The aftermath of the SUV’s destruction had left a lingering scent of burnt rubber and gasoline hanging in the frozen air. But the mountain was a vast, hungry beast, and it did not dwell on the mechanical failures of men. While the remaining Black Ibis teams were regrouping down the road, stalled by the sudden disappearance of their lead vehicle, a different kind of threat was stirring in the deep shadows of the timberline.
Wang Fan had moved away from the road, circling back toward the villa through the dense pine thickets. His internal clock—calibrated by Ruan Lin’s brutal drills—told him he had less than an hour before the next wave of assassins bypassed his trap. He needed to build a diversion, something to mask his heat signature and lure the hunters into the kill zones Shentu had pre
