The drive to the mountains took four hours.Rice pushed the BMW harder than was safe, the tires gripping the icy roads with desperate urgency. The call from Danny had come forty minutes ago—Meridian operatives had been spotted near Charlotte's safehouse. The line had gone dead before Danny could say more.Eliana sat beside him, her phone pressed to her ear, trying repeatedly to reach Charlotte. No answer. No signal. Just silence.Olivia was in the back seat, her injuries from Prague bandaged but still raw. She'd refused to stay behind. "I owe Charlotte," she'd said simply. "She got me out of Tangier when Meridian was closing in. I don't leave debts unpaid."Voss was no longer with them. They'd transferred her to Willem's custody in Rotterdam before leaving—a secure location, guarded by Interpol officers. It was a risk, but Rice couldn't bring her into the mountains. Not with Sophie's life at stake.The roads grew narrower as they climbed, the snow falling harder. Rice's hands were whi

Munich was a city of shadows.Rice and Pedro moved through the industrial outskirts, keeping to the alleys and side streets. The snow had stopped, but the cold was bitter, seeping through their clothes. The coordinates Danny had provided led to a warehouse district near the Isar River—a maze of abandoned factories and storage facilities."Three blocks," Pedro whispered, checking his phone. "The safehouse is in a converted textile factory. Danny's intel says there are at least a dozen operatives inside."Rice nodded, his hand resting on the rifle slung across his chest. "We go in quiet. Take out the perimeter guards first, then work our way inside.""And if it goes loud?"Rice's jaw tightened. "Then we make sure we're the ones walking out."They moved through the darkness, their footsteps silent on the frozen ground. The city hummed around them—distant traffic, the rumble of a train, the occasional siren. But here, in the industrial wasteland, there was only silence.The factory appear

The BMW screamed through the mountain passes.Rice drove like a man possessed, the tires skidding on ice, the engine roaring in protest. Pedro sat beside him, one hand braced against the dashboard, the other gripping his phone. He'd been trying to reach the cabin for the past hour, but the line was dead."Anything?" Rice asked.Pedro shook his head. "Nothing. The signal's completely gone. They might have cut the lines."Rice's jaw tightened. His foot pressed harder on the accelerator. The speedometer climbed—160, 170, 180 kilometers per hour. The road was treacherous, the curves sharp and unforgiving. But Rice didn't slow. Couldn't slow.Sophie was in danger.The cabin was still three hours away. Three hours of winding roads and mountain passes. Three hours of not knowing if his daughter was alive or dead."Call Danny again," Rice said.Pedro dialed, waited, shook his head. "Still nothing."Rice cursed under his breath. The silence was maddening. Every scenario played through his mind

They left the cabin before dawn.Rice drove the BMW, the engine humming softly as they wound through the mountain passes. Sophie was in the back seat, still half-asleep, her head resting against a pillow they'd scavenged from the cabin. Eliana sat beside Rice, her eyes fixed on the road ahead. Pedro followed in a second vehicle—an old Mercedes Danny had kept in a nearby garage—carrying what remained of their supplies.Charlotte was no longer with them. Danny had arranged for a medical evacuation, and she'd been taken to a private clinic in Zurich under an assumed name. The surgery would be complicated, but the doctors were confident she'd walk again. Rice had promised to call when they reached Portugal.The mountains gave way to foothills, then to flat farmland. The snow disappeared, replaced by gray skies and bare trees. Rice drove in silence, his mind turning over the events of the past weeks—the desert, the prison, the endless running. It felt like a lifetime ago."Daddy?" Sophie's

The mountains stretched endlessly before them, a labyrinth of stone and snow.Rice drove while Eliana navigated, the old Citroën wheezing through the winding passes. They'd been on the road for six hours, stopping only once to refuel at a tiny village where no one looked twice at the dusty car and its quiet passengers. Sophie had spent most of the journey asleep, her small body curled in the back seat.The road had narrowed to a single lane, barely wide enough for two cars to pass. On one side, a sheer cliff rose toward the sky. On the other, a drop of hundreds of meters fell away into a valley of pine and mist. It was treacherous driving, but Rice handled it with the same calm precision he'd applied to a hundred other dangerous situations."Turn here," Eliana said, pointing to a barely visible track that branched off the main road. "This leads to the old smuggling routes. They'll take us into Spain without crossing any major checkpoints."Rice turned the wheel, guiding the car onto t