He was only ten years old, trained to shoot like a ghost operative by a father who swore it was for protection.

The biting wind off Lake Michigan whipped through the concrete canyons of downtown Chicago, carrying a fine, freezing mist that slicked the asphalt and coated the elevated train tracks in a shimmering layer of black ice.

Ten-year-old Noah walked briskly down the dimly lit steps of an abandoned subway stairwell near the financial district, his small backpack feeling like a lead weight pressing against his spine. Inside that backpack sat a military-grade encrypted flash drive containing the syndicate's operational ledgers—and a thermal tracking beacon that Colonel Vance’s tactical team was using to monitor his exact coordinates in real-time.

Noah’s breath plumed in white clouds in the frigid air. He was terrified, exhausted, and desperately hungry, but the image of his mother’s face on the recorded video feed kept his legs moving.

Keep walking. Find the drop point. Keep Mom alive.

His father’s voice echoed in his memory, cutting through the panic: When you're behind enemy lines, you don't look at the whole battlefield. You look at the next ten feet. Control what you can control.

Noah slipped his hand into the side pocket of his coat, wrapping his small fingers around a compact, tactical radio receiver his father had secretly slipped into his pocket back at Range Seven before the guards separated them.

Suddenly, a harsh, static-laced whisper crackled through the tiny earpiece:

"Noah? Do you copy?"

Noah froze in the shadows of a brick pillar beneath an elevated train platform, his heart hammering against his ribs. He brought the receiver close to his mouth, pressing the push-to-talk button with a trembling thumb.

"Dad? Dad, are you alive?!" Noah whispered back, a choked sob catching in his throat.

"I'm here, son," David Vance’s voice came back steady, calm, and filled with fierce resolve. "Listen to me very carefully. You're walking right into an ambush at the iron bridge. Colonel Vance has three sniper spotters positioned on the roof of the old warehouse across the canal."

Noah’s eyes widened in horror as he looked down the long, desolate alleyway leading toward the bridge. Through the freezing mist, the faint red glow of a cigarette ember flickered atop a rusted fire escape.

"What do I do, Dad?!" Noah whispered frantically. "They said if I don't deliver the drive, they'll kill Mom!"

"They aren't going to kill anyone, because we're going to change the rules of the game," David said, his tone turning into pure tactical command. "I need you to drop the backpack behind the industrial dumpster on your left. Take the thermal decoy module out of the front pocket—the small black cube—and place it inside your coat. Then, I need you to climb the exterior ladder of the steam plant on your right."