“We need someone else waiting. Put a detail team together,” I said.
“On it,” Callen responded.
Time draggedon as we waited.
Rafe eventually headed for the tunnels, laptop tucked under his arm, expression murderous.
“I’ll tear apart every inch of the place,” he said at the passage entrance. “Every access point, every camera angle, every staff member who’s ever worked for us. If there’s a breach, I’ll find it.”
Gus followed shortly after.
“Someone funded this,” he said, clasping my shoulder as he passed. “Money always leaves a trail, no matter how well they try to hide it. I’ll find it.”
Callen and I remained in the library, waiting for word from London.
The fire had burned low. The whiskey decanter sat empty on the sideboard. Outside, the afternoon light was already fading toward dusk—winter days in the Highlands were brutally short.
“You should eat,” Callen said. “Sleep.”
“I’ll sleep when this is over.”
He didn’t push. He knew me well enough to understand that some arguments weren’t worth having.
My mobile buzzed. A message on the encrypted channel.Snow.
I opened it at once, Callen reading over my shoulder.
On them. Followed from Heathrow. At her flat now.
We have a team tracking them,I responded.
His response came in seconds.I know.
Some of the tension in my chest eased. I sent another message.Any sign of surveillance?
The typing indicator appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again. In all the years I’d known Snow, I’d never seen him hesitate—not even in text.
Then his response appeared.Van across the street from her building. Blacked-out windows. Engine running. No one in or out.
The world tilted beneath my feet.
Another message arrived.Going in. Will handle.
I typed rapidly.Keep them safe. Find out who’s behind this.
His final message was characteristically brief.That’s why I’m here.
The line went dead.
18
OLIVER
The text came through at twenty-one hundred hours.
Unknown number. One word:Ostrich.
My spine straightened, and I showed the screen to Phee. Her eyes widened.
