25. Ring Work
25
RING WORK
“I’m telling you, that guy’s been doing the rings for like an hour. Has to be Cirque du Soleil.”
“Everything’s Cirque du Soleil to you. This is Venice Beach—could just be Tuesday.”
Ronan bit back a grim smile, tasting salt on his lips. If they only knew he was hunting a ghost, not auditioning for the circus. Though maybe a career change wouldn’t be the worst idea, given how this day was going. The metal rings had grown slick under his callused palms, and his shirt clung to his skin like a second layer.
He pulled himself up on the traveling rings again, muscles burning under the merciless August sun. Sweat trickled down his back, and the metal rings were hot enough to sting his palms. His fifth set, and still no sign of Griffin. The salt-laden breeze carried the mingled scents of coconut sunscreen, marijuana smoke, and cooking meat from the nearby food trucks. The air was thick with Venice Beach’s signature cocktail—sweat and sand, fresh-squeezed oranges from the juice cart, hemp oil from the massage tent, and that indefinable mix of sunscreen and desperation that seemed to hover over the performer’s circle. He scanned the crowd between reps, searching for that familiar ghost-quick movement, that shadow-shift that meant his friend was near. But spotting Griffin was like trying to catch smoke. Always had been. The man could vanish in an empty room if he wanted to.
Where are you, brother?
The weight of the past three years hung heavier than his own body on the rings. He’d had chosen to take the fall for Copenhagen, had walked into that Board of Inquiry knowing exactly what he was doing. It had been the right call—he might not have taken the shot himself, but he’d been CO. He put Griff in that situation. Griff begged him to tell the truth, but it wouldn’t have helped. Whether he pulled the trigger or not, he would have been punished. No reason for both of their careers to go down in flames.
But he knew Griffin’s burden was far worse. Living with letting someone else pay for your choices ... that was a special kind of hell.
He dropped down onto the sunbaked sand, grabbed his water bottle, using the motion to check his peripherals. The bottle was warm, water tasting of plastic. Griff would be here somewhere. Average height, average build, dark hair high and tight—a thousand guys on this boardwalk fit that description. But none of them moved like Ghost. None of them had that coiled-spring energy that made Griffin the fastest operator Ronan had ever seen.
A burst of laughter from the basketball courts mixed with the endless rhythm of waves and the thrum of skateboard wheels on concrete. The cacophony of Venice Beach on a summer afternoon should have provided perfect cover, but instead, every noise set his combat instincts humming.
“LAPD, making another pass,” Maya’s voice came through his earpiece, disguised by her pretense of narrating a workout video. She stood a few yards away, phone up, looking California- casual in shorts and a tank top. But Ronan could see the tension in her shoulders, the way she shifted her weight every few seconds, combat-ready despite her relaxed pose.
“Copy,” Christian replied from his food truck position. “That’s four units in ten minutes.”
Ronan forced himself back onto the rings, using the exercise to mask his own growing unease. Sweat stung his eyes. With BOLOs out for him and Maya, Southern California was the last place they should be right now. But Griffin had chosen this spot for a reason. The crowds pressed closer as the afternoon heat drove more tourists toward the relative cool of the ocean breeze. Each new face was a potential threat.
An LAPD-issue SUV rolled by again, its tinted windows reflecting the relentless sun. Ronan’s scalp prickled with familiar combat instincts, the same sixth sense that had saved his life a dozen times downrange. They were exposed here, vulnerable. And Griffin still hadn’t ...
Maya’s voice cut through his thoughts, barely audible over a nearby busker’s electric guitar. “Three o’clock. LA County bike patrol officer by the smoothie stand.”
Ronan twisted, letting his momentum on the rings give him a natural-looking view of the target. The “officer” wore his watch high on his wrist—classic agency tell. The man’s shirt was too crisp, too new. Real beach patrol wore uniform tees faded by sun and salt air.
The press of bodies around them grew thicker. Tourists seeking shade clustered under the palms, their chatter and children’s squeals creating a wall of sound that made tracking movement even harder. The scent of grilled fish and hot pavement mixed with sunscreen and sweat.
Come on, Ghost. Where are you?
A street performer—one of those silver-painted living statues—broke his pose as Ronan completed another set. The man moved with mechanical jerks toward the rings, his tip bucket extended. Nothing unusual for Venice Beach, except ...
The performer’s eyes met Ronan’s for a fraction of a second beneath the metallic paint. In that instant, Ronan recognized the micro-expression code they’d used a hundred times in the field. Ghost . His heart slammed against his ribs, muscle memory recognizing his friend even as his brain caught up.
He dropped a dollar in the bucket, felt paper brush his palm. The statue moved on, working the crowd with robotic movements. Just another hustler on the boardwalk. But Ronan’s fingers burned where they’d touched Griffin’s for that split second.
Ronan palmed the note while reaching for his water bottle, the paper damp with sweat against his skin. “Package received,” he murmured into comms, his voice nearly lost in the screech of a nearby seagull fighting over dropped french fries.
“What package?” Maya kept her phone up, still playing tourist. The late afternoon sun caught the tension in her jaw. “I don’t?—”
A bead of sweat tracked down his spine. The crowd seemed to press closer, bodies hemming them in on all sides. The sickly-sweet smell of cannabis drifted past, mixed with hot tar from the softening asphalt.
Ronan unfolded the note behind his bottle, the familiar block letters hitting him like a punch to the gut: FOLLOW PROTOCOL 7. EYES HIGH + LOW. MEET WHERE KINGS PLAYED. “That was Griff. We’re blown.”
Christian’s voice tightened in their earpieces. “Drone, northwest approach.”
Ronan crushed the note, letting his gaze drift up naturally, as if shading his eyes from the sun. The drone was there, a dark speck against the bleached-blue sky, moving with deliberate precision. Not the lazy wandering of a tourist’s toy. The whine of its rotors carried on the breeze, a persistent whisper of surveillance.
“Moving to secondary,” he said quietly, grabbing his gym bag. The canvas strap was gritty with sand, still hot from baking in the sun. But as he turned toward their exit route, Maya’s sharp intake of breath stopped him.
“Two SUVs just blocked Ocean Front Walk,” she reported. Through her camera’s viewfinder, he watched her track the vehicles—black paint gleaming, windows tinted impenetrable. “And the police checkpoint at the pier ...”
“They’re checking IDs.” Christian’s voice was grim. “Box formation. They’re closing the net.”
The temperature seemed to drop ten degrees despite the August heat. Ronan’s mind raced. Protocol 7 was their old scattered-retreat strategy. But with watchers on the ground, eyes in the sky, and Griffin’s warning about kings ...
Kings. The chess players .
The daily gathering of chess players at the beach tables. Where Griffin had taught him that knight’s gambit, years ago. Where they’d waited out a surveillance team during that op in 19?—
“They knew,” he said softly, understanding hitting him like a physical blow. The crowd’s chatter faded to white noise, replaced by the thundering of his pulse. “They knew we were coming before we did.”