3. The Hunter
The Hunter
Nikolai
I reach the ridge above the shoreline seventeen minutes after Dimitry’s message.
Three minutes early.
Acceptable.
The road below curves along the water, narrow enough to create problems if someone approaches from the wrong direction. The HAVEN vehicles are parked with decent spacing, nose out, and clear exits. Better than most teams. Not perfect, but not careless either.
I watch them from the dark before I step into view.
Dimitry sees me first. As expected.
My younger brother turns before anyone speaks, and for several seconds we look at each other across twenty feet of Greek dust and fading light. Years sit in that space. Russia. Blood. Distance. Choices neither of us made cleanly.
Dimitry crosses the space first.
We clasp forearms, brief and hard. It is the closest either of us comes to an embrace.
His face doesn’t soften.
Good.
Softness has never helped either of us survive.
“You’re late,” Dimitry says.
“I’m early.”
“To me, that’s late.”
The man beside the lead vehicle glances between us. “Family reunions must be a bloody delight.”
Australian accent. Field instincts in the way he stands, not military, but not civilian either.
A large man standing beside the harbor map barks out a laugh, not even trying to hide it.
Dimitry gestures to him first. “Steve Hollands. Mission lead. Former police.”
Steve steps forward and offers his hand. Firm grip. No dominance game. No unnecessary pressure.
Acceptable.
“Good to have you here,” Steve says.
“Dimitry asked.”
Steve nods once.
Dimitry continues before Steve can decide whether to be amused. “Janice Hollands. Joint mission lead and nurse practitioner.”
The blonde woman seated inside the open rear door angles the tablet in her lap without standing. Calm hands. Observant eyes. She listens while others speak, which tells me more than any introduction.
“Jax Reeves and Cole Maddox,” Dimitry says, indicating two men positioned with clear sightlines. “Security. Liberty Jones with Cole. Crew Hayes on maritime.”
Crew looks up from the map. “Hurricane, if we’re being formal.”
Steve mutters something under his breath. Janice’s mouth curves slightly.
I look at Crew once, then dismiss him as a threat. Loud doesn’t mean careless. Sometimes loud means other people underestimate you. He moves like a man who understands water, weight, balance, and bad decisions made at speed.
Useful.
“Where is the girl?” I ask.
The humor leaves the group quickly.
Dimitry turns toward the camp. “Solace Montgomery is believed to be held near Mytilene commercial port, beside a container used as a staging cell. Last confirmed evidence came from photographs she sent before she disappeared.”
“Five days ago,” I say.
Janice watches me now. “Yes.”
“Too long.”
“Yes,” she says again.
I respect that answer more than a longer one.
I move to the open tablet without asking permission.
Janice angles it toward me. The map shows the camp, the service road, the port access lanes, and the commercial freight area.
Solace’s photographs sit beside the satellite view.
Blue container. Rear fence. Freight pallets.
Service gate. Poor lighting. Bad sightlines for civilians. Useful sightlines for guards.
Old infrastructure in new clothing.
Meridian hasn’t invented anything. It has inherited the routes, polished the paperwork, and taught the same machinery to answer to a different name.
I’ve seen operations like this before.
Mytilene Port, Lesbos, Greece. 2045 hours
Steve gives me his number before I leave the ridge.
He holds out a phone with a secure contact code already waiting on the screen. “Direct line. Use it if you see anything that changes the timeline.”
I enter the number, send one blank encrypted message to confirm the connection, and hand the phone back.
“You’ll be at the hotel?” I ask.
“Elysion,” Janice says. “Serenity booked rooms for all of us before we landed. Victor has the secure line active there.”
Efficient. Good.
“Do not wait for me,” I say.
Steve studies me, then nods. “Wasn’t planning to.”
Dimitry watches from beside the second vehicle. He knows better than to tell me to check in. He also knows I will, if there is something worth saying.
I leave them above the shoreline and take the service road on foot.
The port is different at night. During the day, ports pretend to be commerce, schedules, paperwork, freight, fuel, and men in reflective vests moving cargo from one place to another.
At night, the disguises are thin. Light becomes selective.
Cameras cover what someone paid them to cover.
Gates that should stay locked open for the right vehicle, the right badge, or the right amount of money placed in the right hand.
Mytilene commercial port has too many old habits to be clean.
