Ian nodded toward him. “Lex Harper’s timeline is collapsing faster than expected. The buyers he’s supposed to impress are paranoid. They’ll test you. Hard. You’ll need to lean on Dante.”
Ford’s gaze slid to Dante. “I plan to.”
Zach interjected, “They’ll assume any security Harper brings is as dirty as he is. That’s your strength. You don’t flinch. You don’t posture. You don’t break character.”
Dante took the words in and let them settle.
Ian continued, “You’re not going as Bravo Team. You’re not a gunman on a ridge. You’ll be inside the lion’s mouth. Eyes open. Heart rate steady.”
Dante leaned back, finally letting his spine hit the seat. “I know the job.”
“No,” Ian said quietly. “You know the outline. You don’t know the details yet.”
He pressed a button, and the screen shifted to a still image. It was grainy, taken from a drone. A warehouse compound. Armed men smoking under a corrugated metal awning. A heavy crate being unloaded by a forklift. The container had no markings.
Zach exhaled. “That’s the most alarming thing about it.”
Ford didn’t blink. “They don’t mark ghosts.”
Tate looked at Dante, eyes sharp. “Your presence tells them Harper is cautious. That he’s not stupid.”
“And it tells them,” Zach added, “if they try anything stupid… someone is going to end them before they get a second shot.”
Ian let the silence sit for a long beat before he finally asked, “You ready?”
Dante’s eyes stayed on the dark window for a moment. He saw nothing but reflection. The ghost of himself. The ghost of Shannon’s face as he walked out her door. Then he looked back at Ian, Ford, Zach, and Tate. They were men who all carried their own ghosts. “I’m ready.”
Ford nodded once, sealing it.
Ian leaned back, satisfied.
Tate let out the breath he’d been holding.
Zach closed his legal pad.
And the jet kept cutting eastward, toward Ramstein, toward Africa, toward the fire.
Toward whatever waited for them on the other side. No one slept on the plane.
THIRTY-SEVEN
SOMEWHERE IN NORTH AFRICA – SAFEHOUSE
The safehouse was a forgotten villa carved out of cracked stucco and wind-burned stone, its windows shuttered, its interior stripped down to bare essentials and hard shadows. Generator lights hummed low. It smelled of sand, metal, and too many secrets.
Ford stood before the mirror, adjusting the cuff of his linen jacket, gold Rolex gleaming with quiet menace against his wrist. The trimmed beard, the expensive chain, the deliberate weight in his posture didn’t belong to Ford Cox.
This wasAleksander Harper.The buyer. The shark. He was the man with more money than conscience.
Martin Bailey’s warning replayed in his head.Once you step into Harper, you don’t step out until this is over.They all remembered Troy Bremen and what could happen after a cover fell apart. The operation he was working to end did everything they could to destroy him. It took over a year for him to recover. And many scars remained.
Ford tucked Harper’s passport into the inner pocket of his jacket, the leather worn just enough to look dangerous but not desperate. Behind him, Dante finished buttoning the collar of a charcoal shirt. It was tailored, understated, expensive, and every detail calculated to signalthis man is paid to keep other men alive. Except he wasn’t Dante Olivetti anymore. He was Rafe Moretti, Harper’s private security specialist, Gulf-trained, ex-PMC, the man buyers hired when they wanted muscle that didn’t flinch.
His hair was slicked back. A two-day shadow kept him hard around the edges. And the watch he wore wasn’t for show. It hid a tiny ceramic blade and a burst-signal transmitter in case things went sideways.
“You ready?” Lex Harper’s voice already settled into that low, careless drawl of a man who didn’t fear much.
Dante slid a shoulder holster into place beneath his jacket, movements clean and controlled. “Been ready.” His tone was flatter, colder than the one he used back home. Rafe Moretti didn’t waste breath on warmth.
