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Forty-Five
LIAM
I stared at the drone footage for the fifth time, straining to see the same thing Duncan and Julius had. The maps of the area matched perfectly. It was the right province, the right village.
“See him?”
The line of people was blurred, almost beyond recognition. I could barely make out individuals, much less faces. But there was one thing I was definitely sure of, watching them shamble forward in a relatively straight line:
They were definitely beingled.
“That’s our guy right there,” said Julius, freezing the video with a quick tap of the laptop’s spacebar. “It’s gotta be him.”
I shook my head slowly, still unable to agree. Or disagree, for that matter.
“What’s Wraith saying?”
“They’re convinced. They’re ready to send everything.”
Duncan whistled low. “Everything?”
Julius turned away from the laptop to look back at us stoically. “You have no idea how important this client is.”
So far the intel we’d gotten back had been sparse, but even sparse was absolutely fantastic for an area as remote as this. We were looking down into what amounted to ninety-percent jungle. The tree canopy was so thick your eyes began playing tricks with every new clump of pixels.
“We brought Archon in two days ago,” said Julius. “They’re sending a team of six, led by Max.”
My eyes went wide. “Maxis going?”
“Yes.”
“Holy shit.”
Archon was one of the newer groups who’d joined the Shop, but they were also the hungriest. Their members were young, ambitious. What they lacked in field experience they more than made up for in terms of cutting-edge firepower and large, boulder-sized balls.
Still, an outfit like that could get reckless. And when that happened, things could go from bad to worserealfast.
“Seems like overkill,” I said, and I meant it. “Too many cooks. Not enough broth.”
“I disagree,” said Duncan.
I glanced back at him in surprise. Duncan usually liked things small, surgical, neat. I figured he’d back me up on this.
“It’s a whole jungle out there,” Duncan went on. “You don’t find the needle in a haystack with only a few people poking at it.”
“What then?” I demanded. “Do you burn the whole thing down? Sift through the ashes with a magnet? You’ll find the needle, sure. But you won’t be happy with what it looks like.” I rubbed the back of my aching neck. “And neither will the client.”
The guys stayed silent for a moment. With the twins already sleeping, the house seemed unusually still without Delilah in it.
“If I told you the sheer amount of resources at our disposal right now,” said Julius, “you’d shit right down your leg. But I don’t have the time.” He pointed at the fuzzy object on the laptop’s screen. “Hedoesn’t have time, either.”
Julius closed the computer and stood up. I knew what was coming next. I knew it the moment I saw what boots he had on.
“I’m going.”
I couldn’t stop him — not even if I wanted to. Once Julius decided upon something like this, the wheels were already irrevocably in motion.
Duncan and I glanced at each other wordlessly. A wealth of information passed between us, and we nodded curtly.
