They mocked the quiet woman in a black hoodie at the SEAL Alpha table, unaware that her precision movements signaled a lethal background.

Before Malik’s fingers could even touch the leather grip of his pistol, Emily moved with a speed that defied human perception.

She didn't fire her carbine.

She closed the ten-foot gap between them in a single, explosive burst of motion. Her left hand struck Malik’s wrist, deflecting his draw upward while her right hand drove the heel of her palm straight into his sternum, shattering his breastbone and driving the breath violently from his lungs.

Malik stumbled back against the server rack, his face contorted in agony.

He swung a wild, heavy left hook toward her jaw, but Emily slipped beneath his arm with terrifying ease. She grabbed his arm, executed a sharp wrist-lock leverage turn, and snapped his elbow backward with a sickening, wet crack.

Malik let out a choked scream, dropping to his knees on the concrete floor.

Emily stepped behind him, her arm wrapping around his neck in a tight, non-negotiable rear-naked choke. She drove her knee into the small of his back, locking his frame in place so he could not leverage his weight against her.

Malik thrashed violently, his fingers clawing uselessly at the thick aramid fabric of her vest sleeves. His single good eye bulged as the oxygen supply to his brain was instantly cut off.

"Nine years ago in Erbil," Emily whispered into his ear, her voice as smooth and cold as polished ice, "I gave you a choice to walk away from this war. You chose to come after my base. You chose to come after my home."

Malik’s thrashing grew weaker. His jaw slackened, his hands dropping limply to his sides as darkness closed in over his vision.

"This is Division Nine," Emily murmured softly as his body went completely limp in her arms. "The file is closed."

She held the position for five more seconds to ensure total brain-stem shutdown, then gently lowered his body to the floor of the server room.

The room fell into absolute silence.

Emily stood up, adjusting the collar of her baselayer. She walked over to the main server terminal, pulled an encrypted flash drive from her utility belt, and inserted it into the primary USB port.

A green progress bar materialized on the screen: OVERRIDE COMPLETE. DATA PURGED.

In six seconds, every server rack in the room flickered dark as the hard drives were electro-magnetically wiped from the command center in California.

Emily tapped her ear-piece.

"Director Sterling," she said, her voice flat and unhurried.

"Emily?" Sterling’s voice responded instantly over the secure satellite link. "What's your status? We lost thermal telemetry from the server room thirty seconds ago."

"Target Site Omega is neutralized," Emily reported, looking down at Malik’s lifeless form. "Data wipe complete. Malik is terminated. Requesting immediate extraction at Rally Point Delta."