I lifted my chin, took a deep breath, and muttered to the empty room, “Hang on, Kara. I’m coming for you.”
CHAPTER 18
Roman
My driver waited by the car, engine purring, headlights cutting through the dark outside. I was halfway across the marble floor on the ground floor of my building when my phone vibrated in my hand.
Orlov.
I answered on the first ring. “Talk to me.”
“I found them,” he said without ceremony. I could hear the keys clicking under his fingers, a quick, staccato rhythm that matched the pulse in my throat. “That picture you sent me, it took some work, but I figured it out. They’re still in Dubai, in an industrial zone, Port Rashid perimeter. Specifically, an unfinished section of the dry-dock reclamation yards. Hangar fifteen.”
I stepped out into the night, the city’s humid air washing over me. “How do you know?”
“The skyline in the window gave it away,” Orlov said. “That cylindrical tower behind them, it’s the Al Habtoor Business Centre. To the left, you’ve got a construction crane from the new marina project. The angle and the light tell me the photo was taken facing northwest, late afternoon. Based on the window height and known building permits, there’s only one cluster of structures that fit those sightlines.”
“And that is?”
“An old cargo inspection site,” he said. “Someone used it a few years back as a supply cache before the city shut it down. The building has a clear line of sight to the skyline you sent me—ten, maybe twelve stories high. Whoever’s holding them knew exactly where to vanish.”
I exhaled slowly, fingers tightening around the phone. “Send me the coordinates.”
“You’ll have them in thirty seconds. And Roman?—”
“What?”
“I know who you’re dealing with. This group that you mentioned, Revenant, well, they don’t leave witnesses. If you’re going in, go hard, and go now.”
The line clicked dead.
I slid into the back seat, the driver glancing up in the rearview mirror. “Where to, sir?”
“Port Rashid,” I said. “Industrial zone. Dry-dock reclamation yards. Fast.”
The car lurched forward, tires squealing on the pavement. I stared out the window as the lights of the city fell behind us and the road to the port stretched ahead.
It was 11:43 p.m.
It was time to make some calls.
Nadia was first.
She answered on the second ring, her voice flat and serious. Nadia ran our signals team—cell scramblers, drone feeds, the kind of woman who could make a whole neighborhood look like a dead zone to the wrong eyes.
“Nadia. I need a bubble,” I said. “Port Rashid, hangar fifteen. Blackout on civilian channels all around the perimeter. I need comms clean for thirty minutes starting 23:55. Can you make it look like a power surge?”
A soft humph was the closest Nadia got to a chuckle. “You always have a flair for the dramatic, Roman. I’ll put a blackout in the nearest relay. You’ll get white noise for twenty minutes; anything beyond that and we’ll get the kind of attention we don’t want.”
“Do it.”
My next call was to Jules. He was French and had the steadiest hands I’ve ever seen, longest-sighted shooter we had across Europe and the Gulf. “Jules. I need you tonight. You and two others. You good to go?”
“Always,” he said. “Coordinates?”
“Sent. You take your pick of cover. I’ll ping you with the location.”
I called Hassan and sent him the coordinates next. He was our fixer and could acquire whatever I needed when I needed it. “Get me two vans, dark, small plates. Then get me some drivers who don’t ask questions.”