I move along the outer road without rushing. Men notice men who hurry. They notice strangers who stare. So, I become what ports are full of after dark, another man with a purpose no one cares enough to question.
The first guard post sits near the service gate Solace photographed.
Two men. One older, one young enough to look bored.
The older one checks vehicles properly. The younger one checks his phone more often than the road.
Rotation is likely every two hours, unless laziness is part of the structure rather than a flaw.
I mark both.
A white truck idles beyond the fence with its lights off.
Same one I saw from the ridge. Its driver sits with one elbow out the window, pretending to be patient.
A second man stands near the rear doors, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
Nervous. Not a professional smuggler. Hired hand, or Meridian staff pulled into work he dislikes but will still do.
Useful later.
Near the rear fence, the blue container sits exactly where Solace’s photograph placed it, partly screened by stacked pallets and two empty refrigeration units. The chain is still on the doors. Air holes have been drilled through the side, crude and effective.
The guard stationed near it keeps his attention on the road, the fence, the truck, anywhere except the container. Men don’t avoid empty freight.
There are women inside.
Or there were.
I stop beside a rusted railing and pull out my phone, angling the screen as if checking a message. The camera catches the container, the guard, the truck, the service gate, and part of the harbor beyond it.
Enough for Steve.
Enough for Victor.
A vessel sits at the far end of the commercial quay. Small motor yacht. Running lights dark. One crewman on deck, smoking beneath the awning. Too clean for fishing. Too quiet for leisure. Perfect for moving bodies without paperwork.
Solace is close.
Low concrete structure beside the freight fence, old storage or maintenance, windows barred from the outside and one narrow side door with fresh hardware. The lock is newer than the frame. The camera above it has been recently mounted, the cable too clean against the stained wall.
People don’t upgrade forgotten buildings without a reason.
I cross the road when a forklift passes between me and the guard post, using its engine noise and headlight glare as cover. The side lane smells of diesel, salt, and rot. Voices come from inside the building, muffled by concrete and distance.
A woman coughs.
Then another voice murmurs, too low to understand.
I go still beside the wall, listening.
Location confirmed. Occupancy likely. Guard rotation incomplete. Maritime transfer possible.
This is a tactical problem. Tactical problems can be solved.
I send Steve three photographs and six words.
Container confirmed. Women inside. Watching.
Then I put the phone away and keep moving.
Mytilene Port, Lesbos, Greece. 2130 hours
The port settles into its night rhythm by the time I reach the eastern service lane.
Ports are never quiet. Even when official work slows, machines breathe, cables creak, engines idle, and men speak in low voices because darkness makes them believe sound carries less.
It doesn’t.
Sound travels differently near water. Voices flatten and stretch. Engines echo against concrete. Radio traffic bleeds through cheap equipment when operators get lazy with distance, channel discipline, or both.
I take position behind a maintenance shed overlooking the freight yard, close enough to watch the blue container and far enough back that a bored guard would need skill to find me.
He does not have it.
He has cigarettes, a phone, and the dull irritation of a man assigned to stand beside something he does not want to understand.
The white truck remains parked near the fence. Driver still inside. Second man gone. People do not leave a waiting vehicle unless they have been sent to collect instructions, money, documents, or cargo.
I remove the compact receiver from my jacket pocket and fit the earpiece into place.
The scanner is old, modified, ugly, and reliable.
It moves through local channels with a faint hiss, catching fragments from harbor staff, delivery drivers, private security, and men who think switching frequencies makes them invisible.
A burst of Greek cuts through the static.
Dock access. Delay. Paperwork.
I let it pass.
Another channel catches a cleaner signal. Male voice. Calm. Local accent, but the wording is wrong. Too careful in places. Someone repeating instructions he did not write.
“...forty-eight hours. Same window. No ferry traffic.”
A second voice answers, lower. “How many?”
“Camp group first. Then the British one if she is cleared.”
My hand stills against the receiver.
The British one.
Solace Montgomery becomes less like a file and more like a fixed point on the map.
The second man swears softly. “She asks too many questions.”
“That is why she goes.”
“Buyer confirmed?”
“Not on an open channel, idiot.”
The signal drops after that, but the damage is done.
Buyer.
Forty-eight hours.
Camp group.
British one.