“Both,” Amanda said. “There’s a sublease on the same lot. ‘Overflow storage.’ No cameras on the official map. That’s your basement. Or it’s where they stage before they move.”
The wordbasementdid a low, hard thing in my chest. The room tilted a notch to the left, then righted. Ariel’s hand found mine without looking. Grip: firm. Ground: regained.
“Matches what I heard,” I said. “Downstairs they called it a depot. I heard Watcher say, ‘load humanitarian’ and ‘northern bay.’ He wanted no marks on anybody they were moving that day. Buyers were already in motion. Time window looked tight. Logistics voice loved the clock.”
“Watcher,” Ghost said, soft. “Still likes to announce himself.”
“He likes to hear himself,” I said. “Different problem.”
Amanda pulled one more sheet, smaller, folded tight. She unfolded it and laid it on top. A map. Satellite shot. Square roof. Parking apron. Tree line tight to the north. Creek to the west. Two access roads, both crap. “This is it. I printed before I shut down my console. I wasn’t waiting for permission.”
Wrecker smiled without humor. “You never do.”
She didn’t apologize. No one in that room wanted her to.
“Okay,” Wrecker said, eyes on the map, voice going that low command level he saves for when everybody needs to breathe at the same time. “We leave at sunrise.”
“It’s sunrise,” Ranger said, looking at the window.
“Then we leave now,” Wrecker said, and didn’t flinch. “Recon only. We don’t get cute. We look, we count, we get out, we plan a way in that doesn’t end with any of us on a wall.”
“Doc, you ride with Amanda,” I said. “Ghost, take the ridge side. Ranger, you’re on the creek. I’ll take the access road angle. If the sublease has a basement door it’s back there, not front.”
“Ariel stays,” Amanda said at the same time I did. Our eyes met. We both meant it.
Ariel’s chin came up like she was going to argue. She didn’t. She looked at the map instead. “That tree line is thin at the northern edge,” she said. “If there’s a camera on that loading dock, it sees anybody dumb enough to walk across open ground. Don’t be dumb.”
“You heard your sister,” Wrecker said, mouth twitching.
The radio on the desk crackled like someone had breathed into God’s shirt. Static rolled up and down the dial without anybody touching it. The ranger kid looked at me like I’d brought a storm in my pocket.
“Shortwave?” Doc asked.
“Same unit from last night,” I said. “I patched it when we got in. Range is trash in a valley, but we’ve been catching enough to know whose show it is.”
Amanda leaned over and clicked the side knob. “Base to Wrecker,” she said. “Confirm copy.”
Static sanded her voice to a ghost and threw it back at us.
“Base to Wrecker, copy.” She looked at me, tight. “We still have a link to the MC relay?”
“We had it.” I jiggled the antenna connection with a nail because sometimes caveman tech is the only tech you get. The needle wobbled. The static didn’t budge. “Something’s stepping on it.”
Ghost looked up from the window like he’d heard a dog bark outside. “Hear that?”
I didn’t. Which is how you know to listen harder.
The static changed shape. Not louder. Meaner. The hairs on my arm did the thing. The ranger kid took one reflex step toward the door and remembered the world outside wasn’t better.
Then the voice came through. Not the MC. Not any of us.
“Green light confirmed,” it said. Calm. Expensive. The kind of voice that likes mirrors. “Ridge units advance.”
We froze the way prey freezes when the wrong branch moves. Wrecker’s head came up slow. Ranger was already reaching for his rifle by muscle memory; there wasn’t a rifle within arm’s length. Ghost’s hands were empty and still dangerous. Doc glanced at Amanda like he could physically mitigate a radio.
Static ate a laugh on the tail end. I didn’t like the sound the laugh made in my memory. Watcher liked to hear himself, yeah. He also liked to land the last word. He’d just landed it on our frequency.
Ariel had both fists in the parka now, knuckles white, watching the needle like it might jump and bite. “What does that mean?”
