Chapter Two #4
I pushed my chair back enough to turn toward Wolf properly. “You know, most people can admit when somebody helps them.”
“Most people don’t work here.”
“Clearly.”
Wolf folded his arms.
“If you need congratulations every time you do the job Vale sent you to do, you’re going to have a difficult time in this unit.”
“I don’t need congratulations.”
“Good.”
“I need you to stop acting like everything I find is somehow irritating because I’m the one who found it.”
For one hopeful second, the hard line around his eyes eased as if I had finally reached him. Then he nodded toward the computer.
“Find the third vehicle, Mercer.”
He walked away at the same pace he came in with. Jackal waited until Wolf was well beyond conversational distance.
“I think that went better,” he whispered.
I turned toward him. “Than what?”
“Yesterday.”
“Your standards are horrifying.”
“That’s what I keep telling people.”
The third vehicle took almost two hours.
Romania finally gave it to us through a traffic camera several blocks from the warehouse, where an older gray Audi carrying the same Slovak registration appeared twice during the week before the location began clearing.
It never parked directly outside the property so whoever drove it had been smart about their movements.
Three countries now carried the same registration on vehicles that did not belong to it. Raven created a map and pinned each appearance to the wall display, from Prague and Budapest down to Constan?a.
Wolf eventually came over without being called and this time, I didn’t ask for praise.
I pointed toward the screen. “Three.”
He studied the locations.
“Now it’s evidence.”
The satisfaction came too quickly for me to hide.
“Was that acknowledgment?”
“By your definition.”
I smiled.
Wolf looked toward Raven. “Pull every border camera carrying that registration for the last year. Vehicle make doesn’t matter.”
“Already running.”
“Hawk.”
Hawk looked down from the mezzanine.
“Get the original imagery from all three operations. Anything outside the reported surveillance radius.”
Hawk nodded once.
Wolf turned toward Viper. “Check crossings where cameras don’t share automatically. Start Slovakia and Austria.”
Viper closed whatever he’d been working on.
“Got it.”
“Bear, Romania’s physical package. I want everything they didn’t digitize.”
Bear was already heading toward the records room.
The shift happened in less than a minute.
One discovery became six people moving around it, each taking a different part without asking where they fit.
I watched Wolf direct them and understood something I hadn’t yesterday.
He didn’t explain himself more than necessary because the others didn’t need him to.
They understood what belonged to each of them before the sentence was finished.
Raven nudged my elbow.
“You look pleased.”
“I am.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“Why?”
“He’s about to give you more work.”
Wolf looked directly at me and I realized Raven’s timing was irritatingly good.
“Mercer.”
“Yes?”
Wolf nodded toward the screen. “Figure out why those targets were being watched before we cared about them.”
I leaned back in the chair. “You mean my theory?”
“I mean the work.”
“Right. Wouldn’t want to accidentally validate me.”
His eyes narrowed.
I returned to the keyboard before he could answer. The registration gave us a pattern but it didn’t give us an identity.
Kade remained the obvious answer because everything eventually pointed toward him, but obvious answers were how investigations became trapped inside their own assumptions.
Whoever operated the cloned vehicles could be Cerberus security protecting important people.
They could belong to another service watching the same network.
They might even be a separate criminal organization with an interest ARC didn’t understand yet.
I hated the number of possibilities. Wolf seemed to hate possibilities in general.
By early afternoon, Raven and I had reduced the problem without solving it.
The vehicles appeared before ARC became involved, though the lead time changed by target: Prague came first, Budapest latest, with Romania between them.
Whoever was watching these people seemed to know they mattered before the formal intelligence process caught up.
The timing supported my original theory even if it still did not explain who was watching.
Then Raven showed me the photograph.
He pulled it onto the screen almost casually while searching through Wolf’s archived messages. The image had been taken from across a narrow street at night and all six ARC operators were visible.
Wolf stood nearest a dark van with his head turned toward something outside the frame.
Bear and Jackal were farther back near the curb while the twins stood beside another vehicle.
Raven was partially obscured by an open door.
Nobody looked toward the camera. Whoever had taken the picture had been close enough that I could distinguish the shape of Wolf’s mask.
Two words had been added along the bottom in white.
TOO SLOW.
A chill moved across my shoulders before I could stop it.
“When was this?”
