“You cut the feed?” Hale whispered.

She shook her head. “Cutting it bought you a minute.”

“A minute buys us survival.” He reached for his uniform and tore off the rank insignia, stuffing it into his boot. “What do you need?”

“A path to the perimeter. And a countdown.” She checked her watch. Twenty minutes to dawn.

Hale smiled, and for the first time since dawn, there was warmth in it. “Good. Then let’s make a path worth the price.”

They worked quickly. Hale, seasoned in improvisation, moved like a man who had memorized the calculus of risk. He whispered commands in the language of small adjustments — move that crate, wait for that patrol. He loosened two more bureaucrats of the enemy — men who made sure the prisoners were pliant — and left them gagged in a storeroom. He fashioned a disguise for Grace from a blanket and tied her hair into a cap. She buttoned his shirt to hide the knife scar along his ribs.

Outside, the compound alarm began to wail. The enemy had discovered the blackout and now stirred like a hive. Grace and Hale stepped into the sand like thieves. The stars watched them vanish toward the west where a dry wash funneled toward the tree line — and toward the small canyon where Grace had stashed two explosive charges meant to take out a guard tower if things went wrong.

They reached the wash and moved like ghosts through the scrub. Behind them, the compound erupted into confusion. Men shouted. Lanterns flared. An argument ended in gunfire — sharp, close, a sound Grace catalogued like an instrument note. They ran.

At the canyon, Hale paused, the weight of a colonel and a man heavy in his posture. “Lieutenant,” he said quietly, “you didn’t have to do this alone.”

She looked at him — at the man who had been a teacher and a ruler and a protector. “You taught me how to decide, sir,” she said. “I’m just following orders.”

He laughed once, a sound like a sigh. “God help my paperwork.”