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“Update from Nick.” He showed her the message: Situation escalated. Going in hot. Will advise when secure.

Elena’s stomach dropped. “They’re in trouble.”

“They’re in Somalia,” Nate said from across the cabin. He’d been listening. “Trouble comes with the territory. But Atticus and Nick know what they’re doing. They’ve got a full team and superior tech.”

“He’s right,” Eden added, looking up from her tablet. “We can’t help them from here. What we can do is focus on our mission and trust them to handle theirs.”

Elena nodded, but the worry didn’t leave. Atticus was risking his life to save nine people while she was asking him to coordinate her rescue operation too.

“Hey,” Brock said. “Atticus wouldn’t have sent Nick that text if he didn’t expect to come out of it. He’s checking in because that’s protocol, not because he’s worried.”

“How do you know?”

“Because if Atticus thought he wasn’t coming back, he’d have sent a very different message.” Brock squeezed her hand. “He’ll be fine. And he’ll meet us in Mexico as planned.”

The Dynamis flight attendant—a woman named Susan who’d worked for the company for five years—appeared with a tray of drinks. “Thought you might need these,” she said, handing out bottles of water. “We’ll be serving dinner in about thirty minutes. Chef prepared your favorites.”

“Thanks, Susan,” Nate said.

Once she’d gone back to the galley, Eden stood and moved to the large monitor mounted on the cabin wall. “Since we’ve got time, let’s go over what we know about the temple.”

She pulled up aerial imagery on the screen. The ancient Mayan pyramid rose from dense jungle, its stepped levels creating a distinctive silhouette against the green canopy.

“This is the Temple of the Jaguar God,” Eden said. “Built around 600 AD, it’s one of the largest structures in the Calakmul ruins. The Mexican government closed it to tourists eight years ago, citing structural instability. In reality, the cartel bribed the right people and took it over.”

“How big is it?” Brock asked.

“Five levels, roughly 150 feet tall. Each level is approximately 200 feet square at the base, narrowing as you go up.” Eden zoomed in on the satellite image. “The cartel uses the bottom three levels for operations. Top two are leadership quarters and…other facilities.”

Elena didn’t need her to elaborate.

Nate pulled up a schematic on his own tablet. “Intel from three years ago showed one main entrance at ground level, heavily guarded. Secondary entrance on the north side for deliveries. Emergency exits on levels two and four, but they’re alarmed.”

“What about security?” Brock asked.

“At least fifty armed guards on rotation,” Eden replied. “Cameras covering all approaches. Motion sensors in the jungle for a half-mile perimeter. They’ve turned an archaeological site into a fortress.”

“Surveillance?”

“Constant. They’ve got someone monitoring feeds twenty-four seven.” Eden brought up another image. “But here’s the interesting part. There’s a blind spot.”

She highlighted an area on the north side where the jungle grew close to the temple wall.

“The cameras cover the entrance, but there’s a thirty-foot section where the angle’s wrong. If you approach from the northeast and stay low, you can get within twenty feet of the wall without being seen.”

“That’s where we’ll position for extraction,” Nate said. “Eden and I will infiltrate the night before, set up in that blind spot. When things go sideways—and they will—we’ll be ready.”

“What about Marguerite?” Elena asked. “Where would they keep her?”

Eden pulled up a floor plan. “Most likely level two. That’s where they hold high-value prisoners. The cells are in the interior, away from the exterior walls. No windows, one entrance, heavily guarded.”

“So even if we get her out of the cell, we still have to get her down two levels and out of the temple,” Elena said.

“That’s where the flash drive comes in,” Brock said. “Once you plug it into their system and that virus activates, chaos. Their communications go down, their security systems fail, their entire network crashes. In that confusion, we move.”

“It’s still going to be tight,” Nate said. “We’ll have maybe ten minutes between virus activation and them realizing what’s happening.”

“Ten minutes to get Marguerite out and get clear,” Elena said.