The oldest, a barrel-chested man with nicotine stains where his mustache used to be, starts to protest, but I cut him off with a hand.
"Five minutes," I say.
"Smoke break."
Fiachra is up a half-second later, already pulling on the blazer he'd draped over his chair.
We exit in tandem, stride matching.
The hallway outside the boardroom is a vacuum, every molecule of air replaced with the flavor of unfinished business and the faint electrical hum of bad news.
He doesn't ask.
He just waits.
"She's gone," I say.
He clicks his tongue.
"Which exit?"
I flip to the secondary report, already in my inbox.
"West gate. Lena was on detail, she took a bad hit but survived."
Fiachra's eyes go flat, the way they do when he's about to snap someone's collarbone.
We cross the main corridor, past the vestibule with its shriveled potted plants and the blank-eyed stares of the antique portraits, to the secure comms room.
We step inside, and the shift captain is waiting.
She's young, good at her job, and not at all interested in small talk.
"Time of deviation?" I ask.
The captain doesn't hesitate.
"09:32. Lena's GPS tracker cuts east off the planned route, just past Kilbride. Thirty-seven seconds later, all comms drop. Visual feeds from thecar's dashcam and local traffic cams are scrambled—tight pulse interference, military-grade."
Fiachra paces near the map board, fingers trailing the county lines.
"Ambush?"
She nods.
"Road was clear at 09:30. By 09:33, there's a van boxing them from behind and a black SUV ahead. Rural bypass. No through traffic for miles."
I rest both hands on the table.
The surface is cold, steel through paper.
"And Lena?"
"She was found just after eleven. Crawled out of a drainage culvert on the north side of the field."
A pause.
"She played dead. Took a blow to the ribs, a head wound. They left her."
