Page 168 of The ARC Unit: Breach

Raven found the first stronger link by 7:42.

One of the fuel cards attached to the transport account had been used by a van on the Eberhardt schedule the night the seventeen women disappeared. The same card had been used again outside Offenburg three days later and twice more within five kilometers of the cold-storage property.

“That’s enough for movement,” I said.

“Enough to say the route comes here,” Raven corrected. “Still not enough to say the women are inside today.”

“Keller has three vans going in and none coming out.”

“I know. I’m being annoying because you taught me to be.”

“I regret everything.”

Wolf’s voice came from the opposite side of the table. “Keep regretting it.”

I turned toward him.

He had changed into a plate carrier and was checking his belt, the HK416 resting on the table beside him while he moved through magazines and equipment with the same quiet precision I had watched during training. The black retention webbing hung folded beside the holster. I looked back at Raven’s screen and concentrated on the fuel card.

By 9:15, German authorities had enough to authorize a closer surveillance position and prepare an emergency entry if the evidence developed. Keller moved a small team into an adjacent industrial property under a maintenance cover while Hawk and Viper left separately to inspect the outer approaches without crossing the perimeter. The next two hours gave us the piece Wolf had been waiting for.

A white van entered through the east service gate at 10:18. German surveillance photographed the driver and Raven ran the face against the evidence recovered from Varga’s phone and found him in three courier images, including one taken outside Lyon after a transfer connected to the same higher-level approval number.

Then another man stepped out of the passenger side.

Dark hair reached his shoulders.

The photograph was grainy because Keller’s officer had shot it through two layers of glass from across the industrial road. The man’s face was turned away at first, one hand holding the door while he looked toward the building.

My body recognized him before Raven advanced to the next frame. The second photograph caught enough of his profile.

Kade.

He wore a dark jacket and black trousers, half his hair pulled back loosely at the crown. The easy version from Stuttgart was gone with the white linen shirt and champagne, and there was no pool or Luca laughing nearby to soften the setting. He looked calmer than the men around him and far more dangerous because I knew what those vans might contain.

Raven enlarged the image.

Wolf came around the table.

“That’s him,” I said.

Nobody questioned it.

I kept my hands flat against the table so I would not do anything stupid with them. I had spent time alone with Kade in a cabana. I had heard his voice closer than anyone else on the team. I looked back at the image.

“How long has he been there?”

Keller answered through the open channel. “Vehicle arrived six minutes ago. No departure yet.”

Wolf’s voice went colder. “Keep eyes on every exit. Do not approach him.”

“Understood.”

Raven pulled up the wider case board and placed the new image beside the Kade file. The evidence around him had grown ugly since Stuttgart. Varga’s phone put his approval structure above emergency route changes. Haus Eberhardt connected that structure to forced transfers after escape attempts. The Strasbourg account now touched drivers and a site that could be holding women we had failed to reach the first time. Wolf looked at the board for several seconds before addressing the room.

“Kade is secondary to the rooms.”

Jackal had come downstairs dressed for work by then, his recovery restrictions visible mostly in the way Bear had removed half the equipment he would normally carry. He leaned against the edge of the table.