Adrian paused on the other side of the channel. "I usually am, but which part?"
"The agents may have left before the horde arrived."
"How sure are we on this?"
Dmitri stepped toward the receiver and inspected the opened casing. The wires were not torn out.
They had been rearranged, then disconnected with care.
"Carefully dismantled equipment. If you were in a panic, everything else would be thrown aside."
"You got a point," Adrian hummed. "But we shouldn't leave this place on its own."
"Good initiative," Dmitri said while putting the receiver down. "But we're not making that call alone."
"You want to report?"
"You'll do it. Echo Two back to Command. Bring an APC and a security team. Echo One will hold here."
"Fine," Adrian shrugged. "Don't shit yourselves inside."
As the channel disconnected, Dmitri heard the gate squeak faintly outside before it was pulled shut.
"Echo One-Three and One-Four, you're in patrol. Echo One-Two, guard the backdoor."
The three Scouts moved without another word.
Rex moved around the room with his nose close to the floor. He did not growl nor bark.
That bothered Dmitri more.
"Looking for something?"
The dog passed the sleeping mat, the receiver, then the table. His ears twitched twice but did nothing else.
Dmitri glanced at him. What is this guy doing?
Rex lowered his head further and sniffed along the edge of the wall. He stopped near the back of the room, where a metal cabinet stood slightly angled away from the concrete.
Dmitri's eyes narrowed. Of course, not the front door.
"Echo One-Two," he said. "Check the rear wall again."
"Copy."
Dmitri ignored the dog and looked back at the folder, then at the photographs pinned across the wall.
"Let's get to work then."
Twenty minutes passed quicker than he expected.
Echo Two had long vanished along the main road. No gunfire followed them. No warning came through the channel either.
Inside the control room, Dmitri had spread the files across the table. One of them piqued his interest.
------
FALLBACK SITE: RFT-3
River Freight Terminal - Sublevel Pump Room
Use only if Northwestern Corridor is compromised.
------
Just as he put the note down, Rex and Echo One-Two returned through the backdoor. Dmitri glanced at Rex—his tongue hanging low, dust clinging to his snout.
"Squad leader."
"Report."
"We've found a long passage. Took us a while to get through the debris."
"Debris?" Dmitri raised a brow. "Where does it lead to?"
"It branches farther north," Echo One-Two said. "A collapse blocked the left path. The right path continued, but I turned back before losing contact."
"Good job," Dmitri nodded.
Though he already expected something crafty from the SAS Agents, turning an old utility passage into an escape route was the kind of preparation he expected from professionals.
Or perhaps, they turned bedrock into a passage with their bare hands.
Project HELIX, he glanced at one of the documents. That's possible too.
"Keep guard of the passage entrance," Dmitri ordered. "Echo Two and reinforcements will be here soon."
"Understood, squad leader."
Echo One-Two left again, Rex following behind him with slower steps this time.
The control room fell quiet once more.
Dmitri returned to the table and gathered the most important documents into a single pile.
Cell numbers and their possible locations in the city. Or outside of it.
HELIX transfers. River Freight Terminal. Northern transfer point.
The room provided him too many threads to follow, but too few answers to be found.
Ten minutes passed. Fifteen minutes.
Outside, Echo One-Three's voice came through the channel.
"Squad leader, engine noise. Main road. Coming from our side."
Dmitri placed one hand over the folder.
"Visual?"
"Guardian APC. Echo Two with them."
Dmitri exhaled quietly. "Let them through."
The gate groaned open a moment later.
Heavy tires rolled over the cracked asphalt.
The Guardian APC entered the substation yard with its headlights dimmed. Its armored body moved through the dead transformers.
Adrian stepped down first before the rear ramp fully settled.
"Miss me?"
Dmitri looked at the folder in his hand.
"You took long enough."
"Had to convince Command this place was worth babysitting," Adrian replied, jerking his thumb toward the APC. "They agreed."
Dmitri rolled his eyes.
The Commander was easy to talk with. He needed no more reason if it concerned the SAS or Project HELIX.
"Two squads," Adrian stepped to the side. "Your regular and special."
"The Commander is generous."
"What do you think?" Adrian smiled, shrugging to himself. "I'm just good at these things. Leave it to me next time."
Dmitri walked past and approached the reinforcements.
An Engineer disembarked first, carrying a compact equipment case. Behind him was surprisingly Matilda and her DASF squad.
She and Dmitri met eyes.
"Drop the formalities," Matilda gestured. "It took time to gather a squad. I hope we weren't late."
"No worries, Delta One. Place is still intact."
"I said drop the formalities."
"Force of habit."
Matilda looked past him, toward the control building.
"Show me what made the Commander send us out here."
Dmitri did not waste words and led them inside. Adrian and the infantry squad remained outside, guarding the perimeter together with the Guardian APC.
Matilda's face furrowed the moment she saw the photographs on the wall.
"Persons of interest," she stepped close. "Some neutralized. Others alive."
"Or missing," Dmitri added. "SAS Field Cell 7. They were tracking HELIX material transfer through the North Industrial Corridor. River freight containers, utility service roads—the kind of places where smuggling thrives."
"Not a bad place to commit illegal work," Matilda chuckled, her eyes moving across the documents without a change of her expression.
"What's this Cell 12?"
Dmitri glanced at the paper. "Mentioned in an internal note. Likely Johannes's cell. The rogue operative fits Elias too well."
"Reasonable assumption," Matilda's expression sharpened. "How about the other cells?"
"I can only find this much. The rest of the documents may have been burnt or stashed away."
"Let's hope it's the latter."
Matilda closed the folder and put them back in place. Her eyes wandered toward the backdoor.
She faced Dmitri with a stern look, her tone colder than the outside.
"There's more to this place. Are you sure that was all you found?"
"This one was a recent discovery," Dmitri breathed deeply.
"Doesn't look recent to me," Matilda's senses exploded outward. The thick metal cabinet blocked her, unable to peek farther.
That's interesting, she looked over to the Engineer and gestured.
"Time for you to shine."