Raven looked toward the metadata window. “After Budapest. About three weeks ago.”
“How long after the operation?”
“Forty-six minutes after we returned to the staging area.”
I looked more closely. “So whoever took this knew where you were after you changed the departure time.”
“That’s the problem.”
“Could they have followed you back?”
“Possibly.”
“Did anybody notice surveillance?”
“Nobody.”
That answer seemed to bother Raven personally. I looked at the photograph again and Wolf appeared completely unaware. The whole thing just felt wrong.
Everything I’d seen in less than twenty-four hours suggested very little happened around that man without him noticing it. The idea that somebody had stood across a street photographing his entire team and walked away made the image feel more invasive than threatening.
“Was it sent directly to Wolf?”
Raven nodded. “Secure phone. Number disappeared before I could do anything useful with it.”
“Kade?”
“We don’t know.”
“Can we assume it’s him?”
“Not officially.”
I glanced toward Wolf. He was standing near Bear at the opposite side of the room, reading through a physical file.
“But Wolf does.”
Raven followed my gaze. “Wolf thinks Kade has been staying ahead of us for months. The photograph just makes it more personal.”
I looked back at the message.
Too slow.
The words sat there beneath the image with the smug simplicity of somebody who knew exactly what they were doing.
“So there are two problems.”
Raven looked at me.
I pointed toward the photograph first. “Somebody knew where ARC was. This is direct. They were close enough to photograph you.”
Then I tapped the map of the cloned registration.
“But these vehicles start before ARC. If they’re connected, whoever is doing this isn’t just reacting to Wolf. They’re already inside the same intelligence space before your team arrives.”
Raven nodded.
“That’s what you’ve been arguing.”
“Yes.”
“Wolf isn’t going to enjoy that.”
“I’ve noticed he has difficulty with joy.”
Raven smiled.
“Can you connect the photograph to the plate?”
“Not yet.”
“Traffic cameras?”
“Already checking.”
“Anything reflected in windows?”
He looked at me.
“What?”
“Now you’re having fun.”
I considered denying it.
“A little.”
◆
The afternoon disappeared into screens.
I began recognizing the sounds of the compound without meaning to.
The metal door from the garage had a heavier latch than the side entrance.
Jackal walked faster than Bear and dragged one heel slightly when he was tired.
Hawk somehow made almost no noise at all, which I found increasingly suspicious.
Wolf’s footsteps were the easiest to identify because the others unconsciously made space before he reached them.
Outside, distant gunfire started sometime after two. I looked toward the windows.
Several controlled shots came in measured intervals, followed by silence and another sequence farther away.
“What are they doing?”
Raven barely glanced up. “Training.”
“Who?”
“Hawk first, sounds like.”
“How can you tell?”
“Distance.”
A louder crack came several seconds later.
“What does Hawk use?”
Raven smiled faintly without taking his eyes from the monitor. “You’ll like the armory.”
Another burst of gunfire came from somewhere closer to the compound, followed by a muffled bang powerful enough that I felt a faint vibration through the floor.
I looked toward Raven.
“That sounded expensive.”
“Probably Bear.”
“What does Bear do?”
Raven finally turned his chair toward me.
“You’re going to ask me about all of them now, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
He looked toward the clock.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Wolf told me to keep you working.”
“So you’re scared of him.”
“I’m in intelligence.”
“Different thing.”
“Closely related.”
I returned to the map, although the sounds outside had changed the way I looked at the men moving through the room.
So far, I’d seen them eating breakfast and arguing over socks.
I’d watched Bear cook, and I’d spent the morning sitting beside Raven while he complained about database architecture.
Even Wolf had existed mostly behind a table or outside smoking.
The personnel files said things like direct action and reconnaissance, and words meant very little when printed on government paper.
The sounds outside meant considerably more.
A few minutes later, the side door opened and Jackal came in wearing black tactical pants and a fitted long-sleeved shirt darkened with sweat along the collar.
A compact weapon hung from its sling against his chest, and protective glasses were pushed onto the top of his head. He walked toward the refrigerator.
I stared.
Jackal opened it, took out a bottle of water and looked at me.
“What?”
“What is that?”
He glanced down at the weapon.
“Gun.”
“Even I know that’s not the answer.”
Jackal smiled.
“MP7.”
“Thank you.”