The helicopter dropped us at 0430, and the jungle swallowed the sound of the rotors within seconds.
Eight kilometers of Venezuelan terrain stretched between our insertion point and the prison camp — eight kilometers of roots, mud, insects, and darkness that the tactical element moved through like water over rocks. I moved through it like a desk analyst who had three months of gym conditioning and exactly zero jungle experience.
Matice was on point, his silhouette barely visible in the predawn blackness. November positioned me in the middle of the formation — protected, accessible, and where my stumbling over roots wouldn't compromise the perimeter security.
"Stay tight," November said through the comms. "Follow Reyes's feet."
Reyes was one of the tactical operators — not the Venezuelan president, just an unfortunate name coincidence. His boots moved with mechanical precision through the undergrowth, and I fixed my attention on their rhythm rather than the endless variations of jungle obstacles trying to trip me.
The SDN painted the darkness in threads I'd never experienced before. Not human connections — nothing alive in range except the team — but a different texture. Environmental awareness, maybe. The system responding to the jungle's sensory overload by categorizing it into manageable data streams.
No human contacts. The perimeter scouts cleared this approach before we landed. Eight kilometers of nothing but vegetation and the occasional wildlife.
Eight kilometers before everything changes.
---
The march took two hours and seventeen minutes.
Matice's pace adjustments — slowing when I struggled, speeding when the terrain allowed — kept the formation tight without commentary. The operators moved like they'd spent their careers in environments like this, which they probably had. I moved like someone who'd read about jungle operations in training manuals and was discovering the gap between documentation and experience.
My shoulders ached from the equipment pack. The encrypted tablet pressed against my ribs with each step. The sidearm — the SIG P226 I'd transported through diplomatic channels but never fired — sat heavy on my hip, its unfamiliar weight a constant reminder of the distance between analyst and operative.
Hatfield's gym routine kept me functional. Three months of deliberate conditioning, preparing a body for situations I couldn't specifically predict. This was one of those situations.
But functional isn't the same as capable. The operators are capable. I'm the liability they're protecting.
The staging position emerged from the darkness as first light touched the jungle canopy — a natural depression 800 meters from the camp perimeter, concealed by vegetation that the advance scouts had identified during the planning phase.
November signaled the halt. The team distributed into observation positions, weapons oriented toward the camp while I set up the communications equipment in the depression's center.
Through binoculars, the camp materialized exactly as Nadia's layout had depicted: guard towers at four corners, barracks on the north perimeter, motor pool to the west, and the interrogation building isolated on the south side where Greer was being held.
The east-side ventilation shaft — November's underground entry point — was visible as a concrete structure partially concealed by jungle encroachment. The underground level's existence wasn't apparent from the surface, which explained why CIA satellites had never detected it.
---
The Dead Drop pull activated the moment I focused on the camp.
The directional sensation was stronger than anything I'd experienced — not the gentle guidance toward a Dead Drop location, but a magnetic force pulling my attention toward the eastern perimeter. Toward the ventilation shaft. Toward whatever network infrastructure lay in the underground level.
The system wants me down there. The pull is too strong to be incidental — multiple drops, significant concentration, exactly what Nadia warned me about.
My achievement proximity sense joined the pull, vibrating at a frequency I'd never encountered. Not a single achievement condition approaching — multiple conditions, overlapping, creating a resonance that made it difficult to focus on the tactical displays.
The system considers this operation rich with objectives. The rescue is one. The camp exposure is another. But the underground infrastructure is the primary target — the reason Nadia provided intelligence, the reason the Dead Drop relay has been responsive, the reason my system has been pointing me toward Venezuela since the moment Greer mentioned this assignment.
I forced the sensations to the background and focused on the comms equipment.
"Surface team, comms check."
Ryan's voice came through clean: "Surface copies. Position confirmed."
"Underground team, comms check."
November: "Underground copies. Ventilation shaft in visual."
The tactical displays showed green across all positions. Guard rotation matched the intelligence we'd received. Prisoner movement in the barracks wing suggested the morning routine was beginning.
1. Thirteen minutes to breach.
I checked the sidearm's safety for the fourth time — still on, still secure, still a weapon I'd never fired in anything but theory. The analytical part of my brain took over the coordination tasks, routing satellite updates to both teams, monitoring radio intercepts from the camp's internal communications, feeding intelligence through the encrypted channels.
This is what I'm good at. Not jungle marches, not tactical insertions, but the information architecture that makes operations possible. Let the operators do what they're trained for. Do what you're trained for.
The binoculars showed the camp waking up — guards changing positions, prisoners being moved from barracks to processing areas, the machinery of repression operating on its normal schedule.
Somewhere in the interrogation building, Greer was waiting.
---
1.
November's voice on the underground channel: "In position. Ventilation shaft access confirmed. Ready for breach."
Ryan's voice on the surface channel: "Surface team set. Breach in two."
The Dead Drop pull spiked so hard my vision blurred for a moment — the system responding to the proximity of its own infrastructure, the achievement sense screaming that something significant was about to happen.
I blinked the sensation away and keyed the comms.
"All teams, intelligence update. Guard rotation is twelve minutes behind schedule. Recommend adjusting breach timing to 0602 to catch shift change."
A pause. Then Ryan: "Copy. Breach at 0602."
November: "Underground copies. 0602."
Four more minutes. The jungle was silent except for insect noise and the distant sounds of the camp's morning operations. My hands stayed steady on the comms equipment — steady because the analytical framework had taken control, because emotion was filtered through task priority, because this was the closest thing to courage I had.
The countdown reached zero.
Reading more than one of my novels? Good news — one Patreon, all of them.
patreon.com/TheFinex5
▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰
― DECREE ―
More chapters reign FREE upon unwrittenrealm.com.
The throne acknowledges.
▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