The thick, acrid smoke stung Kael's eyes and lungs. The sound of rifle fire was still deafening, but now it was chaotic and directionless. In the man-made fog, everyone was an enemy.
"Spectre, on me! This way!" The voice of the Hummingbird soldier was steady and professional. He was geared up from head to toe in black.
Kael didn't hesitate. He stuck to the soldier's heels, his SIG Sauer still raised, ready to shoot down anything that emerged from the smoke. They weren't heading back to the service elevator. Instead, they ran toward the blasted-out wall, which led to a maintenance corridor that wasn't on any of the schematics Kael had studied.
They had their own exit plan. They anticipated this would happen.
The thought sent a chill down Kael's spine. He had been played. From start to finish.
"Oracle, what the hell is going on?!" Kael roared in his head, anger starting to overwhelm the adrenaline. "You knew this was going to happen!"
"Not the time, Spectre!" Anya's voice shot back, cold but with an unmistakable urgency. "Priority one is exfiltration. Your position is being tracked. Move!"
They burst into the maintenance corridor. Two other Hummingbird soldiers were already waiting, one of them placing a block of plastic explosive on the breached doorway.
"Clear!" he yelled and hit the detonator.
A BOOM shook the corridor as the doorway collapsed, sealing off the BSAA's pursuit.
The escape was executed with terrifying precision. They moved through a labyrinth of service passages, ventilation systems, and even sewer pipes. It was clear the Hummingbird team had studied the Fortuna Grand a hundred times more thoroughly than Kael had. They didn't just know the official blueprints; they knew its skeleton.
After five minutes of non-stop running, they reached an underground employee parking garage. A battered old ambulance was waiting, lights off, engine running.
The lead soldier gestured. "Inside! Go!"
Kael and the three soldiers piled into the back. The doors slammed shut. The vehicle sped off, melting into the Macau nightlife.
Inside, there was no medical equipment. Just weapon racks and a communications monitor. One of the soldiers took off his helmet. He was a Caucasian man in his forties with a long scar on his chin.
"Good work, Spectre," he said, his voice raspy. "I'm Gryphon, support team lead. Welcome to the circus."
Kael didn't return the greeting. He stared at Gryphon, his eyes blazing. "You knew. You knew the BSAA would be there."
Gryphon didn't flinch from Kael's gaze. He nodded. "We had suspicions. The auction was too public. Too flashy. It smelled like a setup. Your job was to confirm it."
"And I almost got killed!"
"It's part of the job," Gryphon replied with infuriating calm. "We were in position to intervene if things got out of hand."
"Out of hand? A corrupt BSAA black ops team just stole a suitcase full of B.O.W.s from under the noses of the most dangerous criminals in Asia! I'd call that 'out of hand'!" Kael roared, his fists clenching.
"No," Gryphon said, his voice lowering. "That was a calculated escalation. And now we have something we didn't have before."
He pointed to a small, blinking monitor. On it was a map of Macau, with a single red dot moving rapidly.
"We have the scent."
When Kael returned to the Nest, the air was so thick with tension you could cut it with a knife. He walked straight to the holographic table where Anya was waiting, her face as impassive as an ice sculpture.
"You owe me an explanation," Kael said, his voice cold as steel.
"I don't owe you anything, Spectre," Anya replied, not looking up from her screen. "You completed your mission. The tracker is active."
"My mission was to plant a tracker, not be bait in a BSAA internal cleansing!"
Anya finally looked up, her blue eyes boring into Kael's. "What game did you think we were playing here? Cops and robbers? The Broker isn't a street-level thug. He's a global supplier. His clients aren't just Triads, but governments, corporations, and factions within the very organizations meant to protect us."
She swept her hand, and the hologram changed. The profile of the blonde BSAA woman appeared.
"Major Ingrid Hunnigan. Former British Royal Air Force. Transferred to the BSAA's SOU—Special Operations Unit—three years ago. A rising star. And a traitor."
"How do you know?"
"Our intel showed a significant amount of BSAA weaponry and equipment going 'missing' on missions commanded by Hunnigan. Too much to be a coincidence. We suspect she's one of The Broker's high-level clients, or worse, one of his distributors within the BSAA."
A cold dread washed over Kael. It fit. The Alpha Squad tragedy. The unclassified B.O.W.s that shouldn't have been there. Someone had supplied them to the guerillas. Someone with access to BSAA intel to set the trap.
Someone like Ingrid Hunnigan.
"The Macau auction," Anya continued, "was a perfectly staged piece of theatre. Hunnigan wasn't buying the item. She was recovering it. The Broker uses a Triad as a front to transport a B.O.W., then Hunnigan and her team stage a 'raid' to seize the 'contraband,' legitimizing its possession on the BSAA's books. No one asks questions. A clean transaction."
"And I," Kael said slowly, "was the pawn to see if Hunnigan would take the bait."
"You weren't a pawn," Anya corrected him. "You were our scalpel. We needed someone who could survive that situation and complete the objective. You did. Now stop complaining and focus on the next step."
The ruthlessness in her words stunned him, but he had to admit the cold logic in it. He'd been used. But that use had brought him closer to the truth about his team's death.
"Tracker signal is stable," a technician reported.
The holographic map zoomed in. The red dot had moved out of central Macau, heading for a private airfield on the outskirts.
"They're boarding a plane," Anya said. "An unregistered Gulfstream G550. It seems Hunnigan is well-resourced."
"Can we intercept them?" Kael asked.
"No. Engaging a BSAA SOU team in Chinese territory is suicide and would trigger an international crisis. We must remain ghosts."
Anya stared at the Gulfstream's projected flight path, a green arc that stretched across the world map.
"They're not heading back to Europe. Or North America."
The flight path was heading south, across the South China Sea, straight for Africa.
"Where are they going?" Gryphon asked from behind Kael.
Anya zoomed in on the flight path's final destination. A remote region, deep in the Congo basin. A lawless land, known for civil wars and illegal mining operations.
"The Katanga region, Democratic Republic of Congo," Anya announced. "More specifically, an abandoned complex that once belonged to a Belgian mining corporation."
She displayed old satellite images. A huge open-pit mine, a processing plant, and dilapidated housing blocks.
"According to old intel, this area was abandoned years ago after a local rebel army took it over. But..."
She switched to the latest thermal satellite imagery. The entire complex was radiating a significant amount of heat. There was activity. A lot of activity.
"It's been repurposed," Kael realized. "A lab. Or a production facility."
"Precisely," Anya confirmed. "And it appears Major Hunnigan is delivering a new specimen to The Broker's next client."
She looked at Kael, her eyes holding no hesitation. "The Nest is wheels up in ten minutes. We'll shadow them at a safe distance. Get some rest, Spectre. You're going to need it."
She turned away, already giving orders to the crew.
Kael stood there, looking at the image of the Congolese jungle. Having just escaped the gilded cage of Macau, he was about to be thrown into a green hell.
But this time, he knew his enemy. And he was no longer the prey.
He was the hunter. And the scent was hotter than ever.