London, MI6 Headquarters, "Eagle's Nest" Command Center.
Dead silence.
Suffocating dead silence.
On the huge main screen, the last faint signal of Captain Don's command vehicle and his troops, after a series of unsuccessful connection attempts, suddenly flickered a few times and completely transformed into a red cross representing "lost," then faded away.
The entire electronic map of the northwestern Sahara region fell into a cold, lifeless grayness.
"Sir... Captain Don voluntarily cut off all active transmission links... signal... lost."
An intelligence officer reported in a dry voice.
M's gaze was as sharp as ever, yet concealed a weariness and icy anger that were hard to describe.
She looked at the gray area on the screen, representing the intelligence blackout, as if she could see Don's face twisted by hatred and the troops rushing toward unknown destruction like moths to a flame.
Foolish!
Arrogant!
A fool completely consumed by anger!
M's heart was roaring.
