The Simplon Pass in the dead of winter was an arctic purgatory.Outside the high-altitude maintenance shaft of the Gondo tunnel, the Swiss Alps were nothing but jagged silhouettes of ice and black stone, completely buried under a howling, blinding blizzard. Inside the damp, concrete-and-iron vertical shaft, the air was freezing, thick with the smell of wet cement, rust, and old electricity.Far below, through the metal grating of the maintenance platform, the railway tracks ran through the pitch-black mountain tunnel like two parallel silver blades.Clara stood at the edge of the iron platform, her small body clad in a specialized, slate-black aerodynamic wingsuit over her thermal layers. Her tactical harness was strapped tight, holding the electromagnetic disruptor packs on her hips. Her fingers, covered in heavy-grip neoprene gloves, clutched her tactical console.Even in this freezing concrete cage, she could feel the intense, suffocating heat of the man stan
Last Updated : 2026-08-30 Read more