Sergeant Marcus “Tunnel Rat” Cole was once one of the U.S. Army’s top underground construction experts. Now, he lives a reclusive life after escaping the Republic of Azmar—a brutal dictatorship in Eastern Europe, where he was held captive and forced to build a secret network of tunnels for the opposing regime.

For six months in captivity, Cole worked underground, designing and overseeing the complex network supposedly intended for arms and supply transport. After a fortunate escape, Cole returned to the U.S. physically intact but spiritually scarred. He had become an instrument in constructing hell for the enemy, an unintentional betrayal of his country and his conscience.

However, the horrific secret was only revealed when an underground operative from Azmar sought out Cole. She disclosed that the tunnel system Cole had designed was not merely a supply route.

The second, and more crucial, purpose of the network was to lead to the “Data Catacomb”—a secure archive containing all evidence of war crimes, corruption, and money laundering by the Azmar regime. They didn’t use the tunnels for fighting, but for escaping with this data trove when the regime inevitably collapsed.

If these documents were released, they would overthrow the Azmar regime immediately. But if the dictator managed to take them away, all their crimes would be buried forever.

Cole faced a terrible choice: return to the hell he had just escaped, and infiltrate the very system that he himself had engineered to be impenetrable.

“I built that monster,” Cole told the operative. “And only I know its weaknesses.”

Cole’s return journey was not a battle of bullets, but a war of wits and engineering. He had to navigate past the anti-collapse walls he had reinforced, disable the thermal and pressure sensors he had installed, and bypass the slopes perfectly calculated for transporting the data treasure. Every step was a confrontation with the guilty version of himself.

The race concluded at the Data Catacomb. Cole successfully neutralized the primary transport system. When international special forces stormed the area, the data archive was intact.

Cole had done more than just atone; he used the very skills he was coerced into employing to become an instrument of justice. He was not the soldier who built the inferno, but the architect of the dictatorship’s collapse. The price of his spiritual freedom was the courage to turn back and face his own flawed past.