Chapter 2 The Call
TWO
The Call
RIOT
“The problem with three a.m. poker is that Mitzy cheats.” I hold my cards close and narrow my gaze at Mitzy, trying to intimidate her, and fail.
"I'm not cheating." She doesn't look up from her monitors, fingers flying across three keyboards simultaneously while her cards sit face-down in front of her, untouched for the last four hands.
“Liar.” I may not be able to intimidate the tech genius, but I will call her out.
Her hair is electric violet this week—last month it was split down the middle, half neon pink, half toxic green. The dye changes with her mood, her missions, or possibly the phase of the moon. No one's brave enough to ask. "I'm utilizing superior observational methodology."
"You've got cameras on us."
"I have cameras on everything." She spins her chair, grabs her Red Bull, drains half of it, and spins back to her screens in one fluid motion. The can joins a growing army of empties arranged in what I'm pretty sure is a scale model of Helm's Deep. "It's called operational security. Also, raise."
She tosses chips into the pot without looking at her cards. Without looking at the table. Her eyes track something on monitor three—satellite feeds, from the look of it—while her left hand pulls data from a separate terminal.
Across the table, Frost folds with a grunt. Smart man. He knows when he's outmatched, and Mitzy outmatches everyone at this table. Probably everyone in the building. Possibly everyone on the continent.
I'm down sixty bucks and my dignity, but walking away means admitting defeat, and Jon "Riot" Jones doesn't admit defeat to a five-foot-two tech goddess with a caffeine addiction and an ungodly poker face.
"Call." I push my chips in. "And when I win, you're explaining how you knew I had the three of hearts before I looked at it."
"When you lose, you're bringing me coffee for a week. The fancy stuff from The Guardian Grind. With the oat milk."
"Fancy coffee for a woman who drinks battery acid by the case. There's a contradiction there, Mitz."
"I contain multitudes." She taps something on her keyboard, frowns at a readout, taps again. "Also, I have a royal flush."
She flips her cards without looking. King, queen, jack, ten, ace. All hearts.
I throw my cards down in disgust.
"That's statistically impossible. You had to have—"
"Dealt myself a perfect hand while simultaneously running facial recognition on three separate feeds and building a mission package?" She grins, all teeth and manic energy. "Yes. I'm very talented. Coffee. One week. Oat milk."
"You're a menace to society."
"Documented and celebrated." She spins back to her monitors, already forgetting the game exists. That's Mitzy—a hummingbird in human form, moving so fast between tasks that keeping up gives most people vertigo. "Hey, you should probably not go to sleep."
I'm halfway out of my chair, reaching for my jacket. "Why?"
"Because CJ's about to call you in." She pulls up something on her center screen—coordinates, terrain maps, a personnel file. "I've been building his briefing package for the last twenty minutes. It's a bad one."
"How bad?"
The ops center door swings open. CJ's frame fills it—six-four, built like someone tried to stuff a tank into tactical gear. His expression kills my next joke mid-formation.
"Riot. My office. Now."
Mitzy catches my eye as I pass her station. The manic energy's still there, but underneath it, something sharper. She's already working, pulling data, and building routes. Whatever's coming, she's three steps ahead of it.
That's either reassuring or terrifying.
CJ's office is three doors down. Spartan, functional—no personal effects, no photos, nothing that says a human being spends time here rather than a particularly efficient machine.
He designed it that way. Says sentiment is a liability in operational spaces.
I think he just doesn't want anyone asking questions he doesn't want to answer.
He closes the door. Doesn't sit.
"Solo extraction. Sierra Nevada foothills, roughly ninety minutes east of Sacramento.
" He pulls up Mitzy's map on the wall screen—satellite overlay, terrain features, a red pin marking a cabin in a sea of green.
"Witness to a cartel hit. Federal judge, five days ago, birthday party.
She came forward, FBI took her into protective custody. "
"And protective custody isn't protecting her?”
"Agent Moreau—the handler who placed her—turned up dead two hours ago." CJ's voice is granite. "Staged suicide. Single gunshot, service weapon, typed note. Textbook Bureau cover-up."
The picture sharpens. "Someone inside made him disappear."
"SA Diane Yates thinks so. Counterintelligence, twenty-two years in.
She's been running an off-book investigation into cartel infiltration at the Bureau—money moving the wrong way, agents living above their means, cases going sideways at convenient moments.
Moreau was one of the few people she trusted.
" CJ pulls up a second image. Two men, surveillance photos, the grainy quality of long-lens shots.
"Agents Derek Stillman and Travis Wood. They took over protective custody three days ago.
Yates flagged them six months back—lifestyle inconsistencies, unexplained travel.
She thinks they're being directed by political interests in Sacramento that reach into the Bureau's upper management. "
"Political how?"
"The Consortium—the group running the muscle—has friends in high places," CJ says.
