European channels. Richter showed me the documentation—this isn't terrorism anymore, it's sanc