Page 30 of Code Name: Hunter
“I think he could be."
Vivian crosses her arms. "Why Wolfe? What the hell is he doing?"
The analyst taps a few keys. "Cross-reference ping location. The signal came from just outside Monaco. Then bounced."
"Where?" Fitz and I ask in unison.
"Corsica. Off-grid site flagged as inactive three years ago. But there's recent traffic—encrypted comms routed through backdoor NATO protocols. Not ours. Not official."
My jaw locks.
Vivian’s expression hardens. "Corsica had two MI-6 assets once. One was Wolfe. They know I was there."
The realization hits like a body blow. My lungs constrict. Two pings. That means someone tracked her before the rooftop. Before I even reached her.
A flash fires behind my eyes—Prague. That damn site. The smell of wet ash and diesel, the smear of blood on a cracked floor tile. The encrypted logs we never decrypted. The ghost we never buried.
Back then, I’d refused to consider it. Refused to picture a world without her. Now, that refusal feels dangerous. Naïve. Because whatever this is, it didn’t end in Prague. It started there. And part of me wonders if I missed the pattern because I didn’t want to see it. Because I couldn’t bear the idea that the betrayal wasn’t buried with Wolfe—that it might’ve been sitting beside me this whole time.
I thought we’d sealed it off. Closed the file, burned the bridge. But the burn site never stopped smoldering, and in fact it may have sparked back to life.
I glance at Vivian. She’s holding herself too still again, like she’s listening not with her ears, but her instincts. And I know that posture. That look in her eyes. She’s bracing for betrayal.
My hand flexes at my side. I want to reach for her. I want to believe this isn’t what it looks like. But I’ve learned the hard way—every instinct has its blind spot. And mine? They all start with her.
I nod. "So we go now."
"You and her," Fitz says.
Vivian blinks. "Together?"
Fitz’s voice is granite. "You two stirred a hornet’s nest. That tracker wasn’t Cerberus—wasn’t even on our radar. This smells like an inside game. And Logan?"
"Yeah?"
"You’ve got field command. She’s your shadow."
Vivian opens her mouth to argue. I cut her off. "Fine."
Fitz narrows his eyes. "There’s more. That metadata? Some of it traces back to Prague. Code strings embedded in that device mirror part of a locked file set from the first burn site. Only one person had access."
He doesn’t say it. Doesn’t need to.
Vivian goes quiet.
I glance at the screen. My gut twists.
Because I recognized that encryption pattern. And I know for a fact where I’ve seen it before—inside a closed MI-6 intel packet from a Prague mission only three agents ever had keys to.
One was me. One was Wolfe. The other was her.
I say nothing.
Fitz pivots. "You leave in four hours. Go dark. Don’t contact anyone not in this room. Assume we’re compromised."
Vivian nods once. Crisp. Controlled.
I turn to leave.
