Page 9 of Anchor
“Understood.”
Reid held his weapon as they took the service stairs, their feet pounding on metal steps. The open door exhaled cold rooftop air. The suspect ran for the helipad’s shadow. A device in his hand blinked red.
“Freeze,” Reid called, closing in. “Hands open.”
The man ran faster. Reid cursed. His shoes weren’t built for sprinting along gravel, but he ran anyway.
He hit the man like a tackling dummy, and the two of them ate roof grit. The device skittered, face cracking into a spider web. The gravel bit Reid’s palms. Pressing his knee into the man’s spine as an anchor, he tucked his gun in its holster. A zip tie locked his wrists.
Claire crouched, exhaling through her nose. “The device is not passive.”
He rolled the little black box in his palm. Two icons. No menu. “Live?”
“Two-way,” she said. “Probably not a Chase relay.”
Reid keyed his mic. “Third tango detained. Uplink recovered. Rooftop. Request backup and tech support.”
“If it’s talking to a relay you don’t control, you’ve got seconds, not minutes, before whoever’s listening moves.” Claire’s lips flattened.
“Copy,” came fast, focused. “And Anchor? Nice work.”
A help, he thought. He turned the unit. There were no ports. Two icons looked like decisions.
The detainee watched the gravel like he was counting stones. Around his neck, a Chase guest lanyard hung with the limp authority of something that should never have been sanctioned.
“They’re here for measurement,” Claire said. “Not theft.”
Coverage. Response flow. Fail points,Reid thought. He could feel the shape of the test in his bones, the way the comm cut him out from his own team to see who he became.
“They weren’t watching,” she said. “They were planning.”
Quinn “Stack” Campbell ghosted in with three operators from Bravo team, bodies that moved like opinions you don’t argue with.
“Black Cell with the others.” Reid handed Stack the dead weight on the asphalt. “And lock away this uplink before it tells its friends it’s lonely.”
Reid looked at Claire and let his two instincts argue without raising their voices.Protect. Employ.He split the difference. “She’s coming off the floor.” Someone above his paygrade would make the decision.
Stack’s eyes flicked between them. “Understood.”
“Detention?” she asked inscrutably.
“Protection,” he said. “Short leash until I know why we were this interesting.”
The device blinked rapidly and died. “Wire,” Reid said. “It cut itself.”
“Deadman,” he replied. “Somebody just killed the line. They got what they wanted.”
Claire’s jaw tightened. “Then do with me what you’re doing with that box,” she said. “Don’t drop me. Trace me.”
He didn’t give her the satisfaction of approval. He looked at the team. “Minimal footprint. Move.”
Reid stared down at the man in custody walking with the Bravo team members.Scout.
LUCIEN VOS’S SAFEHOUSE – LATER
Cold light from three stacked monitors flayed the room thin. Lucien Vos watched it all without touching the arm of the chair or the rim of the glass beside him.
On the far wall, Chase Ann Arbor HQ’s entrance replayed on a loop. The frame paused, he said, “Claire Bowman,” at the millisecond where she looked into the lens without advertisingthe fact. Half-degree chin lift. That tiny, inaudible signal. He chuckled. “Not prey.”
