I bypass the main entrance, steering toward the service ramp to the fourth level. The employee lot. Isolated. Poor lighting. Minimal camera coverage. If I were Mercer, that’s where I’d position the grab team.
I park in the shadows of the back row, facing the exit. Tactical positioning. Always leave yourself a backdoor. I kill the engine and crack the window an inch.
The air reeks of oil leaks, stale urine, and cold damp. The smell of danger.
I wait.
Silence is my natural state. I don’t run the radio. I don’t scroll a feed. I sit perfectly still, slowing my heart rate, expanding my senses until the truck becomes an extension of my own nervous system. The hum of the distant highway vibrates through the open window, mixing with the rhythmic drip of water from a leaky pipe three pillars over and the scuff of a rat in the trash.
Ten minutes later, the elevator gears grind. A mechanical whine in the quiet.
The bell chimes. A cheerful, discordant sound in the gloom.
The doors slide open.
Dr. Iris Kincaid walks out.
I recognize her from the dossier Hutchinson sent to my secure tablet, but the photo didn’t do her justice. The file shot was clinical. ID badge, neutral expression, flat lighting. It didn’t capture the energy. Even from fifty yards out, through the dirty windshield and the shadows, her frame vibrates.
She hugs herself, head down, moving fast. Her stride runs uneven, choppy, like she’s fighting gravity, or the urge to bolt.
I assess her the way I assess a threat. I strip away the person and map the variables.
Target: Iris Kincaid. Height, five-seven. Build, slender but not frail. Muscle definition in the legs. Status, terrified. She checks her six every three steps. Cortisol redlined. Vulnerability, critical.
She wears tight jeans, fashionable but restrictive for running or climbing. Heavy fashion boots, good for traction, bad for speed. Her dark hair escapes a clip in errant tendrils that whip across her face in the wind. She looks gutted, brittle. The kind of woman who breaks when you apply too much pressure.
Too pretty for this world.
The thought surfaces unbidden. A rogue variable. A glitch in my programming. Not tactical. Appreciation. I shove it down, locking it in a mental box. I don’t get paid to admire the aesthetic qualities of the asset. I get paid to keep the asset breathing.
She reaches her car, a silver Honda, ten years old, with a dented rear bumper. Bought during her residency, probably. Too buried in medical-school loans to upgrade to something that matches the prestige of the title she now carries.
She fumbles for her keys.
Her hands shake. The tremor reads from here.
Clumsy. Panic response. Fine motor skills degrade under stress. Dexterity goes first.
She drops the keys. They clatter on the concrete, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the vast empty space.
She mouths a curse and bends to retrieve them.
Three rows over. Sector 4. A black sedan idles, lights off, engine running low, a purr blending into the background drone of the city. I missed it.
Focus, Vance.
The rear window rolls down a few inches.
Light snags on something dark and matte. Cylindrical. Purpose-built. A suppressor noses into the gap like an indrawn breath before the scream.
“Damn it.”
The words come out in a low growl in the cab of the truck.
They aren’t trying to grab her. They’re scrubbing the loose end right here. A double-tap in a dark garage. Clean. Simple. No witnesses.
I don’t think. I surrender to the physics of the moment.
