The boat docked. Elena stood on the pier, her shoulder aching from the bag. She let the Arctic wind hit her, a cold, deep bruise of a feeling. Three days in that metal tub, breathing in gut-rot and diesel, had sunk into her skin. No amount of this air could blow it out.Tromsø looked like a toy town left forgotten after a hard rain. The wood houses were bright, she guessed, but in this light they just seemed faded. The mountains weren’t pretty—they hunched around the place, watching. The sun hadn’t bothered; the grey light just made the cold feel permanent.She dug the burner phone from her pocket. Just held it. One message, from somewhere in the middle of the sea. A string of numbers. A Swiss bank routing code. Below it, three words: Follow the money.Her mother’s money. The last bit of it that hadn’t been erased.It led here. To a slick, glass building by the water. The sign read Nordic Genomic Solutions. Looked legit. Like they studied fish genes or cold-weather potatoes.Elena kne

The wind in Tromsø cut right through you. It didn’t blow, it stabbed. Elena stood on the pier, the sirens finally fading somewhere behind the buildings. Her face was numb. The words in her head just kept playing. North. To the project site.North. Svalbard. The seed vault. Of course.No boat. No plan. Maybe ten minutes before the guys in suits started checking the docks. She pulled her collar up and walked, fast. Her boots were too loud on the wood.She needed to vanish. The pretty colored houses looked stupid now. Like a lie. She ducked between two fish warehouses. The smell hit her—rotten fish, ice, blood. It was so bad it woke her up.Think. A boat. Not a ferry. Something that can handle ice. Something no one will miss for a while.A research boat.She remembered a smaller marina, on the edge of town. Fancy stuff. For scientists and rich guys. It was a risk. She started walking, staying in the shadows.It took twenty minutes, freezing the whole way. The marina was quiet. The boats

The Moscow safehouse was a basement under a butcher shop. It always smelled of cold meat and bleach. Better than the last place. That one smelled like a gas leak and panic. Borealis sat on his cot, a blanket pulled around him. He was staring at the wall. Hadn’t said a word in two days.Jax watched him from across the room. He was cleaning the Glock again. Kenji was upstairs, listening to the police scanner. They’d pulled Borealis out of the research block three nights back. It wasn’t clean. He didn’t fight. Just let them lead him. Like he wasn’t sure they were really there.That was the thing.In Tokyo, they broke Kenji’s body. In São Paulo, they drowned Caiman in the dark.Here, Voss did something else.Borealis was tall, thin. Hair so blonde it was white. Eyes like pale water. Right now, they were looking at nothing.“He’s not home,” Kenji said last night, nodding at him. “They took his mind somewhere and lost the key.”Jax put the gun down. He stood up. The cot springs whined. He w

The engine quit. Just a last rattling sigh, then nothing. The Mikkelsen drifted the last little bit, nosing into the thick ice at the edge of the cove with a low groan. Then it stuck. The quiet after was so big it made her ears ring.Elena sat at the wheel, her hands frozen to it. She waited. Listened. No wind for once. Just a deep, frozen silence. The boat wasn't moving again. This was it.She'd been sailing through grey water and grey sky for days. Storms outside, storms in her head. And now here. Svalbard. The top of the world. It didn't look like a place for secrets. It looked dead. Black rock, white snow, white sky. Everything the same flat color. No sun. Just a dull grey light that didn't change.Her body hurt. A deep ache from the cold and from never sleeping right. She stood up, her knees cracking. She checked her stuff again. The pistol. The sat phone, dead now. The binoculars. She put on all her clothes, then wrestled the big red survival suit on over everything. She looked

The tent wasn't the end of it. The soldiers led her deeper into the crack in the ice. Behind a heavy white tarp, there was a hole. A tunnel, going down. The walls were metal, shoved into the ice. The air got warmer. It smelled like a hospital now. Cleaner. But with an under-smell of old coffee and fear.Colonel Rahim walked in front. "Stay close."The tunnel opened up into a cave under the glacier. A big bubble. The walls were ice, but held up by more metal beams. It was a lab, but a sad one. Computers sat on folding tables, wires everywhere. A few portable heaters glowed. There were people. Not soldiers. Civilians in thin lab coats. They looked up when she walked in. They had that look. Tired. Scared. Guilty.And in the corner, on a cot, hooked to an IV bag, was her mother.Elena’s throat closed. She looked old. So old. Her hair was grey now, pulled back messy. She was asleep. Or out. Her face was pale under the blue light of a machine. But it was her.Elena started forward. Rahim’s