"The kind of friends who sign paychecks and kill investigations before they reach a courtroom.
Yates hasn't nailed the names yet, but someone with a lot of weight in the capital wants this witness silenced before she identifies the shooters.
By the time Yates gets authorization through proper channels—"
"There won't be a witness to authorize protection for."
"That's her assessment. Local law enforcement is unreliable at best, compromised at worst. This is cartel country—they've got tendrils in half the sheriff's departments within a hundred miles.
FBI is obviously compromised at the field level.
No time for warrants, no time for interagency coordination, no time for anything that moves through official channels. "
"So she called you."
The ghost of something crosses his face—memory, maybe, or the particular weight that comes with debts between people who've bled together.
"She's out of options, Riot. This woman is going to die in that cabin, and everyone who should protect her is either bought or blocked."
I look up and find the photo. Evangeline Sinclair. Evie, probably—the license says Evangeline, but no one looks that warm and goes by their full name. A small scar marks her left eyebrow, barely visible. A story there. Everyone's got stories in their scars.
"What's the site layout?"
CJ pulls up the satellite imagery. The cabin sits in a clearing—single story, maybe twelve hundred square feet, surrounded by pine forest. One gravel access road, half a mile to the nearest paved surface. Limited sight lines, which cuts both ways. Hard to see out, hard to see in.
"Two confirmed hostiles. Derek and Travis. But the cartel knows she's there, which means reinforcements are a phone call away. Once those agents realize something's wrong—once they miss a check-in or spot an approach—backup will be inbound. You'll have a narrow window."
"Exfil route?"
"East. Into the mountains." He traces the path on screen. "They'll expect her to run west, toward Sacramento, toward civilization. You go the opposite direction. It's harder terrain, but it buys time. I'll push extraction coordinates to your nav once you're clear of immediate pursuit."
"Extraction how?"
"Helicopter. Two-hour window once you call it in. Mitzy's already working the logistics."
Two hours. A lot can happen in two hours.
"Rules of engagement?"
"The agents are dirty. Confirmed dirty." I meet his gaze, and there's no softness there, no hesitation. "Don't lose sleep over them. Priority one is the witness. Get her out, get her here, keep her breathing. Everything else is secondary."
I nod once. The math is simple. Two hostiles, one civilian, unknown terrain, ticking clock. Kandahar was worse. Mogadishu was worse.
But those weren't kindergarten teachers who trusted the FBI.
"She's been in that cabin five days." CJ's voice drops.
"With men who know they're going to kill her.
She might not know it consciously, but part of her knows.
She'll be scared, probably defensive, won't have any reason to trust another stranger with a gun.
You need to get her moving before she has time to think. "
"Charming women is kind of my specialty, boss."
The joke comes automatically. Armor sliding into place, the grin that says nothing touches me. CJ doesn't smile.
"Twenty minutes. Mitzy's got your loadout prepped. Sat coverage on the cabin is limited, so you're going in mostly blind once you're off the road." He pauses. "Riot."
I stop at the door.
"Don't die out there."
"Wasn't planning on it." The grin again, bright and easy and absolutely bulletproof. "I've got a coffee debt to settle. Fancy oat milk. Very important."
I don't wait for his response.
The hallway is quiet—that particular hum of a compound holding its breath between operations.
Crash of waves against the cliffs below, the distant whir of Mitzy's servers, nothing else.
I should feel tired. It's three in the morning and I've been awake for twenty hours and the smart thing would be to catch twenty minutes of sleep before the drive.
But sleep and I have an understanding. I don't ask too much of it, and it doesn't show me Joey drowning, or Deacon's body, or the aid worker who died fifteen feet from freedom.
Fair trade.
Mitzy’s already at the armory door when I arrive, tablet in hand, violet hair practically vibrating with contained energy.
"Loadout's inside. Primary, secondary, suppressed option, four mags each.
Trauma kit, GPS beacon, backup comms." She's talking fast, scrolling through data as she speaks.
"I've got access to traffic cams on the main roads, but once you hit the mountain routes, you're dark.
Sat window opens again at 0630, so if you're not clear of the cabin by then—"
"Then the bad guys have the same eyes you do."
"Exactly." She looks up from her tablet. For a second, the manic energy drops, and what's underneath is sharp enough to cut. "She's a kindergarten teacher, Riot. She makes construction paper turkeys and teaches kids to share. She's not supposed to be in a kill site."
"I know."
"So don't fuck it up."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
She nods once and disappears back toward ops, already talking into her headset, already three problems ahead. I push into the armory and start gearing up.
Evangeline Sinclair. Evie. Brown hair, warm smile, tiny scar by her eyebrow.
In four hours, she's going to have to make the hardest choice of her life: trust the system that's about to kill her, or trust a stranger who breaks down her door at dawn.
I really hope she picks door number two.