Erick pulled Remi behind the heavier porch support. The older Continuity man on his knees tried to rise. Ivan put him back down with one hard hand on the shoulder and kept the weapon low. “Options,” Erick said. “Ridge path still open for thirty seconds,” Ivan answered. “After that they’re in the clearing.” Remi’s wrists were raw where the restraint had been. She didn’t waste breath. “Dominique?” “Already gone from the clinic,” Erick said. “We move, or we get boxed.” They moved. Ivan’s second man laid down a short burst of covering fire into the dirt ahead of the lead vehicle — not to kill, only to force the drivers to brake. The first SUV fishtailed and blocked the narrow approach for the two behind it. That bought them the window. Erick, Remi, and Ivan broke left toward the tree line. The older Continuity man shouted something about permanent consequences. No one stopped to listen. Branches tore at jackets and skin. The ridge path was steep and root-choked. Behind them, doors

The utility truck took the impact square on the driver’s side.Metal screamed. Glass starred. Ivan wrenched the wheel hard right and the vehicle slid across wet gravel before slamming to a stop against a drainage ditch. Headlights flooded the cab from two angles. Continuity had not wasted the parallel roads.“Out!” Ivan shouted.Erick shoved the passenger door open and pulled Remi with him into the ditch. Cold water hit their boots. The second Continuity vehicle skidded past, brakes locked, men already dropping from the side doors. Muzzle flashes lit the tree line. Rounds punched through the utility truck’s rear panel and sparked off the frame.Ivan returned fire in short, controlled bursts, forcing the nearest pair back behind their hood. His second man laid covering fire from the ditch lip. Erick kept <

The address Kane gave resolved to a four-story commercial building on the edge of a declining office corridor in lower Manhattan. No current tenant listings. No active utility accounts under the old chief-of-staff shell company. The last legitimate power draw had ended eleven months earlier.Erick stood across the street in a plain jacket, watching the entrance through the reflection of a closed storefront window. Jacqueline held position half a block north. Ivan covered the service alley. Aria fed them passive structural data only — no active queries that matched previous pattern flags.“Two cameras on the main entrance,” Aria said through the earpiece. “Both older models. One rear loading door with a magnetic lock. No lobby guard. No recent foot traffic in the last six hours.”“Any Continuity signatures?” Erick asked.“Nothing clean. Two vehicles parked within a two-block radius that have been stationary longer than normal. Could be nothing. Could be a soft watch.”Erick checked the

The Brooklyn address sat on a quiet block of renovated walk-ups. Brownstone stoops. Tree shadows under streetlights. No doorman. No obvious surveillance vehicles on the first pass.Erick watched the third-floor windows from a parked delivery van two buildings down. One light on. Curtains half-drawn. A silhouette crossed once and did not return to the glass.Aria’s update came low through the earpiece. “Phone still on. Last local app activity twenty minutes ago — food delivery order. No outgoing calls since the rideshare drop-off. Continuity signatures negative within two blocks.”Jacqueline held the opposite corner. Ivan covered the rear fire escape with his remaining man. The window was twelve hours on paper and already shorter in practice.Erick left the van and crossed the street at ordinary pace. He took the stoop stairs without hurry, found the buzzer panel, and pressed the third-floor button once.No answer.He pressed again. A short scrape of a chair against wood came through t

Fourteen minutes was not a plan. It was a countdown.“Ivan, hard exit,” Erick said. “Lang in the first vehicle with Remi. Dominique in the second under restriction. Jacqueline, wipe what we can’t carry. Aria, kill every active signature tied to this site.”No one asked questions. Bags closed. Drives went into shielded cases. Lang’s face was white but she moved when told. Dominique stood without protest when Ivan’s man directed her to the second vehicle. The commercial park outside still looked ordinary. That would change in minutes.They rolled out through the service gate at speed. Lights stayed off until the park perimeter fell behind. Aria fed them a clean route in short bursts — two lefts, a cut through a warehouse corridor, then a merge into heavier night traffic where one more dark vehicle would not stand out.Behind them, the first Continuity vehicle reached the site at minute eleven. Aria’s residual camera scrape showed four men exiting with the posture of people who expected