The moment he's gone, I act.
There's a communications room on the lower level filled with satellite phones, encrypted terminals, and emergency uplinks. I shouldn't have access; my clearance was stripped the day I arrived.
But the Kennel didn't teach me how to ask.
It taught me how to take.
The corridor is deserted. The cameras in this wing are old and sluggish, designed more for deterrence than scrutiny. The door to the comms room is locked—cheap hardware on a sturdy steel frame, a contradiction that arises when maintenance budgets are misappropriated.
The lock yields.
It always does if you know where to push.
Inside, the room hums softly with standby power. The lights are dim, and racks of equipment sit like slumbering animals. The satellite phone rests in its designated spot, cradled and charging, a red indicator blinking slowly.
I lift it.
For a moment, I simply hold it, my thumb hovering near the keypad, contemplating what it means to cross this line. Once I dial, there's no returning to a state of being stored away. There is only action, and action always carries consequences.
Ivan gave me this number in Chicago, late one night when neither of us could sleep.
"Just in case," he had said, as if the world weren't filled with cases.
I don't know if it still works.
I don't know if he'll answer.
I don't know if my call will trigger an alert somewhere and send a man with a gun racing down this corridor before I can get the warning out.
I dial anyway.
Static.
Silence.
The vast distance between Russia and Chicago stretches across a link that feels too fragile to convey anything human.
I start counting the seconds without realizing it. One. Two. Five. Ten.
I'm about to hang up when the line clicks.
A breath.
Then a voice I haven't heard in three months.
"Who is this?"
Ivan.
The sound of his voice hits me in the chest like a punch, stripping the air from the room.
I tighten my grip on the phone until my knuckles ache.
"It's me," I say, my voice rough and raw from disuse and the cold. "I found something."
Silence on the line—controlled, attentive.
"Boris is still active," I continue. "Or someone is using his cipher. Unregistered shipments are moving through Warehouse Seven. Old markings. Off-book logs dated three weeks ago. Your situation isn't clean."
