Page 58 of Dozer

"Yeah?"

"We're supposed to be working."

"We are."

Neither of us lets go immediately. Then I pull my hand back, because apparently somebody in this relationship has to occasionally remember we're being hunted.

I clear my throat. "We need to get this out of here. I don’t think we were ever supposed to find it. I also don’t think us being here is a coincidence. I have a feeling they are on their way and we’ve been set up."

"Agreed."

"And we need to figure out exactly how far up this goes."

He starts gathering the evidence while I photograph the remaining documents.

"If a government office signed off on this," I say, "then whoever's hunting us isn't protecting one bad actor." I close the final folder. "They're protecting a system."

Dozer looks at me. "Then we take down the system."

I blink. "That's a big statement for a man who usually communicates in four words or less."

"Big problem." He pauses. "Big statement."

I laugh. It's quiet, but it's real. And for the first time since this started, the fear underneath everything doesn't feel quite as heavy. Because he's right. Whatever is waiting for us in Washington, they're about to discover something inconvenient. I'm very hard to scare away from a dead person's truth.

And Dozer? He's apparently very hard to scare away from me. I like that last part a lot.

We leave ten minutes later. The evidence bag is heavier than it was when we walked in, but it's not the weight of the paper I feel. It's the weight of what the paper proves.

Somewhere ahead of us is Washington. Somewhere in Washington is the person who signed these documents. And somewhere between the two, is the truth somebody has spent years killing people to keep buried.

I intend to make sure it stays buried no longer.

CHAPTER 19

Dozer

The safe house is supposed to be clean.

Hunter's people vetted it personally, a rental under a shell name three states removed from anything connected to Spartan Elite, the kind of place that shouldn't exist on any list anyone hostile could access. No obvious surveillance or predictable approach. No reason for anyone to know we are here.

Four hours in, I'm starting to believe it. That's my first mistake.

Kenzi is at the kitchen table with the evidence spread out in front of her, photographing documents and making notes in the margins of a legal pad, when she suddenly goes still. Not startled. Still. I've learned the difference.

"Someone's outside."

I'm already moving toward the window before she finishes the sentence. I don't ask how she knows. Four days ago, I would've. Now I trust the way her instincts work because she hasn't been wrong once when it mattered. She has better hearing than I do and she hears and sees things that most people who aren’t special forces operators, aren’t trained to notice.

I kill the kitchen light and move to the edge of the curtain. Two vehicles with their headlights off. Parked at an angle that keeps them out of the obvious sightline from the front windows. That means one thing, they are professional. My stomach drops. Why the fuck does this keep happening?

"We need to move."

Kenzi is already gathering the evidence. "How did they find us?" she asks. "Hunter said this place was clean."

"It was supposed to be." Which is worse. A compromised route is one thing. A burned lab contact is another. But this is a safe house specifically vetted to disappear us. Somebody has access deeper than I accounted for. Someone has to have access to something. Our phones? Hunter’s phone? Could his office be bugged? I have no time to think about any of that.

The first breach comes through the back door. This time is different. He’s fast. No announcement this time. No fake badges or attempt to talk. They've learned from the train.