Page 9 of Rescuing Ally, Part 2 (CHARLIE Team: Guardian Hostage Rescue Specialists #8)

NINE

Cold Fury

HANK

“What we’re seeing here is unprecedented,” Forest says, standing at the head of the conference table. Dark circles rim his eyes—he hasn’t slept since the abduction. None of us have.

The command center thrums with restrained fury.

Charlie team occupies the left flank of the room—Ethan, Rigel, Walt, Blake, Carter, Gabe, and I.

Seven men with one shared purpose. Max and Brady, team leaders from Alpha and Bravo teams, stand along the back wall.

Their expressions range from grim solidarity to barely concealed tension.

Forty-two hours since the women were taken. Forty-two hours of nothing but dead ends and false starts.

I catch Ethan’s eye across the room. As Charlie team leader, he maintains his composure, but I see what others miss—the microscopic tremor in his right hand, the way his jaw pulses every few seconds. Rebel’s absence cuts into him like a blade.

Blake stands motionless, face carved from stone, but his usual easy demeanor has vanished.

Walt’s restlessness manifests in controlled micro-movements—his fingers tapping silent rhythms against his thigh, his eyes constantly scanning the displays.

Rigel’s stillness is more pronounced than usual, a predator conserving energy before the hunt.

And Carter—the newest, official addition to our ranks—radiates cold fury.

His place is well-earned. I’ve watched him during training. He processes differently than we do, but his dedication to finding Jenna matches our own.

Gabe paces along the outer edge of the gathering, unable to remain still. I recognize the restraint in his movements—the explosive energy he’s banking for when it’s needed. It mirrors the cold burn in my chest, though our expressions differ.

“We need to consider all possibilities,” Forest continues. “Guardian HQ has never been breached. Not in its entire operational history. Yet someone walked in, took six women, and walked out—without triggering a single alarm.”

“It’s been breached once before.” Blake’s voice cuts through the room like broken glass.

The silence that follows is immediate. Heavy. Every man in the room knows exactly what he’s referring to.

Who he means.

Blake’s jaw works, muscles ticking beneath the skin. His hands are steady, but his breathing changes—shallow, controlled. The cost of saying it aloud.

“Malfor used Luke against Sophia,” Forest says quietly, his voice carrying the weight of command decisions that haunt leaders. “She did what any mother would.”

Blake’s throat works, but he doesn’t speak. Doesn’t need to. Forest just said what Blake couldn’t—the defense of the woman he loves coming from the man who had to make the call to trust her again.

The room stays silent. We all remember. The betrayal that wasn’t really betrayal.

The way Sophia had to look us in the eye, work alongside us, earn our trust—all while systematically dismantling our security from the inside.

How she cried when confessing. How Blake held her while she broke apart from the guilt.

“Different circumstances,” Ethan says finally, but his voice is gentler now. Understanding. Rebel went through something similar—the impossible choice between loyalty and survival.

Blake’s hands curl into fists, then deliberately relax. The silence stretches, heavy with shared memory and understanding.

“He had inside help. Had to.” Gabe stops his pacing to lock eyes with Sam. “We already know Harrison betrayed Collins. Who’s to say he’s the only one?”

“What’s Malfor’s endgame here?” Brady from Bravo asks. “Taking Charlie team’s women is tactical. Deliberate.”

“It’s a trap,” Ethan states flatly. “He’s using them as bait.”

“Of course, it’s a trap,” Gabe says, the words sharp enough to cut. “But we’re still going in.”

No one argues. Not even the team leaders whose women weren’t taken. They understand the unwritten code—any one of us would do the same for any one of them.

“The electronic malfunctions I’ve been tracking,” Mitzy looks up from her station. “They’ve accelerated since the abduction. Three more satellite uplinks went down this morning. Six communications systems in the east wing are experiencing packet loss. Something systematic is happening.”

“Sabotage, obviously.” CJ leans against the far wall. “Physical tampering with equipment.”

“We’ve checked,” Mitzy counters. “There’s no evidence of manual interference. No unauthorized access to secure areas where the equipment is housed.”

“What about software?” Walt’s voice is rougher than usual. Malia’s absence weighs on him, visible in the tightness around his eyes. “Could someone have introduced a virus into our systems?”

Mitzy shakes her head. “That was my first thought. I’ve run every diagnostic, every security protocol. Nothing. Whatever’s causing this doesn’t follow conventional attack vectors.”

“We’re missing something.” The room quiets at my words. “We need to reconsider our approach.”

Doc Summers steps forward. She’s been examining the survivors of the attack—Sophia, Violet, and the children. Her medical scrubs are rumpled, her usually perfect appearance showing signs of the same strain we’re all under.

“I may have a perspective on this.” Her voice carries that precise clinical tone that commands attention. “Have you considered it might be a virus?”

Mitzy snorts softly. “Of course. First thing I ruled out. Ally’s USB drive is clean. So is her laptop. No malware signatures, no unauthorized data packets. I ran every scan I have, even created a sandbox environment to test replication. Nothing.”

“I don’t mean a computer virus.” Skye folds her arms across her chest. “In medicine, when we track outbreaks, we always start with one question. Who got sick first? We call it ‘Patient Zero.’ Sometimes, symptoms don’t make sense at first and don’t fit expected patterns. But there’s always a source.”

Mitzy frowns. “You think this is a biological agent?”

“No,” Skye says slowly, “I’m saying maybe you’re looking at the wrong kind of infection. Viruses don’t always spread through code or networks. What if something else is propagating through the system? Not malware—but something new? A kind of exposure.”

Mitzy stills. Fingers hovering over the keyboard. “You want me to find the— equipment zero?”

“Trace it back,” Skye nods. “Figure out the very first system that glitched. What failed first? What changed around that time?”

