Page 123 of Falcon’s Forever

Church lasts less than ten minutes before Condor ruins what was shaping up to be a decent morning.

Vulture started letting me back into the room three days ago, no ceremony about it, just a nod toward my old chair that I didn't take, because that chair isn't mine again yet. I sit two down from it instead, close enough to hear everything, far enough that nobody has to pretend the patch in Vulture's desk drawer doesn't exist.

"We found Merrick," Condor says.

Every conversation around the table stops.

Vulture leans forward. "The company or the person?"

"Both." Condor turns his laptop so we can all see it, though half the table's too far away to read anything on the screen.

Harrier squints. "Make it bigger, maybe, for people who don't live inside a computer."

"You're six feet away." Condor rolls his eyes.

"And I still can't read it."

"That sounds like an eyesight problem."

"Just make it bigger," Vulture says, and Condor sighs like it costs him something and enlarges the document. A photograph fills the screen. Older man, late fifties, expensive suit, and silver at the temples. Looks like he belongs on a charity board, not tied to a trafficking network.

"Graham Merrick," Condor says. "Founder and majority owner of Merrick Logistics Consulting."

Sterling slides a folder across. "Publicly, he's a logistics consultant. Before that he ran regional transport operations for twenty years. Warehousing, freight, cross-border shipping."

Zip's mouth hardens. "A man who knows how to move people without anybody asking questions."

"Exactly," Sterling says.

Ice Pick wipes his fingers on a napkin. "What connects him to Kells directly?"

"Money," Condor says. "Kells's payments run through two consulting firms, both of them lead back to companies Merrick controls, through enough shell layers to make it hard to prove."

"But we know," Harrier says, all the humor gone out of his voice.

"We know enough to keep digging."

I lean in toward the map on Condor's screen. "Where is he now?"

Condor smiles, which is never a comfortable thing to see on him. "That's the interesting part." He pulls up a marker outside the city, an industrial stretch, warehouses and truck depots that go quiet after dark.

"Personal holding company bought it fourteen months ago," Sterling says. "Officially storage."

"Unofficially?"

"We've tracked four vehicles tied to known feeder companies there in the last forty-eight hours."

This is what we've been circling for days. An actual location. My whole body wants to move on it right now, get men together, find Merrick, end this. I'm already halfway through building the plan in my head before I catch myself and look around the table instead. Nobody else is moving. They're all thinking, and I make myself do the same thing.

"My first thought was we should hit it," I say out loud.

Harrier raises a hand. "Mine too."

"Same," Ice Pick says.

"Why are we all admitting bad ideas today," Zip mutters.

"Growth," Rook says, solemn.