Chapter 10
Raven found the vehicle waiting exactly where Guardian had said it would be.
A dark gray SUV, nondescript, Japanese plates, parked at the far end of the private airstrip with the keys in the sun visor and a full tank of gas.
No driver. No contact. Just the vehicle and the keys and the seamless, invisible logistics of an organization that left nothing to chance.
Dan stood beside it for a moment, looking at it the way he'd looked at the aircraft. That slight recalibration.
Raven unlocked it without comment and threw her bag in the back.
"Get in," she said.
She took the wheel without discussion. Her operation, her resources, her organization, and Japan were hers to navigate. She'd established that without saying it, and he hadn't argued. Thank you very much.
She adjusted the mirror, checked her surroundings out of pure habit, and then reached down and found the release panel beneath the center console.
"Watch," she said. It never got old showing off Guardian’s tricks. She didn’t get to do it very often, but when she did, it was impressive.
The floor panel between the front seats clicked and lifted.
Beneath it, recessed into the chassis, was a weapons cache.
Compact, organized, secured with foam padding that had been custom-cut for each item.
She referenced them generally, running her hand over the layout without pulling anything out of the armory.
Dan leaned forward and looked, and she watched his face from the corner of her eye.
There it was again. The expression he'd been wearing since he'd stepped onto the aircraft. The quiet, recalibrated respect.
"You're never going in without options," he said.
"We're not going to need them, but no, we're never going in without options."
He sat back. "Your organization thinks of everything."
"That's why I trust them," she said it simply, without any performance.
Because it was true. She trusted Guardian.
Not blindly—she'd learned to trust nothing blindly—but with the specific, earned confidence that came from years of being backed up, supplied, extracted, and protected by people who were the very best at what they did.
Dan had spent years with none of that. Hopefully, that period of his life was over. She blinked at the thought. It was true; she did hope it. Desperately. She closed the panel, started the engine, and pulled out of the airstrip.
* * *
The early morning greeted them with thin gray light.
The landscape emerged from darkness. Raven drove and let the country come at both of them.
She'd told herself on the flight that she was ready for this.
That years of building a life had created enough distance.
That she could come back to Japan and manage all the feelings and put them in a box when she needed to.
Fuck … had she been wrong. But of all the things that brought the memories back, it wasn’t the familiar landscape that got her. It was the smell.
It was the mixture of mountain air, cedar, and earthy undertones.
The smell that belonged specifically to this part of the country.
It hit her like a physical thing the moment they'd left the airstrip.
All those years of hard work dissolved in an instant.
Memories flooded as she drove. She was twelve years old again, arriving at the compound for the first time, terrified and furious and so desperately, achingly alone.
Then thirteen. Then fourteen. Then sixteen, lying on a roof looking at stars with a boy who'd made her feel like she was part of something. That they were in the world together. Then twenty-one, standing in a burning field, screaming his name into the smoke.
She tightened her hands on the wheel.
Dan was quiet in the passenger seat.
She appreciated that. He'd always known when to be quiet. When the weight of thoughts required space rather than words. No doubt he was handling his own memories. Neither of them needed confirmation of what they were feeling. She glanced at him. If someone had told her last month that she’d be sitting by the only man she’d ever loved, going back to the compound that had formed her life, she’d have told them they were insane.
Because Dan was dead, and the compound was the one place on earth she’d never voluntarily go. Yeah, so much for that.
The road wound through mountains, through small towns that were still sleeping, through forests of cedar and pine that pressed close on both sides. Japan hadn’t changed much.
"I forgot how it smells," Dan said quietly.
"Yes." She snapped her eyes to him. “Yes, it’s …”
"I can’t forget it. I thought I had."
"Exactly."
He was silent for a moment.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
The question landed differently here than it would have in Virginia. Here, it meant something more specific. Here, okay was a relative term.
"I'm functioning," she said.
"That's not—"
She growled, cutting off his sentence. She lifted a hand and drew a deep breath. "I know it's not what you asked. It's what I've got right now."
