Horseback? In an era of drones and railguns, Roadblock’s gut tightened. That was wrong.

The fight was brutal. Snake Eyes’s katana met her shamshir in a shower of sparks. She was faster than he expected—not Storm Shadow fast, but wild fast, like a wolf cornered in a blizzard. She kicked a spray of frozen dirt into his visor, then slashed low.

“Flint! Take the shot on the briefcase!”

“Next time,” Roadblock grunted, watching the helicopter fade into the storm. “We bring a bigger knife.”

She held it up, her white fur coat smoking. “The deal is done. The wind has spoken.” She whistled. A helicopter rose from behind the eastern ridge.

And Almas caught it.

The wind didn’t howl here. It whispered. It carried the dust of Genghis Khan’s gravesite and the chill of a Siberian drift. Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson) wiped a layer of frost from his visor, his massive frame crouched behind a granite outcropping.

In a Cobra bunker in the Altai Mountains, Almas places the chip on a table. A hologram flickers—a face made of shadows.

The Ghost of the Steppe

A sound like a dying god filled the valley.

Suddenly, the horses crested a dune. But the riders were not men. They were Cobra Vipers in heavy Mongolian deel coats, their masks painted like bronze death masks. Leading them was a figure wrapped in white fox fur.

But the woman, Almas, heard him anyway.