Chapter 3
Willis stiffened.
Maddox held up the tablet.
“They’re setting up a broadcast.”
Nobody moved.
One of the radio operators whispered, “A broadcast?”
Maddox looked at the screen.
“Live execution. Local channels first. Then global upload. Estimate window is forty-seven minutes.”
The air left the room.
Cross’s hand closed around the edge of the table.
Forty-seven minutes.
Willis turned pale, but he recovered fast.
“We don’t know it’s Hale.”
Maddox’s eyes cut to him.
“They used his name in the transmission.”
Cross slowly reached for her helmet.
Willis snapped, “Captain, stand down.”
She turned from the map.
For the first time that night, she looked straight at him.
“No.”
The room froze again.
Willis stepped toward her.
“I gave you an order.”
Cross’s voice stayed steady.
“And I gave you the truth three hours ago.”
That landed harder than the slam on the table.
Because everyone in that room knew what she meant.
Three hours earlier, Cross had warned him the convoy route was compromised.
She had noticed two missing market lights on the eastern road.
She had noticed the same civilian truck appear on three separate drone passes.
She had noticed radio traffic go too clean right before the convoy turned into the valley.
She told Willis to stop the movement.
He told her she was overreading shadows.
Then the road exploded.
The lead vehicle flipped.
The rear truck burned.
Hale’s team was split apart in less than ninety seconds.
Cross had tried to launch an immediate recovery.
Willis denied it.
Too risky.
Too dark.
Too politically sensitive.
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Now Hale was inside a compound while men built a stage around his final minutes.
Read Part 4 to see why Cross refused to let Willis wait until daylight.
