Chapter Four
The flight from Hawaiito Oregon took just over five hours.
Long enough for tension to coil tight and settle deep.
They flew dark again—not as aggressively as Jakarta, but deliberately.No filed flight plan on the civilian grid.Minimal transponder exposure.Luca threaded them through the edges of regulated airspace with quiet precision, while Drew handled comms that weren’t really comms at all—bursts of noise, misdirection, absence where presence was expected.
Niko sat strapped in, watching the Pacific roll beneath them, black and endless.His side still burned when he shifted, a reminder of how close this had already come.He ignored it.
Ethan’s house replayed in his mind, built entirely from fragments: the coordinates Marsh had pulled, satellite images Luca had skimmed too fast, the knowledge that wherever Ethan had chosen to live, it wouldn’t be careless.
Someone had found it anyway.
They landed outside Portland under cloud cover.He brought the craft down so that the wheels kissed the tarmac with muted finality.Thanks to the Pathfinders, vehicles were waiting—clean, unmarked, already loaded.No one spoke as they transferred gear, weapons, and comms.Black Tide moved the way they always did when the margin for error had collapsed to nothing.With intent.
The drive took them out of the city and into the forest.
Tall firs crowded the road, their trunks dark with moisture, branches forming a canopy that swallowed light.The air smelled of rain and pine and earth.Niko tracked distance automatically, mapping approach routes and fallbacks in his head.
They saw the signs before they reached the property.
Tire tracks that didn’t belong.Footprints pressed into soft ground along the tree line.Broken underbrush where someone had moved fast and heavy.
“They’re ahead of us,” Keanu murmured over the team channel.
They stopped at the perimeter, killed the engines, and climbed out.
Niko lifted a hand."Call signs active."
Weapons came up when call signs went live.The world narrowed to breath and spacing and the quiet certainty that they were no longer alone.
They moved as a cohesive unit.
The house emerged gradually through the trees—a massive structure set back from the road, modern lines softened by wood and glass.A wraparound deck stretched along two sides, elevated above the slope, railings catching the last gray light of the afternoon.Floor-to-ceiling windows faced the forest, more defensive than inviting.The kind of place designed to watch its surroundings.
Luca’s voice cut in, calm and precise.“Drones are up.Five ahead of us.Scouting pattern.Another group inbound from the south—ETA five minutes.”
Niko’s pulse ticked faster.
They spotted the first team near the edge of the deck—five men, armed, spread loose but alert.Professionals.The way they stood screamed that these men were not amateurs.
Niko gave the signal.
The takedown was fast and quiet.
It wasn’t cinematic.It was efficient.
