"Agreed," I say.
"I mean it."
"I said agreed, Ansel."
He gives me the look one more time, then steps back and starts packing his kit. Ciaran catches my eye over Ansel's shoulder and raises an eyebrow. We both know I can’t afford nap time with all this going on.
The war hallfills within the hour.
Strike team leads, veteran enforcers, the senior patrol captains, and Ciaran with the terrain maps already spread across the central table before anyone else arrives. I stand at the head of the table and read the faces around me—tired, sharp, the particular alertness that comes after a high-stakes night that hasn't fully ended yet.
"Choke points," I say, getting to it. I point to three positions on the terrain map. "The lower forest road narrows here, here, and here before it reaches the property line. Vehicles can't flank in those sections. Strike teams hold these three positions in wolf form—your job is to make the approach cost more than they're prepared to pay, not to engage in open ground."
Rafe, the senior strike lead, leans over the map. "What kind of spacing?"
"Four wolves per choke point," I say. "Two forward, two in the trees above the road. The forward pair draws attention, the overwatch pair handles anyone who dismounts and goes wide." I look up. "Nobody shifts in sight of a functioning camera or a phone. Anyone who can't guarantee that discipline doesn't go to the choke points."
Murmurs circulate around the table, but no one argues. These are experienced wolves. They know the rules.
I turn to Ciaran. "The younger wolves."
"Running drills on the south field now," he says. "I've pulled them off direct assault entirely. They're learning flanking." He pauses. "At their level, psychological pressure is more reliable than physical contact."
"Keep them off the choke points," I say. "Southern perimeter only. They make noise and they hold the line."
"Understood."
I move to the ridge positions marked in red. "I want four veteran enforcers at each overwatch location. These aren't fighting positions, but observation and communication. If the convoy changes formation, I need to know before the choke point teams do." I look along the table. "I'll be mobile between the ridge positions. Ciaran has command authority on the ground."
Ciaran nods once.
"These people are funded and organized," I say. "That means they have a plan and they'll stick to it until the plan stops working. Our goal is to make the plan stop working as fast as possible. People making individual decisions under pressure make mistakes." I look around the table. "We don't massacre them. We demoralize them and push them back to the county road. Whatever happens tonight, it doesn't become a story that brings federal attention to these mountains."
"And if they don't turn back?" Rafe asks.
"Then we make it expensive enough that turning back becomes the obvious choice." I meet his eyes. "I want minimum casualties on both sides. These may be hired guns, but some of them are just men who were paid to be here. That distinction matters."
The table processes everything I’ve said.
"Questions?"
Nobody has questions. They have assignments, and assignments are what the pack needs right now. The room disperses into motion.
Cassidy arrives a few minutes later with three printed terrain maps rolled under her arm and pine needles in her hair from the walk across the compound.
She unrolls the first map on the table without being invited to and weights the corners with whatever is closest—a radio, a coffee mug, a loose bolt from somewhere.
"These are the vehicle weight estimates based on the scout descriptions Ciaran gave me." She taps two sections of the lower road. "A loaded flatbed with a generator rig won't make this turn at speed. It'll have to slow to almost a stop, which means it'll either hang back, or it'll create a gap in the convoy formation here." She moves her finger to the second position. "That gap is your best insertion point for a flanking team coming down from the eastern slope."
I look at the map. She's right about the turn.
"And here," she says, tapping the third map, the topographic one. "This creek crossing floods seasonally. Based on the recent rain, the ground on either side is soft. Those SUVs with brush guards and roof rack weight will sink if they go off-road at this point. It funnels them back onto the road and toward the choke position you already have here."
"You mapped flood patterns," Ciaran says.
"I mapped everything," she says. "That's my job." She looks at me. "I know how humans think in terrain like this. I've spent six years tracking animals through it and watching hunters do the same. I know what a man with a rifle does when the ground doesn't behave the way he expects." She pauses. "In this case, thinking like a human is the advantage."
I look at the maps. The creek crossing is the strongest addition, and she's right about the effect on vehicle weight.
