Page 17 of The ARC Unit: Breach

He followed my attention toward the window, and one corner of his mouth moved.

“Careful.”

“About what?”

“Observing wildlife.”

Jackal started laughing before I could answer.

Bear looked across the table at him with the kind of patience that suggested this happened frequently. Jackal only shrugged and said, “What? Maybe Wolf chose the callsigns. He likes animals.”

“You know he didn’t,” Raven said.

“Probably didn’t.”

Bear continued staring at him.

Jackal noticed and lifted one shoulder. “Fine. Definitely didn’t. So a bear, raven and jackal walk into a bar-”

The side door opened before the conversation could deteriorate any further, and Wolf came inside carrying enough cold air with him that I felt it from the table.

The cigarette was gone, but the smell remained in his clothes, mixed with the clean soap scent I’d noticed yesterday and something dry and woody underneath it that I assumed was cologne.

His eyes landed on me. “You’re late.”

I looked at the clock.

6:32.

“For what?”

“Work.”

“You didn’t give me a start time.”

“No.”

“Then I would argue that I’m impressively early.”

Jackal lowered the box onto the table and watched us with open interest as if the cereal was popcorn. Bear went back to eating as though he’d learned not to participate.

Wolf’s gaze dropped briefly to my unfinished plate before returning to me. “Ten minutes.”

Then he continued his heavy, rhythmic walk toward the operations floor without another word.

I stared after him. “Was that an invitation?”

Raven picked up his coffee.

“From him? Practically a handwritten card.”

◆

Ten minutes later, I joined Raven at the operations table and discovered that he had already claimed three screens and most of one side of the workspace.

My files from the flight were spread between us, but Raven had access to material I’d never been given. Full surveillance logs sat beside source reporting and photographs from partner agencies, some of which had apparently been passed through several governments before reaching ARC. Wolf had told me I could access whatever Raven cleared, and Raven seemed to interpret that restriction generously as long as he remained close enough to know what I was opening.

“This is the full lead-up to Romania,” Raven said, expanding a timeline across the center monitor. “Local intelligence flagged the warehouse here. They watched it for nine days, then requested outside support after two vehicles were tied to earlier Cerberus movements. ARC isn’t brought in until… here.”