Hidden Strike -

“Then don’t breathe,” Korr said, and he meant it as both an instruction and a promise.

“Singh, cut the main power feed to the refinery’s floodlights. Meier, rig the server room with a delayed charge. We’ll let Rashidi think we’re making a last stand. Then we go through the oil. We hold our breath, and we swim.”

He didn’t run.

Korr was a ghost who occasionally worked for the CIA’s Special Activities Division. His last assignment had ended badly—a village in Idlib, a child with a grenade, a choice that still woke him up at 3:00 AM drenched in sweat. Now he was being sent back into the grinder for a reason that his handler, a woman named Delgado with a voice like crushed gravel, had only hinted at.

Korr crawled out of the culvert, gasping, covered in black crude, and looked up at the stars. His team was alive. The engineers were alive. The hidden strike had failed. Hidden Strike

“Then we leave it,” Korr said.

“You don’t understand. If we leave it, Rashidi’s hackers will find it within hours. The chip contains the master key. He doesn’t need us alive—just the chip.” “Then don’t breathe,” Korr said, and he meant

Korr’s blood went cold. Hidden strike. Not an ambush—a deception. Rashidi didn’t want to capture the engineers here. He wanted to force Korr to lead him to the chip. The general had let them infiltrate. He had let them find the civilians. Because the chip was the real prize, and only the Americans knew where it was hidden.