Page 73 of Presumed Dead

“I made the same call you’re making, Vale. I made it on a Monday in October two years ago in a flower shop on Main Street in this town. I know what it costs to be the man holding the file and to be the man falling in love with somebody who’s in it. I know how it ends if you handle it well, and I know how it ends if you handle it badly. So I'm not going to tell you not to. I am going to tell you to read the file like the operational document it is, and to handle the woman like the woman she is, and to never confuse which one you're doing at any given moment. That’s it. That’s the one thing.”

Ethan took a long breath.

“All right.”

“Okay.”

Ronan picked up his tea and took a longer drink this time.

“Let's chat about the file.”

“Doyle’s phone went quiet Friday afternoon at four-oh-six,” Ronan said. “He hasn’t had a call from the principal’s network since. He’s been on his boat, on his foredeck, pretending to read a newspaper. He hasn’t left the marina.”

“I’ve been watching him.”

“I know. We have him on three of your camera angles, and I’ve got a man in a sedan on Lake Road who has him on the fourth.”

“Ronan.”

“Graham put him there last night. Sloane Mercer doesn’t know he’s there. He won’t be visible from the marina.”

Ethan absorbed that. The operation had moved a piece onto Sloane’s road without telling her. He’d known that it was coming, and he hadn’t known it had come.

“Go on.”

“The principal’s clearing the books because somebody on his end has told him the federal side knows about the maritime piece. He’s not sure how much we know. He’s acting like we know more than we do, which is the move of a man who’s scared, and a scared principal moves fast. Caleb’s now estimating the window at eight to ten days.”

“Okay. That's much faster than we thought.”

“I’d plan for eight, hope for ten, but not plan past it.”

Ethan drank his tea.

“Which means Doyle’s going to do something inside that window,” he said. “Because the principal’s going to tell him to. He’s either going to be ordered to move a last shipment, or he’s going to be ordered to disappear.”

“Or the principal will burn him to slow us down. That’s the third option.”

“Burn him how?”

“Drop a body, or drop a piece of intel that makes Doyle look like the principal, and run while we’re chasing it. That’s why I’m here, Vale. We need Doyle alive and in our hands, and the man at slip nine just became the most expensive asset in the operation. Which means he just became a target.”

Ethan watched the condensation run down his iced tea.

“And Sloane’s marina is the place he’s sitting.”

“Yes.”

Ethan let glanced at the menu, then asked the question he didn’t want the answer to.

“Are we ready to move on him?”

“Almost. We need the principal’s next call to Doyle, or a movement order, or an exfiltration order. Something concrete that links them inside this window. Caleb thinks it’ll come by Wednesday or Thursday. When it does, we move within the hour.”

“Okay, I'll be ready.”

“We can’t give Doyle time to call anyone or move anything. That’s why Graham’s in motion.”

“Okay, is he staying invisible?”