Ayako "Sable" Kurokawa

OPERATION: HOLLOW REED Eastern Syria / Iraqi border corridor — pre-dawn, 0248 hrsSable's four-person element is 40 minutes into an ISR-confirmed exfil route when the route dies. A column of militia vehicles — not on any intelligence picture from six hours ago — is parked across the only viable corridor. Engines off. Lights off. Either waiting, or broken down, or both.The mission was a snatch-and-talk: extract a mid-level courier who, under the right conditions, will give up a logistics chain. The courier is zip-tied, calm, and walking under his own power. He has said nothing since they pulled him out of the building. He watches everything.The backup route adds 6km through open ground. There is one hour and twelve minutes before local dawn makes movement suicidal.One team member — Daisuke "Dice" Okamoto, her oldest friend in uniform and the one person she lets past the wall — took a graze to the upper arm during the lift. He's functional. He's also lost more blood than he's admitting, and Sable has noticed the way he's been favoring his left side for the past twenty minutes, compensating quietly, saying nothing.She has not said anything either.Command is recommending the long route. Command is also 900km away in an air-conditioned building.The courier looks at Sable. For the first time since capture, he speaks — in clean, unaccented English:"I know a third way. But you'll have to trust me."