Chapter 2 Sector Seven East

Graybay Storage isn't in the East District. It sits at the edge where the East District meets the port, at the end of a fork in the road. The road has no name. The endpoint marker is blank.

Ryan parked at the mouth of the fork. Gray pickup truck, a pile of rotting fishing nets in the bed, license plate half-covered in mud. He reached under the passenger seat and pulled out a canvas bag: folding knife, bandages, flashlight, a Glock 17, three magazines. The gun was an older model, the rifling nearly worn smooth, but wiped clean.

He tucked the gun into the back of his waistband. The folding knife went against the inside of his left forearm.

"Gear check. Glock 17, forty-five rounds. One folding knife."

Ryan shut the car door and walked along the drainage ditch toward the warehouse. The night wind came off the water, carrying the sound of metal clanging from the container yard in the distance. He moved without hurrying, each step landing on the concrete edge, almost no sound at all.

The warehouse came into view. Three rows of floodlights lit the yard white. Containers stacked four high. Six black SUVs. Twelve guards, hands resting on their weapons.

An abandoned crane tower stood on the east side of the yard.

Ryan pressed into the grass at the end of the drainage ditch and swept the area with a monocular.

"Twelve men. Ten Glock 17s, two MP5s," Voss said.

He pocketed the monocular and moved east along the ditch. The east floodlight swept past every forty-five seconds, leaving a seven-second window. On the third pass, he crossed the yard and slipped into a gap behind container number three.

"You used to like this kind of route." There was something wistful in Voss's voice. "Mogadishu. Eleven men in forty-seven seconds. You bought the whole unit drinks for a month after."

"A lot of people died after that one," Ryan said quietly.

Voss's data stream paused.

He squeezed out the other end of the gap and moved along the outer wall of the warehouse. The ventilation shaft opening was at the base of the east wall — a two-foot iron grate. He wedged the knife handle against the edge of a screw and turned. Six screws, one by one.

The duct was narrow, his shoulders scraping the metal. He crawled in. His knees made a faint scratching sound. He stopped for three seconds. No reaction outside.

"Duct length: eighteen meters. Exit: second-floor control room. Occupants: one."

Ryan reached the end of the duct and looked through the louver slats. The control room was small, about a hundred square feet. One metal table, one monitor bank, one folding chair. A young man sat in the chair, body armor, no helmet. Legs crossed, watching his phone, earbuds dangling.

The monitor was split into nine feeds covering every corner of the yard. Ryan could see the route he'd just taken — the gap behind container three, the ventilation shaft.

He used the knife tip to back out the mounting screws on the louver cover, set them down inside the duct.

"Drop in. Right foot first, land on the chair back. Left hand over his mouth, right hand — handle strike to the temple."

Ryan eased half his body through the opening and set his right foot on the back of the folding chair. The chair made a small sound. The young man didn't hear it.

He dropped. Left hand over the mouth, right hand drove the knife handle into the temple. The young man went limp. The phone slid off his knee. Ryan caught it and set it on the table.

"Elapsed: 1.2 seconds."

He stood in front of the monitor. The yard was quiet across all nine feeds. He pulled out the recording module and broke it with the knife handle. The screens went to static.

"They'll notice in thirty seconds."

Ryan pushed open the control room door and stepped into the hallway. Half the fluorescent tubes were dead, the light stuttering on and off. The stairwell was at the far end.

He was passing the third door when a voice came through from inside. "Control room, report. We lost the monitors."

Ryan stopped.

"Control room, please respond."

Footsteps at the end of the hallway. Someone coming up.

"Control room, last call. No response, I'm sending someone up."

Ryan turned and went back to the control room. He eased the door open a crack. Nothing but static on the screens.

The footsteps were getting closer. At least two people.

Voss traced a route across his vision — down the hallway, out the east stairwell, over the fence, drop to the top of the containers on the ground-level yard. "Total: 8.4 seconds. Exposure probability: 31%."

Ryan didn't move.

He stepped back inside, pulled out the bandages, and bound the young man's hands and feet. He tore off another strip and pushed it into his mouth. Then he flipped the folding chair over and wedged it under the door handle.

The footsteps stopped outside.

"Control room. Open up."

The handle pressed down. The chair leg scraped half an inch across the floor and held.

"It's locked. Go get the key."

The footsteps moved away.

Ryan pushed open a window on the other side of the control room. The yard was below, eighteen feet down. A row of containers sat underneath, rust streaks across the steel like dried blood in the moonlight.

He climbed out and landed on a container roof. The metal dented under him with a dull thud that bounced once across the yard. The guards didn't look up.

He moved toward the center of the yard along the container tops, each step landing on the reinforced edge rails.

At the seventh container, he lay flat and looked over the edge.

The floodlight swung back. The white beam swept just over his head — one body length from being caught. He pressed himself flat against the metal, nose against the rust. The light passed. He didn't move. Waited three seconds.

The warehouse doors were open. The six SUVs had their headlights on, illuminating a clearing in the middle of the yard. A dozen or so people stood there — suits, dress shoes. At the front was a man in his fifties, short and heavyset, round face, a cigar between his fingers.

Charlie Hunt.

Ghost stood two steps behind him. Black suit, collar open. The scar ran from his left brow to the right corner of his mouth.

Ryan stared at that face for five seconds. The red data stream in his right eye lit up without a sound. Three years back, the dust storm surfaced from memory — the temperature of a barrel pressed against his lower back, those words I'm sorry, the weightlessness of falling. His hand moved before his mind did, already finding the grip.

"Target confirmed. Distance: 14.6 meters. Recommendation: aim for the head."

Ryan drew the Glock and set it on top of the container. Barrel lined up with the back of Ghost's skull.

"Wind speed 2.1 meters per second. Bullet drift: 0.3 centimeters."

His finger rested on the trigger.

Ghost turned suddenly and walked a couple of steps toward the warehouse. A man in a gray suit stepped out of the shadows and shook his hand.

"Target moved. New distance: 17.2 meters."

Ryan let go of the trigger. He holstered the gun, slid down from the container roof, and retraced his route — across the yard, through the gap behind container three, over the drainage ditch, back to the pickup.

Engine on. Pulling out of the fork, he checked the mirror. Nobody came after him.

"Why didn't you take the shot?" Voss asked. Calm voice, but something underneath it was pulled tight.

Ryan said nothing.

"All firing conditions were met. Hit probability: 96.4%."

Ryan got onto the main road. Streetlights came through the cab in broken intervals.

"There was someone next to him."

"Not a threat."

"He turned around."

"Didn't matter."

"If I'd fired, Anton Dobbins would find out," Ryan said.

Voss's data stream paused. "You're not afraid of Ghost."

"I'm not afraid of Ghost."

Ryan turned the wheel right and pulled onto a road with no streetlights.

He hit the brakes. The pickup stopped under an old banyan tree, the canopy blocking out the moon completely.

He sat in the driver's seat, hands on the wheel. The red data stream in his right eye went dark.

A long silence.

"You used to not be afraid," Voss said. Quiet.

"Used to not have much to lose."

"And now?"

Ryan didn't answer. He reclined the seat and closed his eyes.

Outside the windows, the night wind moved through the banyan leaves with a dry rustling sound. A foghorn from the distant docks crossed several streets to reach him — by the time it arrived, it was thin as background noise, like waves, like a world he'd been hiding from for three years, softly knocking at the door.

He closed his eyes. He'd deal with it when the sun came up.