He nodded and looked back out the window.
She felt him make the decision not to push.
Thank God. A younger Dan might have, but they were different people now.
So different and yet so much the same. The comparison was morbid and yet at the same time …
hopeful. She was so fucking hopeful, but only time would tell if they could be the people they used to be or find the love they used to have.
Even with all the pain and the questions and the fear that he’d left in her heart, she knew that was what she wanted …
eventually. She wanted the pieces of her soul reunited.
They drove in silence for a while. The mountains rose around them, old and indifferent, keeping their secrets the way mountains always did.
"Do you remember the morning runs?" he asked eventually.
She knew which ones he meant. The pre-dawn training runs up the mountain paths, Kuro pushing them through terrain that had no right to be run in darkness.
She'd hated them. She'd also never felt more alive than in the moments at the top, lungs burning, looking out over the valley as the sun came up.
"I remember wanting to die approximately halfway up every single time," she said.
"And then at the top—"
"And then at the top, it was worth it." She glanced at him. "Don't read anything into that."
"I'm not."
"You were about to."
"I was simply—"
"Dan."
"Yes?"
"I can hear you thinking."
He laughed. She hadn't heard him laugh since before … everything. It was a quiet sound. Rusty, like it hadn't been used enough. She looked back at the road before he could see what that laugh was doing to her. More of the distance and the carefully constructed walls she’d built to stop the pain of his loss were crumbling. She knew her well thought out reasons wouldn’t last, but she needed time.
Time to adjust, to recalibrate, and to let herself believe that he was real.
* * *
The safe house was forty minutes from the compound.
It was remote and accessed by a narrow road that most maps didn't acknowledge.
It sat at the edge of a cedar forest with a view of the valley below.
It was basic and traditional on the outside, with clean lines, dark wood, and a sloped roof.
Inside was different. It was modern with heated floors, an efficient kitchen, and a communications setup that Guardian had clearly specified because it was considerably more sophisticated than the exterior suggested.
There were two bedrooms that were sparsely furnished but comfortable.
Of course, there were sliding screens instead of doors.
As Dan stood in the main room and looked around, she watched him take it in.
"Guardian arranged this," he said.
She couldn’t help smiling. "Ring spent hours on the logistics for this trip alone. Don't tell him I said this, but he's exceptional at his job."
Dan cocked his head and looked at her before asking, "Does he know you think that?"
She snorted. "God, no. He'd be insufferable."
Dan’s mouth curved.
She looked away. They had work to do.
They established the operational base quickly, drawing maps on the low central table.
They used memory to create a schematic of the compound layout, and they used a notepad to compare the latest satellite images of the compound against what they remembered.
Next to their elbows were two cups of green tea that Dan had made without asking.
She noticed. God help her, she noticed everything he did.
Her iPad chimed on the table, and Ring's face appeared on the screen, slightly too close to the camera as always, his expression carrying the energy of someone who'd been awake for thirty-six hours and was running on intelligence and caffeine.
"You landed," he said. "Good. I have questions."
"Two," Raven said.
"What?"
"Two operational questions, Ring. That's your allocation."
A pause. Ring frowned. "That's extremely limiting given the complexity of—"
She held up her fingers and repeated, "Two."
Ring exhaled. "Fine. The first concerns the compound's eastern perimeter. Based on the satellite imagery from eighteen months ago, there's a gap in the sensor coverage approximately forty meters from the administrative building. Has that changed in your assessment?"
"We'll confirm on recon tonight."
"Cool. Second, Kuro’s administrative building. You believe the records are physical, not digital?"
She nodded. "He never trusted digital systems. Everything he considered important he kept on paper. In his hand." She paused and glanced at Dan. "That was true then.”
Dan nodded. “I concur. Men like him don't change those habits."
"Consistent with his psychological profile," Ring said, making a note. "Good. That simplifies extraction." He paused. "One more thing."
"That was two questions."
"This isn't a question, it's an observation."
"Ring—"