Page 6 of Anchor
“You won’t,” Vos cut in like ice. “You’re not the knife. You’re the silence before it strikes. Don’t move. Don’t draw notice. Hold steady.”
“Understood.”
Vos rose. His black rig made no sound. This space was built to erase every trace of human presence. No hum, no warmth—only control.
At one monitor, he paused. A loading dock with two operators passing gear. And just at the frame’s edge stood awoman. She moved with awareness, not rushing and not lost. Vos’s eyes lingered.
The mole spoke again, softer now. “You’ve had me in place nearly three years. What’s the endgame?”
Vos didn’t look away from the screens. “We’re not breaking into Chase. We’re hollowing it out. Piece by piece. So when they reach for certainty, they find only ghosts.”
“And your gala team?”
“Replaceable.”
The mole’s voice lowered further. “What if someone… doesn’t fit the pattern?”
Vos stepped closer to the wall of feeds, eyes hard as stone. “Then we find them. We measure them. And we destroy everything they value, one consequence at a time.”
He ended the call. The monitor went black.
Vos stood alone, the quiet pressing in like a storm that hadn’t yet broken. And miles away, Ian Chase had no idea the first cut had already landed. He just hadn’t started bleeding yet.
THREE
CHASE INTERNATIONAL HQ – ANN ARBOR – JUNE 14 – 1812 HOURS
The building held its breath when the motorcade curved into the drive. Lenses pivoted by degrees. A low hum of routing bled into the marble like current. Brass railings softened the light into honey.
There were no sirens, no flags, just a soft recalibration of the building’s electronic nervous system. On the ops floor, one level below the party, little green tags turned gold as face IDs and gait patterns matched to the invitation list.
Reid, posted at the southern wall, didn’t look like he was posted anywhere. The tux fit like it belonged to a man who forgot nothing, tailored to his body and to move. His comm whispered in his right ear—the light murmur of Ann Arbor’s lead techie, Wire. When something shifted, it came from the barebones reassurance of other men in suits who could turn a glass room into a kill house if they had to.
He watched the room the way men watch the surf before they enter. He gauged timing, pressure, and break points.
“Dignitary 4 inbound,” Wire’s voice murmured. His pulse didn’t change.
The rear door of the vehicle opened like a magician’s hand. A stiletto heel preceded a column of steel-gray silk. Senator Heather Bowman stood as if an invisible string was attached to the ceiling, a smile honed to a weapon. She knew where the cameras were without looking. She breathed this kind of room like oxygen she’d filtered herself.
Her daughter, Claire Bowman, followed. The young college professor wore a black dress with a low whisper to it, its sequins catching light without begging for it. Her hair was pinned, one loose piece near her ear.
ATRIUM
Claire didn’t pause. She mapped sightlines and blind corners masquerading as décor. The too-bright bounce off the east stage crystals made a glare-shadow that could hide a shape for exactly two seconds at a time. The camera above the entrance swept side to side. She tipped her chin a fraction to let whoever was watching know she knew they were watching.
“You’re not drinking,” Heather said, eyes forward, smile held in a place between charm and teeth.
“I don’t trust the room enough to dull my senses.” Claire tightened her fingers around the stem of a water flute she genuinely didn’t remember accepting.
“You’re not here to trust it,” Heather said. “You’re here to be seen.”
By whom? Claire didn’t ask it aloud. Her dress was chosen for silhouette, not fantasy. The shoes were chosen for speed. Her mouth tilted a millimeter. “I should be grading papers.”
“You could be a hundred other things,” Heather said, eyes on the nearest camera. “And yet, here you are.”
Claire’s gaze found the southern wall and a man who wasn’t pretending to be furniture. Not handsome in the way magazines sell, but there was something in the set of his shoulders that suggested a door that would hold when pressure came. His eyes didn’t soften because a woman in a black dress looked at him. He didn’t look away because polite belongs to other moments. The line their attention drew was thin and tensile.
“Don’t,” Claire said under her breath.
