Page 44 of Code Name: Hunter
I lean in, scanning the message headers. “Not just alive. Working under Klein’s protection. Which means every move hemakes, every piece of intel he touches, is shielded by one of the most connected bastards in the game.”
Archer’s voice comes over comms from the doorway. “We’ve got five minutes before their watchdog script notices we’re in here. Pull what you can.”
Vivian nods, her fingers a blur as she dumps the Iron Choir fragments and the Wolfe comms chain to the drive. I keep watch, but my head’s running ahead, mapping the unfamiliar terrain. Wolfe alive changes the board. Wolfe under Klein’s protection flips it entirely. That puts him beyond reach—ours, Langley’s, maybe even the DGSE’s—unless we’re willing to burn bridges we can’t rebuild.
The lockout timer on the console hits ninety seconds. Vivian yanks the drive, kills the connection, and we’re moving—out the door, down the corridor, through the security layers in reverse.
By the time we exit the DGSE site into the underground garage, the convoy’s engines are already running. Archer takes point in the lead vehicle; Darius climbs in with him. Vivian and I slide into the back of the second SUV, doors thudding shut as the driver guns us up the ramp.
Brussels at night stretches past in a smear of wet streets and low clouds, the glow of street lamps bleeding across slick asphalt. The wipers thump in a steady rhythm, but it barely cuts the blur of lights streaking past. I track them without really seeing, my focus snagged miles and minutes behind us in that server room, on the relay signature glowing in cold pixels. It’s a mark that should have been erased with Wolfe, buried so deep the world would never trip over it again. Yet, there it was, staring back at me like it had been waiting all along.
Beside me, Vivian shifts, her voice low enough the driver won’t catch it. “Logan...”
Her voice has an edge I’ve only heard when she’s calculating. She wants to talk about Wolfe, but there’s a part of me that’s just as focused on what I saw in her hands back at the vault.
“Not now,” I cut in. My tone’s flat, controlled, but the edge under its sharp enough to draw blood. “We’ll talk when I decide we’re secure.”
She doesn’t press for answers, and that restraint says plenty. The truth is written in her eyes—a dawning realization that the betrayal was far worse, and far closer, than she’d ever imagined. She’s reached the same conclusion that’s been tightening my gut since the moment the pieces started to fall into place.
If Wolfe is alive, and I'm betting he is, and operating under Klein’s protection, the fallout is impossible to ignore. First, the shadow I’d been keeping over Vivian lifts; she’s not the traitor I once suspected. Second, the corruption isn’t just surface -deep—it’s threaded through the intel streams, woven into the hands that deal the cards at every high--level table. And last, maybe the hardest truth to swallow, is that some of the very people wearing our patch have been in on it from the start, hiding their betrayal in plain sight.
I let my thumb stroke over the ridge of my knuckles, a controlled, deliberate gesture that could pass as idle but bleeds off the restless tension wound tight under my skin, watching the faint tremor in my fingers before curling them into fists.
We’re not just hunting phantoms anymore. One of them is hunting us back.
And he may be closer than we thought.
19
VIVIAN
The Cloister of the Black Madonna
Swiss Alps, Switzerland
After the revelation in Brussels, we knew we didn’t have a second to waste. Fitz arranged for us to take the most discreet route possible to the abandoned monastery where we planned to lay our trap. We flew via a diplomatic cargo transport plane directly into Geneva, then straight onto a low--profile charter that slipped us deeper into Switzerland without sending up a single red flag. No chatter, no witnesses, no trail. Officially, nothing at all.
From the secluded landing strip we were able to use because of Fitz's friendship with a highly placed director in the Federal Intelligence Service, Switzerland’s answer to the CIA, we had a place to stage what we hoped would be the final days of Wolfe.
I carry a tray into the small office attached to the camouflaged hangar where Logan, Archer, and Darius are hunched over a rough-hewn table, heads bent together. Steam curls from the cups as I set them down.
“Thought you could use a warm-up,” I say lightly.
Logan glances up, offers a distracted, “Thanks,” before his attention returns to a crude map spread between them. They’re speaking low, voices overlapping as they run through positions, entry points, and contingency plans.
I linger. “You’ll freeze solid if you keep at it without a break.”
Archer chuckles. “She’s not wrong. My fingers are already halfway there.”
“Focus,” Logan warns, eyes still on the map. But when I hand him his cup, our fingers brush. His gaze snaps up, locking on mine for a heartbeat longer than necessary. There’s something in his eyes—sharp, assessing.
I slide into a chair opposite them, sipping from my cup as they debate. My ears take in every detail, but my mind is already elsewhere. This fight is mine to finish.
Logan’s mid--sentence when he stops cold. “Viv.”
I arch an eyebrow. “What?”
He pushes his cup away. “What did you put in this?”
