After the abduction at the riverside estate, Hunter, Rink, Jason Mercer, and their captive escape with almost no effective pursuit. A few guards chase on foot, but no vehicles or helicopter follow them. Mercer drives aggressively through small towns while Hunter keeps the bound prisoner under control in the back of the van and refuses to answer his questions, using silence to unsettle him.

The group reaches the naval supply base airstrip and transfers directly to a private jet. The crew, whom Hunter suspects are criminals, intelligence operatives, or both, ask no questions when the team boards with a restrained, half-dressed captive. The short flight carries them south to a private airstrip near Alligator River, North Carolina, an isolated coastal region whose history of disappearances reminds Hunter of the kind of place meant to hide people forever.

From the airstrip, the team takes a covered Jeep deeper into the wilderness. Rink drives them to a fenced concrete facility disguised as a utility site, but Hunter recognizes it as a former CIA black site built for secret detention and interrogation. Warning signs on the door emphasize the place’s lethal, intimidating cover, and the isolated setting makes clear that Wyatt Carling has been taken somewhere beyond normal law or rescue.

Once inside the fence, the red steel door opens and Walter appears to receive them. Walter greets the prisoner by name as Wyatt, confirming his identity and shocking him into panic. Wyatt Carling, a man accustomed to wealth and immunity, breaks down as Hunter forces him into the building, where a hidden elevator lowers them underground; the chapter ends with Wyatt facing the reality that he is being delivered for interrogation in a place designed to erase people.