That night.
A line of armed "soldiers" stood in formation behind Cole Shaw, uniforms crisp, rifles slung in parade-perfect readiness. To anyone watching from the tarmac, it looked like a standard military transfer.
At the foot of the ramp, a female "civilian clerk" in uniform held a clipboard and escort documentation, waiting for signatures and final clearance.
Owen Shaw, Klaus, and Adolfson were brought forward in cuffs and heavy chain, escorted by armed guards. Under the soldiers' direction, the three prisoners were walked up the ramp and into the waiting transport plane.
A moment later, Cole stepped aboard with his "detail" — Caesar and Yin Yang flanking him as they entered the aircraft's main cabin.
"We'll take it from here," Cole said to Luke Hobbs and William Harcourt at the base of the ramp, voice steady, official. Then he gave the loadmaster a nod to seal the aircraft.
The cargo door lifted with a hydraulic whine, cutting off the sounds of the base.
Across the tarmac, Harcourt and his MI6 team boarded a separate aircraft tasked with escorting the chip components. Hobbs took a handful of soldiers, loaded Dominic and Brian into an armoured convoy, and rolled off toward London by road.
Three separate movements. Three routes to London. Three different problems for anyone trying to hit them.
The transport shuddered as its engines throttled up, then lifted off, climbing into the night.
Inside the plane, the cabin lights glowed dim and harsh. Cole turned in the aisle, looking over the "soldiers" strapped in behind him. After a beat, he smiled.
"Mission accomplished."
On cue, the men reached up and stripped off their helmets and masks.
The neat row of "soldiers" resolved into Barney Ross, Lee Christmas, Hale Caesar, and Yin Yang in stolen uniforms, grinning through the exhaustion. The "civilian clerk" at the front of the cabin pulled off her cap and wig — Gisele Yashar shook out her hair, the clipboard still in hand.
Owen's cuffs hit the deck a moment later. The chains came off Klaus and Adolfson as well.
"Well done, Cole." Owen stood, rolled his shoulders once, then stepped in and pulled him into a brief, hard hug.
The operation had gone clean. No friendly fatalities this time. With Cole's plan, they'd cut the risk down to something survivable.
"Now we've got three chip components," Cole said, releasing him, the faintest smile still at the edge of his mouth. "Once we're back at base, we assemble the Nightshade system."
"Yeah." Owen nodded, the tension finally bleeding out of his posture.
With the adrenaline fading, everyone slumped onto cargo benches and pallet crates, letting muscles unwind. Boots stretched out. Weapons leaned aside. For the first time that day, the cabin felt almost quiet.
In Cole's head, the system chimed.
Ding — Phase mission complete.
Ding — First phase: three chip components secured.
Reward: Black Widow Operational Cell — "Widow Unit" (10 elite female operatives)
Ding — Phase mission complete.
Ding — Second phase: Owen Shaw fate-reversal achieved.
Reward: 126 elite team members (Tier-One combat personnel)
Ding — Rewards are being deployed to the system base.
Cole's eyes flicked once, the only outward sign as the data rolled in.
Widow Unit.
He saw the names as the system surfaced their profiles:
• Natalia Alianovna Romanoff — Black Widow
• Yelena Belova — White Widow
• Eight additional Widows, each with distinct identities, skill profiles, and covers.
All pulled from the apex of their timelines. All with Red Room conditioning, SHIELD-era tradecraft, Avengers-level operational experience — folded into his world as summoned assets, loyalty hard-coded at one hundred percent.
No ghosts. No divided loyalties. His, and his alone.
That's… heavy, he thought, the corner of his mouth twitching. The system really doesn't do half-measures.
He could almost see Romanoff in his mind: sharp eyes, coiled posture, every movement economical; Belova with that dry, weaponised sarcasm and deceptive looseness hiding lethal precision.
Cole (in Russian) murmured under his breath: «Чёрные вдовы… интересный подарок.»
[SUBTITLE: "Black Widows… interesting gift."]
Cole's eyes flicked over their figures — not lingering, just registering.
Two world-class operatives, lethal and poised. Beauty was the surface; danger was the truth beneath it.
The second reward hit a different nerve.
One hundred and twenty-six elite operators. Not raw recruits — the system didn't deal in mediocrity. These were seasoned professionals: infantry, recon, breachers, snipers, intel-support — pre-packaged as cohesive fire teams.
