Outside, the air had sharpened.Gravel popped under his boots on the path to the Ridge House.He thumbed open the security app, flagged timestamps, and typed notes for morning.
Marsh—pull gate footage, audit fence line, walk blind arcs in person.
Check south run.
Verify crews.
Treat drones like hostile eyes until proven otherwise.
Tell Marsh.First thing.
He made his way up the stairs to Dale’s suite and pushed through the door.He stood just inside and had a clear view of the kitchen.Ty at the stove, lecturing the sauce into behaving.Dale at the island, glass of red wine in front of him, smile on his face.The sight eased something in Oren’s chest and tightened something else.Saying nothing felt wrong.Saying the wrong thing felt worse.
Not yet.
He let the decision settle.He’d circle the fence line at first light and look for the door Carson thought he owned.Watch the camera sweeps with Marsh.And he would spend some time trying to work out why those eyes, those blue eyes made his heart pound in fear.He wouldn’t turn dinner into a debrief.
He stepped into the kitchen, loving the welcome in the gazes both men turned in his direction.
“Hey,” Dale said.“Hope you’re hungry, Ty’s cooking enough for a small army.”
“Starved,” Oren said, and meant for more than one thing.
He reached for the wine glass Ty handed him and actively chose to ignore the man who promised a stage, at least for tonight.
****
The pool hadn’t quietedthe voices in his head.Forty minutes of clean strokes and the headache only stepped aside to watch.By the time Hogan hit his room an hour later, it had returned with a vengeance.He dropped the towel on the chair and reached for his phone to text Blake like he’d promised Dale.
The second he had the device in his hand and swiped his thumb across the camera to activate it, the device buzzed crazily in his hand.
The screen filled with a circling column of numbers, digits revolving as if they were about swirling around a drain.He watched them turn until the phone’s camera LED blinked to green and drew a soft bar of light across his face.A flash of light on his iris, a clean tone, and the numbers locked in and fell into rows.The text unfolded.
ACE.
Harbor wall—trades up, breakwater, east side.
Inside the line—freshwater pools by the black-rock notch.
Lights low.No comms.
One man only.
—K
He didn’t breathe.The room swung a degree and caught.Salt.Jet fuel.A laugh low in his ear from a long time ago.A warm hand against his chest.The letters didn’t spell a name, but he knew who the message came from.
Kai.
The headache surged once, then slid back, giving him room to think.
Hogan read the lines again and saw what was tucked inside them.The first letters down the left margin spelled it clean: H I L O — Harbor wall...Inside the line—freshwater pools by the black-rock notch.Lights low.One man only.“Trades up” wasn’t poetry, it was timing.Winds pushing east.Go now.The freshwater pools and the black-rock notch were local markers—Keaukaha without saying Keaukaha, the Richardson end without giving it away.Come alone, no comms.It read like a map and an order at once.
He stared at the word ACE until the edges went soft.Callsign, not a nickname.
He started a message to Dale and watched the cursor blink.Anything he wrote would pull Dale to the door with that look that stripped excuses to nothing.Hogan didn’t have a clean reason to offer yet—just the feel of something heavy in his chest and the sense that if he didn’t move the window would close.
He killed the message, grabbed the go-bag from the back of the closet, and packed without thinking.ID, flight card, passport, cash, spare comm that wouldn’t be turned on, clothes, knife.Everything a traveling soldier would need.The motions settled his hands, and he left without a backward glance, driving toward the shared hanger, intent on getting to where he needed to get to.
