Page 96 of Only the Hunter

I spy the notepad filled with names and arrows and momentarily forget about the coffee.

My skin tingles with frenetic energy. It’s familiar. Addictive. It’s how I feel when I’m close to the winning hand.

“Talk me through it,” I say as I approach the Nespresso machine, keeping him and the notepad in my sight.

His attention remains on me. It shouldn’t matter. But it does.

The machine spits out my coffee and I join him at the desk. We’re not touching, but we’re close.

He walks me through Meridian Risk Solutions—on paper, a perfectly legal influence operation. In practice? There’s rot beneath the surface. I can feel it even before the facts finish stacking. The same instinct that’s never failed me before.

The Alpine Refuge Network, a Swiss conduit for cartel money. Not drug money exclusively—not anymore. These networks diversify. Guns, people, whatever moves through the same laundering pipes with the least resistance. Trafficking is just another commodity to them.

The DHS authorization was shaped by Meridian consultants on Alpine’s board. The payment timing—that’s a clincher.

He also shares that Quinn’s pulled three other trafficking cases with similar timelines before getting dropped—that’s pattern evidence. And then, lastly, the personal detail—the metadata cluster after my car accident, the theoretical brake line failure.

I’ve pulled up a chair, listening, following the tip of his pencil as he taps each point on his pad.

“What do you think?” If this were Michael Harridan, or any of the other A-types in the DOJ, he’d be detailing all the next steps without ever considering my take. But that’s not Gabriel. He respects me. And that matters.

I sit back in the chair, half zoning, half contemplating. And then everything crystallizes. “This isn’t just DOJ. This is DHS, FBI, maybe higher.” I reach for the pad and one of the pens sitting on the desk and turn his laptop so I can review the screen.

“It’s all there,” Gabe says. “Quinn formatted for easy review.”

“This is incredibly detailed. Wire transfers, metadata, authorization chains. How did—” a sinking feeling balls in the pit of my stomach. “ARGUS.”

Gabe tilts his head, expression inquisitive, not defensive. “Does it matter?”

“Yes. It matters. Because none of this is admissible.”

“It tells you where to look.”

“That’s not how prosecutions work, Gabe. I can’t walk into a judge’s chambers and say, ‘a private AI surveillance system told me to subpoena these records.’ I need legal predicate. Probable cause. Clean evidence chains.”

“So we build it.”

“How? If I request financial records on Meridian Risk Solutions without a predicate, they’ll know someone tipped me off. If I subpoena DHS authorization logs without a reason, I expose that I know what to look for. The second I move, they’ll know I have a source.”

“Then we move carefully.”

I chew on the end of the hotel pen—and then close my eyes, breathing out frustration. “Careful won’t re-open Operation Safe Passage. Or my case.” My voice tightens despite my effort to keep it steady. “If the case doesn’t re-open, I can’t get justice for Lina. I can’t stop this trafficking ring.”

“We’ll get all the evidence you need to force the DOJ to re-open the case.”

I can’t sit still, so I stand and pace.

Putting up obstacles won’t help us. Besides, one thing I live by—when an obstacle appears, find a way around it.

“Alright,” I say, the fog clearing as the path sharpens. “We’ll use the ARGUS intelligence as a roadmap but build legally admissible evidence through proper channels.”

Gabe crosses his arms over his chest—which is a good look—but it’s the admiration in his expression that has me looking away, not in shame. That’s not it. Just slightly uncomfortable. But, I have to shake that feeling off—and focus.

“Let’s think this through,” I say, my back to Gabe, as I gaze through the French doors at the view of Lake Geneva. “Meridian Risk Solutions received payments before the case obstruction. Right? That’s what your dates show.”

“Confirmed,” Gabe says.

“I can file an FOIA request for DOJ case status updates on all trafficking cases in the last two years. I’ll say I’m reviewing departmental patterns for resource allocation analysis.”