The door shut on the last word.Hogan stood very still and replayed it.Ace.By the time he reached the threshold, Dev was gone into the dark and the only answer left was the quiet inside the hangar.
Hogan climbed into the plane, closed the door and made his way into the cockpit and set the bag where it lived on long nights.He buckled in, flicked the switches with muscle memory, and watched the greens step across the board.
Taxi lights.Clearance he didn’t have five minutes ago.The runway a clean line.He eased her forward and felt the small lift under his ribs when the nose took air.
“Inbound,” he said to the night, to the message, to the man who’d signed it with nothing but a letter.
Wheels up.The Ridge falling away.Hawaii ahead, and whatever waited on the east face of the breakwater after dark.
Chapter Nine
After dinner, Ty andDale left Oren taking a shower back in the suite, and were taking a shift watching the drones fly over.Binoculars to his eyes, Dale let his breathing match the quiet.
“North fence is clear,” Ty said, watching the tree line.“Rolling east.”
A thin, insect whine slid in from the dark.Dale didn’t look toward it right away.H; he found the sound in the space first, then lifted the glass and caught the shape—small quad, no nav lights, a gimbal tucked under the belly.
“There,” he said.“Commercial frame.Lights killed.”
He set the binoculars to his chest and opened the tablet.A pinch brought the map in tight.“See the way it loiters over the service road?He’s mapping, not joyriding.”Dale said, keeping his voice easy.
The drone drifted along the outer line and paused just long enough to take them in, then eased south into the gap where the cameras don’t overlap.
“Blind spot?”Ty asked.
“About seven seconds with no lens on it,” Dale said.“We know it’s there.It’s on the list to fix.”He tracked the speck until it thinned into dark again.“Which means he’s starting to pick up patterns.”
Ty looked over, his hand on the jammer case.“We could knock it out without tripping lights or alarms.”
Dale shook his head.“Not yet.We take one, they send more.We need to learn the pilot first.”
He logged the pass, thumb quick and steady, and time-stamped the hover over the service road.“We have done a lot up here in a short amount of time.There is a lot of chatter about the Ridge around the community, curiosity is normal.If it’s a neighbor’s kid, I’ll buy him a new kit and give him a lecture.If it’s not—”
“We’ll know soon enough I guess,” Ty said.
They let the quiet lay down again.Down-valley, a truck changed gears, distant and harmless.The drone’s whine faded and then came back, a shade higher and on a slightly different line.
