Gabe waits for me on the runway with an old, nondescript jeep.
"How was the flight?"
"Tolerable." I don't waste time with pleasantries. We both know why we're here, and the sooner we can get it done, the better.
Gabe turns the jeep away from the city. We pass through neighborhoods that look like nothing, no landmarks, no excess, no reason to remember them. The kind of place that survives because no one ever thinks to look twice. When we finallystop, the house is exactly what it should be. Nondescript. Quiet. Forgettable.
The door opens before we knock. Inside, the living room is gone. In its place: screens, cables, laptops humming low. One wall is covered in satellite images; another in floor plans, guard rotations, and timestamps. Red marker circles. Blue lines. Photographs pinned like accusations. In short, a war room.
Gabe shuts the door behind us. "This is everything we have so far."
I don't answer. I don't need to. My eyes are already moving. Aurelio Valverde's compound dominates the central screen. High walls. Tiered security. Too much money spent on making the perimeter untouchable.
"Perimeter's a fortress," Gabe confirms what I'm seeing. "Smart sensors. Thermal. Rotating patrols. Four-hour shifts."
"Expected," I reply. "He wants people to look there."
I step closer, studying the timestamps scrolling on a side monitor. "What's the cycle?"
Gabe pulls it up. "Every hour. Every ninety seconds, there is some weird power fluctuation."
I narrow my eyes. "That's not a fault."
"No," Gabe agrees. "We thought it was at first. Grid instability. But it's too clean. Too consistent."
"So something switches," I propose. "On purpose."
"Or something opens," Gabe counters.
I don't look at him, but my mouth curves slightly. "Find out."
I shift focus inward. Interior layouts. Residential wing. Operational wing. Aurelio keeps them separate, smart again. Silvestre isn't on-site full-time, but intel says he'll be there tonight.
"They're consolidating," Gabe says. "Too many eyes on them. Too much heat."
"They know someone's coming," I predict.
"They don't know who."
I tap the image of the main gate. "We don't go through the front."
"Obviously."
"We don't hit the perimeter at all," I continue. "Too loud. Too slow. They'll move the kid the second the alarms trip."
Gabe nods. "So we wait for movement."
"No," I correct. "We force it."
I bring up another screen, local infrastructure. Old maps layered over new ones. My finger traces lines most people would ignore.
"Compounds like this don't exist in isolation," I say. "They rely on something. Water. Power. Waste. You cut one, the others react."
"Power's too obvious," Gabe says. "They'll have backup."
"Exactly," I reply. "Which means the switch matters."
Gabe exhales slowly. "So we watch the cycle."
