The others spread without being told. Honey first out of habit, hands empty but coiled. Ghost slower, steady, posture tight like he’s listening to something under the world instead of inside his head. Snow hums to himself, tuneless and too pleasedto be breathing. Hatchet stops at the edge of the light and becomes part of the dark. Nightshade doesn’t move at all.
He just stands there, jaw locked, eyes fixed on a point only he can see.
Valentine’s phone vibrates.
He doesn’t answer it immediately. Just looks at the screen, expression sharpening into something thin and precise, then turns slightly away from us and accepts the call. His voice is low. Administrative. The tone of a man filing paperwork in real time.
When he turns back, the air feels lighter and more dangerous for it.
“There’s been a report,” he says, “about the helicopter that allegedly went missing from the island.”
Honey snorts. “Allegedly.”
Valentine nods. “It supposedly went down in the Scottish Highlands about an hour ago. Intel suggests they were moving her.”
Snow lifts his brows. “That’s ambitious.”
“It’s misdirection,” Valentine says. “Someone wants attention pointed north.”
Nightshade speaks without turning. “She’s not north. There’s no way. If they were going north, they would have taken her that way weeks ago.”
I study him. The clarity in his eyes is new – not calm, exactly, but resolved. Something has clicked into place behind his ribs and stayed there.
“Where then?” Honey asks.
“East,” Nightshade says. “Water. Commercial routes. Faster handoffs. North keeps her boxed. East lets her disappear.”
Valentine watches him with open interest now. “You sound certain.”
“I’m guessing right now,” Nightshade replies. His fingers flex once at his side. “But she has a tracker.”
The dock goes still.
“A second one,” he adds.
Snow whistles. “Jesus.”
“I embedded it,” Nightshade says, flat. “Long before this. At first it was risk management. Then it was insurance.” His gaze flicks to me, measured. “It’s encrypted. I need hardware that doesn’t exist on this side of the Atlantic to decode it.”
Everyone looks at me.
Even Valentine.
I don’t pretend surprise. I brought the burner phone. That already answered the question.
I pull it free and peel away the old wrap. It’s scarred, heat-warped, obsolete – exactly the kind of thing that still works when newer systems don’t.
“This gets one call out,” I say. “After that, it’s inbound only.”
Nightshade nods. “Make it count.”
I walk down the dock until the tide slaps iron and the lights thin enough for shadows to mean something again. I sit on a rusted bench, power the phone on, and feel the world crawl back into the device.
One bar. Enough.
The line rings twice.
Then—
