The cab of the black Humvee smells like stale sweat, hot leather, and burning dust. The engine is whining at high RPMs, chewing up the dark interstate asphalt while the digital dashboard glows with angry red readouts. On the passenger seat, an encrypted tablet is lit up like a Christmas tree, casting a harsh, flickering blue light across the driver’s sweat-soaked face. His fingers tap furiously against the screen. He’s digging through the remnants of the encrypted cache, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. He doesn’t have time to sort it all out, but he knows enough to feel the cold dread settling in his gut. Reaching frantically into his tactical vest, he snatches up his secure sat-phone, punches in a burner frequency with his thumb, and jams it against his ear. "Report," a deep, gravelly voice snaps on the other end, cold as a razor. "Boss, the op went sideways—total code-red lockdown," the driver blurted out, his voice cracking with rising panic. "I barely made it out through the motor pool. I was able to erase most of the primary comms, but a bunch of the secondary structural data and the financial ledgers survived the wipe. I'm looking at it all right this very second, just sitting here running through the directories—" "How exactly are you looking at it?" the boss interrupts, his voice dropping an intimidating, dangerous octave. "I plugged into the Humvee," the driver stammers, his eyes darting back to the road. "I'm looking at it through the Humvee computer and shit. The onboard diagnostic system is routing—" "Are you fucking stupid?" the boss roars through the speaker, the sudden explosion of fury cutting him off completely. "Disconnect right now! You didn't just plug into a vehicle, you absolute moron! The moment you bridged that local bus to their network, you opened a live backdoor straight to our doorstep! They've got your exact coordinates! You didn't escape—you just handed them the leash! You fucked us!" The blood drains entirely from the driver's face. He freezes, a cold, terrifying wave of realization crashing into his brain. Oh, Jesus Christ. "Look, I'm pulling the cable right now, I'm gonna ditch the rig, I'll—" He doesn't get to finish the sentence. Out of the pitch-black void of the median, a pair of high-intensity HID headlights explode into view, burning blinding white and closing in at terrifying, impossible speed. BOOM. The side of the black Humvee implodes with the force of a freight train. Metal screams, glass shatters into a billion diamond shards, and the violent kinetic impact pins the door shut against the twisted guardrail as Daniel’s vehicle grinds it to a dead, violent stop. The driver gasps for air, spitting blood as his ears ring with a deafening, high-pitched whine. When he whips his head toward the passenger window, his blood runs cold. Standing right there in the glare of the mangled headlights is Daniel. Tactical vest locked down, jaw set in an unbreakable line, and eyes burning with a freezing fury. With cold, mechanical detachment, Daniel drives his combat boot straight through the shattered safety glass, showering the cab in glittering debris. His steel-reinforced tactical gloves clamp around the driver's throat with crushing, suffocating force. With one brutal, effortless heave, he rips the man straight through the jagged frame and tosses him out onto the cold asphalt of the highway. Daniel towers over him, his knuckles cracking as he rears his fist back, ready to end it. But right as his arm starts hurtling downward, a tinny, frantic voice echoes sharp and clear from the dropped sat-phone on the floorboard. "Hello? Status! What the fuck just happened?" Daniel freezes mid-swing. Lowering his arm, he stares down at the groveling rat for a heavy, calculated second. Smack. Daniel drops a single, brutal haymaker straight into the side of the jaw. The mole goes completely limp, out cold on the pavement. Daniel calmly reaches down, picks up the sat-phone, and holds it to his ear. "He's taking a nap," Daniel rasps, his voice a low, gravelly threat that cuts straight through the line. "Your turn. Whatever hole you're sitting in right now, it ain't enough. I'm coming for you. And when I find you, it ain't gonna be a quick end." The boss lets out a sharp, dismissive laugh over the speaker. "Man, shut the fuck up. I don't know who the fuck you think you are, but you don't even know who the fuck I am, where the fuck I am, and you ain't going to do shit." Daniel lets out a low, cold chuckle. "I ain't got to know any of that shit. Cuz you know what? I got your man right here taking a nice nap. And everybody breaks." Before the boss can stutter another word, Daniel drops the phone and slams his combat boot down, crushing it into a thousand plastic shards against the dirt. He walks over, grabs the unconscious mole by the tactical collar, and hauls him up onto his feet like he weighs nothing at all. "Good thing I didn't kill you yet," Daniel mutters with a grim smirk. "You might still be useful after all." Reaching up to his tactical rig, Daniel thumbs his shoulder mic open. "Billy," Daniel says into the comms. "I got the fucking mole. I didn't kill him. He's got some explaining to do. I'll be back in a jiffy."

Fuck up