“Let’s keep this tight,” Bateman said.He didn’t raise his voice.He never needed to.“Two items.One, the air over our fence line is busier than it should be and it has certainly increased in the last twelve hours.”He lifted a page.“The Ridge had two unlit commercial frames running the perimeter in repeats.Mapping behavior.Dale and Ty logged arcs and times.We’ll walk camera gaps at first light.Until then no heroics.We collect information and relay it back.”A pause, then, almost offhand, “Ty and Oren are in here because they’re field-ready if this turns tonight or anytime soon.”
Ty didn’t look at Oren this time, but the words hit him hard.
The last time violence came to the Ridge, he’d been unprepared.Hell, he’d even questioned whether he could pull a trigger if he needed to.Field-ready meant the room could ask things of them.And with two men who meant more to him than his own life in the room, he knew he would do whatever needed to be done to protect them, and anyone on the Ridge.
“And two?”Ricky asked.
Bateman placed his hands on his hips and took a deep breath before he answered.“Hogan’s gone.”
The entire room froze.That was not at all what Ty was expecting to hear.
“What do you mean, gone?”Dale asked the million-dollar question, his voice colder than Ty had ever heard before.“I saw him at the gym and then in the pool earlier tonight.”
Bateman slid a second page forward and didn’t look down at it.“He filed a flight plan and launched.Solo.He’s headed to Hawaii.”
The room went quiet in the way rooms do when shock steals the oxygen from the conversation.Ty’s stomach did the small sink he hated, the one that felt like missing a step in the dark.Ezra’s head turned toward Ricky.Ricky was already looking back.That look said a history Ty didn’t yet have all the details of and wasn’t sure he wanted.
“When do we go after him,” Dale said.Not if.When.The word had weight.
“Not yet,” Dev said from the screen, his tone measured.“He’s not lost.He’s working a thing he needs to work, and he needs to do it without a net.He’ll be back online when he can be, and we’ll go when he needs us.”
“What thing?”Marsh asked.It came out more clipped than curious.
“If I could say cleanly, I would,” Dev said.“Call it unfinished business.Call it something he can’t hear if we’re in the room.Right now, he’s in the air.He’s cleared to fly.We let him run it until he calls us in.”
Ty exhaled through his nose, slow.He believed in plans.He believed in men doing the thing only they could do.He thought about what Dale had said about him at the gym and the way Hogan had moved like sleep was a luxury only other men got.
Ty watched Oren’s hands.Flat on the table.Still.He could hold still for hours when his head was loud.
Bateman ticked off assignments.“Marsh, cameras and cycles.Ricky, exterior lights.Ezra, gate rhythms and vehicles we don’t know.Dale, walk the south run at first light.Oren, I know that you’re managing the lion’s share of the build at the moment, so Ty, you’re with Dale.”He looked back at Dev.“We’ll have a better read by noon tomorrow.”
A chair scraped.Oren stood.
Even before he spoke, Ty knew it wasn’t going to be good.Everything about his stance screamed tension.Color high in this cheek bones.Shoulders tight.
Oren glanced once at Ty, then at Dale, and said, “I had company at the build tonight.”
The tension in the room notched up a degree.Bateman didn’t move.“Say again.”
“Carson,” Oren said.He kept his tone level by force.“He was inside the build and met me in the Southwest corridor.He put a gun on me.When I tried to engage him, get him to come out swinging, he said ‘not tonight.’His exact words were he wants a stage.”He swallowed and went on, faster now, like he didn’t trust himself to stop and start again.“His eyes looked—different.Brown before but tonight they were a striking blue and I am positive that it was not just a trick of light.”
“Why am I only hearing about this now?”Dale again voiced the same question slamming through his own head, too even to be calm.
“Because I wanted to check the fence first, the bastard had to have gotten in somehow,” Oren said in a monotonous tone.“Because I feel like I’ve brought a ghost from somewhere in my past to your house.Because I needed five minutes to think.”
“Bullshit.You didn’t trust me or Ty enough to bring this to us straight away,” Dale said.“You took a gun in your face on our site and kept it from us.You don’t do that.Not here.Not ever.”
“I didn’t keep it from you,” Oren said, heat climbing his cheekbones.“I’m saying it now.”
“After we had dinner together, and then after we talked about drones and Hogan and everything else,” Dale said, and Ty heard the line under the words—you didn’t trust me or Ty, you keep bringing us things after the fact, we need the truth when it happens.“Hell, in the gym the other morning you berated Ty for holding something in that nearly broke him, and now?You do the same damn thing.”
Ty held up a hand, not to referee, just to slow the spin.“Okay.He was inside and he put a gun on you.He wants an audience for whatever fucked up plan he has for you, and his eyes looked wrong.We can work with that.”He looked at Oren.“Did he say how he got in?”
“He said he’s a man not many places can keep out,” Oren said.“He liked that line.A lot.”
Marsh growled.“Let’s see if the fucker is still laughing when I close whatever fucking door he’s using on his face.”
Bateman leaned forward, placing his fists against the conference table.“Anything else, Oren?”
