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She sat up, grabbed the laptop, typedArken Institute.

She tapped the pencil against her chin as she read.

Research focused on experimental neural therapies—advanced treatments for degenerative brain diseases, neural regeneration, deep-brain interface studies. Peer-reviewed journals, global conferences, and philanthropic partnerships. Clean and respectable.

Not weapons development. Not military funding.

She blinked hard against the screen glare.

Arken’s focus on neural therapies. Was Eldridge a patient?

She accessed her email and opened the financial records Gage had dug up for her.

On paper, the Arken Institute in Geneva looked legitimate. But the money said otherwise.

Quarterly fund transfers, all routed through a web of shell corporations. One in the Caymans. A second in Singapore.

Standard practice for someone hiding something. But not for medical science.

She pulled her phone from her pocket. Scrolled. The images she’d grabbed at the Royal London weren’t spectacular—shaky, low light, partially blurred. But she stopped on one, zoomed in. It was the image listing Phase Two Implementation Sites—half-obscured by motion, but still legible enough to make out two locations: London, and the second site labeled Primary Development Facility, E.N.P.

She stared at the notation. An acronym? A code name? It could be anything. Or nothing.

She opened to a fresh page on her notepad, cracked her neck and blew out a breath. Jane’s blank eyes flickered at the edge of memory.

The Royal London facility had been evacuated. No equipment, no files. Nothing they couldn’t afford to lose.

Because the real work wasn’t there.

It was somewhere else. Somewhere protected.

She traced the Cayman records again, double-checking every line, every link. Nothing new. She flipped to a clean page. Singapore next. More shell companies. More enmeshed offshore holdings. Her eyes scanned line after line until the pattern broke—something new.

Funds flowed through three intermediaries before landing at a specialized research facility in El Nido, Palawan.

Her fingers stilled on the keyboard.

E. N. P.

Not a code or a dead end.

A place.

El Nido.

The Philippines.

On the other side of the world.

38

Kat pushedthe blanket off her lap and shut the laptop, its screen still glowing with flight maps and infiltration routes.

Jeff chirped in protest as she stood, then flopped sideways with theatrical flair to claim the warm dent she’d left behind.

She ran a hand through her hair, her mind already in motion.

Philippines. Surveillance logistics. Extraction options.