Page 32 of The ARC Unit: Breach

“No.”

“That sounded like a conditional yes.”

Wolf opened the equipment room door.

“Work, Mercer.”

Then he disappeared inside.

I looked at Raven.

He lifted both hands. “I have no idea.”

“You’re his intelligence officer.”

“That doesn’t make me his translator.”

I sat back down, but the question stayed with me for the rest of the afternoon.

The cloned registration finally produced another dozen false hits across Europe, most of which turned out to be unrelated plate-reading errors or vehicles that couldn’t be confirmed. We narrowed the useful appearances to the original three and one possible sighting near Vienna that Raven refused to count until he obtained better imagery.

TOO SLOW remained separate.

By evening, my notebook had filled several pages. Targets are being watched before ARC. Somebody is also watching ARC directly.

Beneath both, I wrote:

Same person? Same network?

I stared at the questions.

Across the operations room, Hawk and Bear were cleaning equipment while Viper worked on something at one of the side stations. Jackal had taken over part of the couch and was throwing a rubber training ball against the wall until Bear told him that if it hit one of the screens, he was withholding food from him for a week. Raven sat beside me, rubbing one hand over his eyes. Wolf was nowhere in sight.

I looked toward the windows, where the training grounds had almost disappeared into the dark mist.

“Raven.”

“Hm?”

“Give me a tour.”

He lowered his hand.

“A tour.”

“I’ve seen my room, the world’s worst bathroom and approximately twelve feet of this building. I want to see the rest.”

Raven looked toward the doorway Wolf had used earlier.

“I’m fairly certain he just told me to keep you out of the armory.”

“Then don’t take me into the armory.”

“You are going to ask.”

“Probably.”

“Mia.”