Silence settles for a beat. Tense. Heavy with implication.

Then Mitzy mutters, “That’s actually—not a bad idea.”

Forest gestures. “Do it. Start building the timeline. Every incident. Every piece of tech. I want the entire history cross-referenced against personnel movement, new arrivals, and asset transfers.”

Gabe glances at me, then at Skye. “You think this started with Ally?”

“I don’t know how it started. Or, if it began with a person. The thing is, we have no idea. Something happened, and now we’re missing six women.” Skye’s expression is unreadable. “I think it started somewhere. We won’t know until we find the thread.”

I process this, seeing the tactical application immediately. “You’re suggesting we treat the electronic malfunctions like a disease outbreak.”

“Exactly.” She nods, acknowledging my understanding. “If we track backward through the system failures, find which one happened first, then second, we might identify the source. The ‘patient zero’ of this electronic epidemic.”

Gabe shifts, his focus intense. Our gazes meet briefly across the room—silent communication honed through years of operations together, years of sharing women, sharing space, sharing life.

Now, sharing Ally.

The thought of her in Malfor’s hands burns cold in my chest. The same fire runs in Gabe’s eyes.

“So instead of looking at what’s failing,” he says, voice rougher than usual, “we look at the pattern of failure. The spread.”

“Precisely,” Doc Summers continues. “In disease outbreaks, we map infections—who infected whom, where the transmissions occurred, and the timeframe between cases. The pattern tells us about the pathogen itself—its incubation period, transmission method, vulnerabilities.”

“Can the same approach work with technology?” Forest asks.

“It’s worth trying,” Mitzy interjects, already typing. “I’ve been focused on the failures themselves, looking for malicious code or hardware tampering. But if we map the chronology, the pattern of spread…”

“We might find the source,” I conclude, the implications already forming in my mind.

“And possibly the method of infection,” Doc Summers adds. “Which could give us a way to neutralize it.”

“Do it,” Sam orders. “Mitzy, reconfigure your approach. I want a complete timeline of every electronic failure for as far back as you started noticing an on-going issue. Locations, affected systems, and personnel interactions. Everything.”

Mitzy nods, already redirecting her team. “I’ll access the logs for all electronic equipment malfunctions. Maintenance records. Usage patterns.”

Doc Summers steps closer to the table. “There’s something else to consider. If this behaves like a virus or pathogen, we need to consider transmission vectors. How is it spreading from system to system?”

“Physical contact?” Walt suggests. “Someone manually tampering with each device?”

“Too time-consuming,” Gabe counters. “And too visible. Security cameras would have caught that.”

“Network connections?” Blake offers. His voice is flat, controlled, but I catch the tension underneath. Sophia might be safe, but the thought of her nearly being taken again has him on edge.

“Some of the affected systems aren’t networked,” Mitzy shakes her head. “The coffee grinder at Guardian Grind, for instance. Completely stand-alone device. Same for their register.”

“Wireless transmission?” Rigel suggests. “Could be broadcasting on frequencies our security doesn’t monitor.”

“Possible,” Mitzy concedes, “but our radio frequency sweeps are comprehensive. We’d have detected unusual signals.”

“What about something more—exotic?” Carter speaks for the first time, his detective’s mind working differently than our tactical training. “Something biological, maybe. Or a hybrid.”

The room goes quiet as everyone considers this possibility.

“Like what, exactly?” Sam asks, skepticism heavy in his voice.

Carter shrugs. “I don’t know. But in my experience, when conventional explanations fail, it’s time to look for unconventional ones.” Sam may have had reservations about Carter, but he thinks like a detective, and that’s what we need right now.

“What about proximity?” I ask. “Could it jump from one device to another when they’re close enough?”

“Like airborne transmission in a biological pathogen,” Doc Summers says slowly. “That would explain the pattern we’re seeing—clusters of failures in the same locations, spreading outward.”

“Start with the timeline,” Sam decides. “Find patient zero. Then we’ll determine how it’s spreading.”

The meeting breaks. Teams form. I remain still, processing the new tactical approach and recalibrating.

Six hours later, we’ve made no progress.

The command center has transformed into a war room dedicated to tracking electronic failures. Wall displays show timelines, device locations, and personnel movements. Red markers indicate affected systems spread across the virtual map of Guardian HQ like a disease.

“This doesn’t make sense,” Mitzy says, frustration evident in her voice. “I’ve tracked back seventy-three separate equipment failures over the past three months. No consistent pattern in system types, no logical progression. Just random malfunctions.”

“Nothing’s random.” I study the display. “We’re missing something.”

Gabe paces behind me, energy rolling off him in waves. We haven’t spoken much in the past six hours, both focused on the mission, but the shared purpose binds us. Finding Ally. Our woman. The one we swore to protect.

We failed her once. We won’t fail her again.

“What about Mike?” Gabe asks, stopping his pacing. “The maintenance guy who kept ‘fixing’ the espresso machine at Guardian Grind?”

“We’ve interviewed him twice,” Sam reports. “Nothing suspicious. His background checks out, his movements around the facility match his work orders, and his technical knowledge is limited to basic repairs.”

“What about environmental factors?” Doc Summers suggests. “Changes in temperature, humidity, power fluctuations?”

“All within normal parameters,” Mitzy responds. “And they wouldn’t explain how isolated systems with separate power sources are affected.”

I study the timeline, looking for patterns others might miss. The failures started appearing approximately three months ago. Small issues at first—devices losing power, communications dropping momentarily. Then escalating in frequency and severity.

“What happened three months ago?” I ask. “Major events, personnel changes, new equipment installations?”

The room falls silent as everyone searches their memory.

“The Kazakhstan extraction,” Ethan says finally. “That was three months ago.”