Rafe was sharp-edged in a way Dante wasn’t. Harder. Quieter. A man who looked like he’d killed and forgotten why.
“You sure you’re locked into Moretti?” Ford asked.
Dante’s gaze flicked up. “I’m in. Moretti doesn’t break character.”
“Good. Because Harper needs him.” He straightened his cuff again, Harper’s signature gesture—part vanity, part threat.
“You speak when you need to,” Ford reminded him. “Not before.”
“Copy,” Dante said.
“You watch the room, not the conversation.”
“Always.”
“And if they test me?” Ford asked.
Dante’s jaw flexed, a small, lethal shift. “They won’t get a second chance.”
Ford’s mouth twitched with half approval and half worry. He turned to face the door.
“First contact tonight. No weapons on the table, no direct asks about the product. They’ll want to see if Harper’s real. They’ll poke. Push. Try to smell a lie.”
Dante joined him at the door, broad shoulders relaxed just enough to look like he belonged in the life of a man like Lex Harper. “And if they do smell one?”
Lex’s arrogance slid into place. “Then we make them choke on it.”
Dante gave one small nod.
Outside, a dusty Land Cruiser waited under a half-dead fig tree, engine idling. Ford slipped sunglasses onto his face. Dante opened the door for him like the hired muscle he was supposed to be.
Together, they drove into the dark.
NORTHERN NIGER – DOD FIELD HOLDING FACILITY
The facility was a repurposed telecom relay station with concrete walls, sand-scoured windows, razor wire ringing a perimeter that was only secure on paper. The irony was sickening. They’d brought a wolf into a pen built for stray dogs.
Daniel Krueger sat on the steel bench in his holding cell, hands cuffed to a bolted ring, ankles shackled. The chain rattledsoftly as he shifted. It was the only sound in a room designed to swallow every noise. He was calm. Too calm.
The two DoD handlers, Major Kallen and Tech Sergeant Reeve, watched him through the plexiglass barrier. They looked exhausted. The kind of exhausted that made men sloppy.
When Krueger smiled, Reeve scowled. “Wipe that look off your face.”
Krueger lifted his cuffed wrists in an exaggerated shrug. “I’m just enjoying the hospitality. You boys always this tense before bedtime?”
“Cut the shit,” Kallen snapped. “We process you out in thirty minutes.”
Krueger’s smile widened slightly. Perfect. Processing meant transfer. Transfer meant paperwork. Paperwork meant someone would open the cell to escort him. He’d been waiting two days for this window.
A beep sounded at the end of the corridor. The reinforced door unlocked, and a civilian intel liaison stepped inside carrying a tablet. Dr. Alain Mercer. A psychiatrist. Technical advisor. And the weak link.
Mercer cleared his throat nervously. “We, uh, need to run through the preliminary intake questionnaire again. Some inconsistencies.”
Reeve muttered, “No one’s surprised.”
Mercer approached the terminal beside the plexiglass. “It’ll only take a few minutes.”
Krueger watched every move. He saw the trembling hand, the sweaty grip on the tablet, the badge clipped too loosely to Mercer’s belt. Sloppy. Amateur. It was a gift.
