Morrison raised his head, and something flickered in his red-rimmed eyes—not defiance, exactly, but the desperate calculation of a man trying to find any remaining leverage."If I tell you, will you let me go?"
Kane considered the question as if it merited genuine deliberation.In truth, he'd decided Morrison's fate the moment he'd confirmed the extent of the lieutenant's betrayal.But false hope was a useful tool, and Kane was nothing if not practical.
"Tell me about the shipment," he said."The vessel, the crew, the route they're planning.Give me something actionable, and we'll discuss what comes next."
The promise was technically true.They would discuss it.The discussion would simply be brief and one-sided.
Morrison's tongue, thick and dry, moved across cracked lips."TheCold Current," he said finally, each word seeming to cost him something essential."Fishing trawler running out of Duluth.Captain's name is Halverson—I don't know his first name.He makes runs every two weeks, brings the product in hidden with the catch.They've got a buyer waiting at the Rice's Point dock."
"Security?"
"Two, maybe three guys with the captain.Armed, but nothing heavy.They're not expecting trouble—they've been doing this for months without a problem."
Because you made sure there wouldn't be problems, Kane thought.Because you looked at your oath and your uniform and the trust your country placed in you, and you decided thirty pieces of silver was a fair trade.
"The route?"
Morrison described it in halting phrases—the approach vector, the timing window, the specific dock where the exchange would occur.Kane listened without taking notes, committing every detail to the memory that had served him through dozens of operations in places far more hostile than a basement in rural Minnesota.When Morrison finished, silence reclaimed the space between them.
"Thank you, Lieutenant."Kane stood, collecting his folder, preparing to ascend the stairs and begin his preparations for the night's work."That's useful information."
"Wait—" Morrison's voice cracked on the word, desperation overriding the exhaustion that had flattened his affect for days."You said we'd discuss—you said if I helped—"
Kane paused at the foot of the stairs, his hand resting on the rough wooden railing.He didn't turn to face the man he'd kept prisoner for nearly a week, the man whose corruption had facilitated crimes that had poisoned communities throughout the Great Lakes region.
"I said we'd discuss what comes next," Kane replied."And we will.After tonight.After I've verified that the information you've provided is accurate."
He climbed the stairs, the creak of the third step marking his departure as clearly as it had announced his arrival.Behind him, Morrison began to sob—the quiet, broken sounds of a man who had finally understood that hope was just another weapon in his captor's arsenal.
Kane closed the basement door and secured the lock, the sounds from below fading to silence.The cabin around him was modest—a single bedroom, a functional kitchen, and a living area that held nothing personal except the military history books that lined one shelf and the nautical charts that covered the dining table.The view through the front window showed Lake Superior stretching toward an invisible horizon, her gray waters calm in the April twilight.
He moved to the closet in the spare bedroom, unlocking it with a key he kept on a chain around his neck.Inside, the evidence of his campaign waited in neat rows—folders documenting eliminated operations, maritime charts marked with the locations of his strikes, the weapons and equipment that made his work possible.He added Morrison's file to the "active" section, then began selecting the gear he would need for tonight.
TheCold Currentwould be his fourth operation this week.The FBI was scrambling, the media was creating heroes and villains from the chaos, and Elena Rodriguez was sitting in a cell taking credit for crimes she couldn't possibly have committed.Kane had monitored the coverage with professional interest, recognizing the false confession for what it was—a sacrifice play by someone who believed in his mission enough to protect him even without knowing his identity.
He would have to be careful now.The investigation was intensifying, and the profile the FBI was building was growing more accurate with each passing day.But care was something he understood.Patience was bred into his bones from years of operations where a single mistake meant death—not just for himself, but for the men who depended on him.
The SEALs had taught him many things.How to move through hostile environments undetected.How to neutralize multiple armed targets with nothing but a blade and the darkness.How to compartmentalize the violence required by his missions from the rest of his existence.
But the Teams had also taught him about betrayal.About the corruption that could infect even the most sacred institutions, the men who wore the same uniform but served only themselves.He'd watched it happen overseas—local contacts who sold information to insurgents, allied soldiers who looked the other way while civilians suffered, the endless compromise of principles that turned noble missions into cynical exercises in futility.
America was supposed to be different.These waters were supposed to be safe.
Morrison had proven otherwise.So had the smugglers and traffickers and criminals who used Lake Superior as their personal highway, moving poison and weapons through the heart of the country while the institutions charged with stopping them remained mired in jurisdictional disputes and bureaucratic paralysis.
Kane finished selecting his equipment, laying each item on the bed with the precision of a surgeon preparing instruments.The knife—Ka-Bar, seven-inch blade, edge honed to surgical sharpness.The sidearm—a suppressed Sig Sauer P226 for situations where silence was less essential than certainty.Night vision equipment that had cost him three months' worth of his disability pension but had proven invaluable in the darkness where he did his best work.
And the boat.A seventeen-foot Boston Whaler moored at a private dock five miles from here, registered to a shell company that would take even the FBI weeks to trace.She was fast, quiet, and small enough to approach larger vessels without triggering the alarm that a Coast Guard cutter would inspire.
He thought about Morrison, bound in the basement below, wondering if he would survive the night.The answer depended on how tonight's operation proceeded.If Morrison's intelligence proved accurate—if theNordic Starwas where he said it would be, carrying what he said it would carry—then the lieutenant's usefulness would be exhausted.There would be no reason to maintain him, no justification for the risk his continued existence represented.
Traitors who sold out American security deserved no mercy.Kane had learned that lesson in the mountains of Afghanistan, in the fetid swamps of the Niger Delta, in a dozen other places where America's enemies had found willing collaborators among those who should have been patriots.
Morrison was no different.He was simply closer to home.
Kane began dressing for the night's work, his movements economical and practiced.Black clothing that would absorb light rather than reflect it.Tactical boots with non-marking soles.A watch face that could be illuminated without casting significant glow.Every detail attended to, every variable anticipated, every contingency planned.
The FBI agent—Rivers—was good.He'd been monitoring her investigation, watching from distances she couldn't detect, admiring the methodical way she'd begun building a profile of him from the evidence he'd left behind.She'd identified the military background, the maritime expertise, the psychological framework that drove his operations.Given enough time, she might actually find him.
