The next morning.
Just after sunrise, Lucas Kane stepped up to the front desk of the roadside motel where he'd spent the night. He placed thirty dollars on the counter.
"Another day," he said.
"Room key?"
Lucas handed it over.
The clerk checked the number, updated the register, then slid the key back across the desk.
Lucas nodded. "Thanks."
A moment later he stepped outside and left the motel behind.
Not long after, he reached the outskirts of Quantico Base, following a narrow mountain road that curved along the edge of the forest.
Lucas wasn't worried about attracting attention. Plenty of locals from the nearby town used the same route for morning runs.
Wearing a simple baseball cap, he blended easily into the small crowd of joggers moving along the trail. No one gave him a second glance.
When the path bent sharply around a wooded corner, Lucas glanced ahead.
No one was watching.
Behind him, the rest of the runners hadn't caught up yet.
Without hesitation, he accelerated.
A sudden burst of speed.
By the time the other joggers rounded the corner seconds later, Lucas Kane had vanished.
Only the rustling of leaves remained.
When Lucas returned to the motel that afternoon, the sun was already sinking toward the horizon.
Inside his room, he sat on the edge of the bed and pulled a folded sheet of paper from his pocket.
He opened it.
A rough map filled the page.
Barracks.
Administrative buildings.
Vehicle depots.
The airstrip.
And finally—
An abandoned laboratory.
Lucas had spent the entire morning scouting the base perimeter, locating his objective. The afternoon had been dedicated to something just as important: escape routes.
Three of them.
Each one ran through the surrounding forest, winding away from the base in different directions.
He hadn't decided which path he would use yet.
That didn't matter.
As long as he had options.
Lucas studied the map one last time—symbols and markings written in a shorthand only he understood.
Then he calmly tore the paper into pieces.
Smaller.
And smaller.
Until even a professional investigator wouldn't be able to reconstruct it.
The scraps went straight into the trash.
By sunset, Lucas checked out of the motel.
The clerk barely looked up as he returned the key.
This was a roadside motel. Guests came and went all the time—sometimes within minutes. An early checkout wasn't unusual.
Outside, Lucas walked a short distance down the street and stepped into a small pizza shop.
He ordered a whole pie and sat by the window.
He ate quietly.
A fight on an empty stomach was a bad idea.
Running out of energy halfway through a mission would be worse.
And getting captured because he was too hungry to keep moving?
That would be embarrassing.
By the time Lucas finished eating, night had fully fallen.
Under the cover of darkness, Lucas moved through the forest.
When he ran at full speed, the force of his movement could create a sharp cracking sound in the air—like a distant sonic boom.
Tonight, he kept it controlled.
Silent.
Shadowlike.
Within minutes, the outer security fence of Quantico Base appeared through the trees.
Lucas crouched in the darkness and looked up.
Guard towers rose above the perimeter, their spotlights sweeping methodically across the ground below.
When a beam of light drifted toward his position, Lucas lowered his head and pressed himself against the trunk of a tree.
He wasn't wearing the baseball cap from earlier.
That had been for the morning run.
Now he wore a black hooded jacket instead.
He'd found it earlier in the trunk of a taxi before dumping the vehicle into the river.
Much safer.
The spotlight slid past his hiding place.
Lucas moved instantly.
He stepped out from behind the tree, bent his knees—
—and launched.
His foot crushed the dirt beneath him as he shot upward, clearing the electrified fence in a single silent leap.
A moment later, he landed lightly inside the base.
Once he was in, the rest would be easy.
Find the abandoned laboratory.
Dig.
Leave.
Simple.
Lucas stuck to the darker edges of the compound, moving along the shadows cast by storage buildings and equipment yards.
One minute later, his destination came into view.
The abandoned laboratory sat inside a temporary barricade made of corrugated metal sheets. There was only one entrance.
And two soldiers guarding it.
Lucas stopped about a kilometer away, using a shipping container sitting in the grass as cover.
He watched the guards carefully.
Then he closed his eyes and took a slow breath.
"Alright," he murmured.
"Let's begin."
His eyes opened.
The next second—
BOOM.
The grass exploded beneath his feet as Lucas launched forward like a missile.
The two soldiers guarding the entrance had been chatting casually.
Just another quiet shift.
Or so they thought.
Out of the corner of their eyes, something moved—
Then a thunderclap cracked through the air.
Before either of them could react—
THUD.
THUD.
Both soldiers collapsed instantly, unconscious.
Lucas had held back.
They hadn't fired.
They lived.
Without slowing down, Lucas slipped through the barricade and into the restricted area.
But the moment he stepped inside—
"Shit!"
"Who's there?!"
Lucas raised an eyebrow.
Two more soldiers stood outside the crumbling laboratory building.
Of course.
Why wouldn't there be more guards?
Lucas felt a flicker of annoyance.
During his daytime reconnaissance, the metal barricade had blocked his view. He'd only been able to see the outer perimeter.
The inner guards hadn't been visible.
The soldiers stared at the hooded figure wearing a medical mask.
Shock lasted only a second.
Then both men pulled their triggers.
"INTRUDER!"
"Sound the alarm!"
A siren exploded across the base.
Wailing.
Sharp.
Piercing the night sky over Quantico.
At the same moment the rifles fired—
Lucas disappeared.
One instant he stood twenty feet away.
The next—
He was directly in front of them.
The two outer guards had never fired their weapons.
They survived.
But these two…
Lucas's face remained completely expressionless.
His fist shot forward.