Up to now, his manpower had been thin. Ross and the Expendables, plus Ghost and the handful of specialists they'd pulled in, were enough for surgical operations — assassinations, deniable extractions, precision theft, covert hostage rescues.
But large-footprint work? Sustained security contracts? Peace-keeping for oil-rich states too soft or too cynical to staff their own armies? Those jobs needed numbers — disciplined, scalable numbers.
Some Gulf states preferred to write cheques instead of building soldier culture. They'd pay premium rates for foreign contractors to hold the line, protect infrastructure, and wear the blame when things went loud.
Those contracts didn't demand John Wick-level artistry. They demanded platoons and logistics.
Before this, no one was going to hire "a handful of ghost mercenaries" to safeguard a pipeline stretch or an entire town. Ross and his people weren't bodyguards; they were scalpels. Putting them on VIP security would be a waste — and beneath them.
Now?
With 126 tier-one operators inbound, he could finally build what he'd only sketched before: a fully legitimate private military corporation — a registered PMCs front with clean paperwork, corporate structure, and contracts on file.
Personnel training. Intelligence support. Fixed-site security. Executive protection. Asset recovery.
On one side, the Round Table in the shadows. On the other, a white-glove, fully legal PMCs shell.
And to make it all legitimate… I can lean on Croft, Cole thought. Continental channels, quiet authorizations — the kind of doors only he can open.
Modern mercenaries weren't lone guns the way they used to be. The old model — a handful of freelancers getting wired cash by shady intermediaries — had been replaced by entire war-service corporations.
Private military enterprises. Security firms. "Risk management consultancies."
They wore suits, filed tax returns, and billed governments by the hour.
Right now, his Ghost outfit — Ross and the others — were, by definition, private mercenaries. Employed by him and tied to nothing but his word and their pay.
Most of the serious mercenary action was clustered around places like Iraq — war zones reborn every few years under different flags and different excuses. In some regions, the ratio of foreign contractors to regular troops had climbed to one in five.
The demand didn't vanish; it surged, dipped, then surged again. Endless cycles of conflict, always paying out.
With those 126 operators, we step into that market properly, he thought. Not just as shadows, but as a name on a contract.
As for the Widow Unit — that was a different deployment pattern entirely.
Natasha, Yelena, and the others weren't meant to sit around a base or run visible security. They were best as ghosts around people who mattered — oligarchs, ministers, CEOs, agency heads. Embedded under deep cover, feeding intel back, and ready to act if the board shifted.
Lurking beside power. Watching pressure points. Turning information into leverage.
They'd keep their own identities, covers, and long-term objectives — but when he pulled the string, they'd move as one.
That kind of network wasn't something you built in this world. It was something you were gifted by a system that didn't care how unfair the playing field became.
Cole tapped a knuckle once, lightly, against the bulkhead beside him, letting the hum of the engines fill the silence.
Widows in the wind. Operators on the ground. The Round Table doesn't just exist now, he thought. It scales.
Across the sky, on a parallel flight path, William Harcourt sat in the MI6 transport assigned to the chip components. His mood was sharp, elevated — that buzz you only got when an op went right and the paperwork was already writing itself in your head.
In one operation, he'd captured Owen Shaw — one of the most dangerous heist tacticians they had on file — along with Dominic Toretto and Brian O'Conner, both internationally wanted. The crown jewel was Owen, but the others were a hell of a bonus.
Not bad for a man who'd only just stepped into his current command. This would carve a deep line on his record.
"SIR, something's wrong."
The pilot's voice snapped over his shoulder.
"What is it?" Harcourt asked, leaning forward.
"They're off course," the captain said, eyes on his instruments.
"What?" Harcourt's stomach tightened. Their escort route had been pre-cleared and programmed. Deviation wasn't part of the plan.
"Can you see where they're heading?" he pressed.
"Not clearly, sir, but from the vector… it looks like they're angling toward the African corridor."
"Africa? Fuck."
The word was out before he could catch it.
This was outside any agreed route. Outside any contingency he'd signed off on. Whatever was happening on that other airframe, it was not standard procedure.
His comms unit crackled to life.
"Team Leader William, Team Leader William, this is Barcelona Military Base," came the urgent voice over the line. "We've just located the commander and a dozen soldiers inside the base."
Harcourt froze.
The real commander. Still at the base.
"Be advised," the voice continued, tension rising, "the commander who departed with the escort team is an impostor — repeat, an impostor—"