Helena walks in as he's saying it. She's traded yesterday's exhaustion for professional composure, but the shadows under her eyes say she didn't sleep much.
There's something steady about her. Competent. The kind of person who doesn't fold under pressure. Rare quality.
She catches my look, holds it a beat longer than necessary. Something shifts in her expression—awareness, maybe. Recognition of the same calculation running through both our heads.
How long until the network makes their move.
I break eye contact first. Focus back on Briggs. No idea where that came from, and this isn't the time to figure it out.
Zeke closes the door. "Everyone's here. Let's get started."
Briggs pulls up a map on a laptop connected to a projector. Routes marked in red across Alaska and down into Washington. "The Seattle trafficking network operates on a hub-and-spoke model. Main operations in Seattle, satellite locations throughout the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. We've dismantled two cells in the past six months. Every time we shut one down, they relocate and rebuild."
"How many cells total?" I ask.
"Best estimate? Less than a dozen still operational. But the leadership stays mobile. We've identified mid-level operators, but the guy running the network, the one they call The Marshall, remains insulated." Koss taps the keyboard, brings up photos of known associates. "These are the people we've confirmed. None of them match the description of the man who came to Glacier Hollow."
I study the faces on the screen. Muscle and mid-level management. Enforcers who follow orders but don't give them. The kind of people who disappear when things go sideways and new ones step up to replace them. Kill one, two more show up. Standard hydra bullshit.
Helena leans forward. "So he's new. Or high enough in the organization that he's not in your databases."
"Exactly." Briggs's expression is grim. "Which makes him more dangerous. Lower-level operatives follow protocols. Someone we haven't identified is either new to the network or senior enough to operate independently."
Rhys slides a file across the table. "We had FBI run rental car databases for the area. Three sedans matching the description over the past few days, all rented under corporate accounts that dead-end at shell companies."
"Yeah. And that level of sophistication suggests resources." Briggs closes the laptop. "Your niece was held at a secondary location, not a primary hub. But she was there for months. Long enough to potentially see or hear things that could identify leadership."
I lean back, studying the map still projected on the wall. Routes converging on Glacier Hollow from three directions. Anchorage to the north. Whitewater Junction to the east. Seattle to the south. Calculate response times in my head—if they're staging from Anchorage, that's a couple hours minimum before any kind of coordinated extraction attempt. From Whitewater, under an hour. From Seattle, they'd need air transport—driving means multiple days.
None of those timelines work in our favor if they hit hard and fast.
"What's your response time if they make a move?" I ask Briggs.
"Depends on staging. Agents in Anchorage, but if they hit fast, we're looking at an hour and a half minimum."
Too long. Window of vulnerability too wide.
"So we're on our own for at least an hour if not more," I say.
Koss meets my eyes. "Can you hold for an hour?"
"Depends on what they send." I tap the map where the cabin sits. "Defensible position. Limited approaches. Good sight lines. Two trained operatives could hold it. One with a civilian to protect?" Pause. "Gets complicated."
One operative alone means choosing between holding position and keeping Traci alive. And if they send enough bodies, eventually the math stops working. I've held worse positions with worse odds, but those missions didn't involve keeping a traumatized kid from catching a bullet meant for me.
Briggs's jaw tightens. He gets it. "Then we make sure you're not alone when it happens."
"She hasn't spoken since the raid," I tell him. "Communicates through writing when she's willing to communicate at all."
"Has she indicated she has information?"
"She's asked if we're safe. How long we can stay hidden. Acts like she knows they're looking for her specifically, not just any escaped victim."
Briggs and Koss exchange looks. Something passes between them. They're weighing whether pushing Traci for intel is worth potentially breaking what little stability she's got.
"We'd like to interview her when she's ready," Briggs says carefully. "No pressure, no timeline. But if she can identify anyone in the organization's leadership, it could be the break we need."
"She's not ready," Helena says flatly. "Psychologically, she's barely holding together. Pushing her before she's stable will cause more damage than any testimony is worth."
