“No, actually. I need your help.”
“What kind of help?”
“Hacking the Pentagon, kind of help.”
The humor fades from his tone immediately, and the faint clicking stops as his voice turns sharp. “What’s wrong?”
I glance at Reese. She’s twisting the hem of her T-shirt around her fingers so tightly that her knuckles are turning pale. I shift my focus back to the phone. “We’re in Zambidia. Still on Reese’s detail?—”
“Reese?” His voice ticks up with intrigue. “Like, ReeseReese?”
“Yes. ReeseReese.” I don’t have to look to my right to know that a tiny smile is pulling at her lips. “She was documenting humanitarian reconstruction when she saw something she shouldn’t have. They’ve come once for the evidence. Then again, to kill her.”
“You’re fucking serious?”
“Deadly.” I say the word before realizing what poor taste it is in. “Today, we found an entire village population in a mass grave.”
Mattis goes silent, then exhales, “Christ.”
“Whoever did this wants it erased.” My tone hardens, the soldier and protector in me taking over. “We need the proof before it disappears.”
“Proof,” he repeats, already typing away again. “All right. Drop me the coordinates.”
I rattle them off from memory as Reese’s hand lightly brushes against my thigh. Her touch is barely there—a whisper of contact—the kind of small, accidental gesture that should mean nothing. But it feels likeeverything. The warmth of her fingers against my thigh sends a silent shock through me, not from surprise, but from how natural it feels, how easy. As if no time has passed at all, as if we were never apart.
After a long moment, Mattis’s voice crackles through the poor connection. “Satellite data has logged movement for the past few weeks, trucks rolling in and out. It all stopped a few days ago. After that? Nothing.”
My stomach tightens. “Define nothing.”
“Like someone flipped a switch. Satellite coverage over that entire grid went dark. No cloud interference. No error code. Just… nothing.”
Reese whispers, “They shut it down.”
I meet her gaze. “That’s not a coincidence.”
Mattis exhales, “Not a chance. Whoever can black out a government satellite has serious clearance levels.”
“No shit.” I’ve seen some of the worst in this world—bodies burned beyond recognition and cities destroyed to dirt—but this feels worse. This is calculated enough that someone is taking great strides to try to cover it up.
Reese leans in closer to the phone. With her voice trembling, she asks, “Can you trace who authorized it?”
“Maybe.” Mattis hesitates. “But if I poke into something that deep, there’s a real good chance they’ll notice. That’s not good for me or any of you. Are you sure you want me digging around?”
“Don’t get caught,” I gruff flatly.
“You’re all heart, Hawk.” Mattis laughs dryly. “Give me a bit. It might take a few hours. Maybe a few days.”
“Mattis—”
“Relax. I’ll call when I’ve got something. In the meantime, the four, I mean five of you, should get the fuck out of there. If you stumbled on what we think you did, this is only going to get worse.”
The line crackles with static, and I vaguely hear Mattis’s request to be safe before the line goes dead.
Reese’s gaze up at me, her eyes soft but searching, as if she’s trying to read the storm brewing in my head. “What if he’s right?” she asks quietly. “What if it’s not some local warlord covering up a massacre? What if it’s the government?”
“Then we’re already in deeper than we should be.”
She pulls her knees up, hugging them to her chest. “They killed them all, Chris. Women. Families. You saw…”
