“Because sitting here isn’t helping you, and Travis is the one most likely to have news about Coop.” She held the door open, phone pressed to her ear. “If anyone can find out what’s going on, it’s him. And he’s the one who can put you to work doing something useful.”
Travis’s house looked almost normal from the outside—just a regular house. But I noticed the cameras. Subtle, well-hidden, tracking our vehicle as we approached. The gate that looked decorative but hummed with something electronic as we approached.
“Travis is particular about his space,” Lark said as we pulled up. “He doesn’t leave much. Doesn’t like visitors. Be patient with him.”
The front door opened before we reached it. A man stood in the doorway—dark hair hanging past his collar, black T-shirt that looked slept-in, bare feet on the hardwood floor. His eyes swept over me in quick assessment, cataloging details with an intensity that should have been unsettling.
“You’re the one Coop was worried about.” Not a question. He studied me again, clocking my exhaustion. “Makes sense.”
I had no idea what he meant by that. I looked over at Lark, but she just shrugged and stepped over the threshold. I quickly followed, closing the door.
“Come on. I’ve got something you need to see.” Travis called over his shoulder, already walking away.
The interior felt like a bunker disguised as a home. Normal enough on the surface—hardwood floors, neutral walls—but I could feel the surveillance embedded in everything.
We descended into the hillside, levels that didn’t show from outside. The temperature dropped as we went deeper, the air taking on the recycled quality of underground spaces.
Travis led us into a room that looked like mission control had collided with a paranoid’s fever dream. Monitors everywhere—wall-mounted, desk-mounted, showing scrolling code and camera feeds and satellite imagery.
“Sit.” Travis dropped into an ergonomic chair, fingers flying across a keyboard. “I’ve been monitoring Oliver’s compound since I got the call about getting you out.”
I sank into a chair at the conference table, legs suddenly unable to hold me. Lark took the seat beside me.
“A few hours ago, someone at the compound ran a deeper search on Coop’s alias.” Travis pulled up screens faster than I could track. “More thorough than anything they’d done before. Cross-referencing details, looking for inconsistencies.”
My heart stopped. “Oliver knows.”
“If Oliver knew, Coop would already be dead.” Travis finally turned to face me, his expression flat but not unkind. “The search came from Oliver’s network, but it wasn’t a panic search. It was due diligence—the kind you do before promoting someone. Before trusting them with more.”
The words took a moment to penetrate. “What are you saying?”
“Oliver is still digging into Coop’s cover story because he still believes it. If Coop were dead or compromised, there’d be no reason to keep checking.”
Relief hit me so hard my vision blurred. I gripped the table’s edge, and Lark’s hand landed on my shoulder.
“He’s alive.”
“All indicators suggest Coop is still operational.” Travis was already turning back to his screens. “Lark said you might be able to help.”
“Help how?”
“You were inside Oliver’s compound for days. You saw people, right? Beyond just Coop?”
“Yes.” I straightened, something clicking into focus through the fog. “I didn’t have my camera, so I tried to commit as many features to memory as I could. Faces, scars, tattoos. I thought maybe I could work with a forensic artist or look through mug shots.”
Something flickered in Travis’s expression—interest, maybe. “I built a forensic composite program. Better than standard police software. You describe features, it generates images. The more details you give it, the more accurate the rendering.”
Purpose. Something concrete. Something I could actuallydoinstead of sitting here drowning.
“How does it work?”
Travis pulled up a blank interface with tools along the edges. “You select a base face shape, then adjust individual features. Nose width, eye spacing, jawline. Layer in details like scars or facial hair. The more specific you are, the more accurate the rendering.” He gestured at the screen. “Every face you remember. Every detail. Anything that could help identify them.”
Travis rolled a second chair over and spent the next twenty minutes walking me through the interface in more detail—keyboard shortcuts, how to save and compare versions, ways to refine features I wasn’t sure about. His explanation was technical and rapid-fire, but I found myself absorbing it, my photographer’s eye translating his instructions into visual terms.
Then he left me alone with the screen.
I started with Volkov—the Russian buyer, easiest to remember because of his sharp features and the hunger in his eyes when Oliver announced the hunt. My fingers moved across the keyboard, adjusting cheekbones and brow lines, trying to capture the particular flatness of his expression.
