Page 54 of The ARC Unit: Breach

“Right. Surveillance.”

“Good.”

There was that word again.

Wolf turned toward Raven. “Build the package.”

The team began moving.

I stayed seated for another moment, looking at the photograph of the estate stretched across the main screen. Blue water filled the center of the image, bright against white stone, while the house wrapped around it behind tall walls designed to keep everyone outside from seeing exactly who had been invited in.

For the first time since I had opened the ARC files on the plane, we had a place that might matter before it became another empty building in a report. The party was three days away at a private estate, and the guest list was already brushing the edges of Kade’s network.

I picked up my notebook and wrote the date beneath the photograph.

This time, we were early.

Chapter Four

MIA

By noon the next day, the estate outside Stuttgart had taken over the largest screen on the operations floor and most of the table beneath it.

Hawk had already walked the wooded ridge north of the property before sunrise and come back with mud on his boots and the disappointing news that the best angle on the pool disappeared behind the cabanas at exactly the point everyone was most interested in seeing.

Raven had spent the morning working through Aster’s temporary network setup and the security subcontractor’s equipment orders. Bear had marked two places where the outer wall could be defeated if an extraction turned ugly, then crossed out the first after deciding the stone would create more problems than it solved. Viper and Jackal had driven the roads around the estate separately and returned within ten minutes of each other with the same conclusion.

There were too many cameras near the main entrance and nowhere to sit for long without becoming memorable.

Wolf stood at the head of the table in a black shirt with the sleeves pushed to his elbows, one hand planted beside the satellite image while Raven moved camera angles across the wall. His mask covered the lower half of his face while his hair had been pulled away from his forehead with his zig-zag headband. Part of the snake disappeared beneath his sleeve every time he leaned farther over the map. Not that I was paying attention.

“North ridge gives Hawk the rear terrace and most of the west lawn,” Raven said. “He loses the lower garden here.”

A red line appeared across the image.

Hawk nodded from the other side of the table. “Cabanas block the pool edge. I can see anyone moving between the house and garden, but not what happens behind them.”

“East service road?” Wolf asked.

Jackal slid a photograph toward him. “Delivery vans, catering, security shift change and enough landscaping trucks that I can get a vehicle through once without looking stupid. Twice starts looking like surveillance.”

Viper tapped another image. “South entrance is worse. Cameras catch the approach before the gate. Valet station gets every plate that comes in, but anyone sitting outside the property will be noticed.”

“We don’t sit,” Wolf said. “Rotate.”

Viper nodded.

Bear pointed toward the side of the house. “If this becomes an extraction, service access is better than the main gate. Hinged steel pedestrian door here, vehicle gate farther east. I can open either if I have to, but if I have to, the party already knows we’re there.”

“Then don’t unless I tell you.”

“Wasn’t planning on getting dressed up to blow a rich man’s gate off its hinges.”

Jackal looked over. “You could. Formal breaching charge. Little bow tie on the detonator.”

Bear stared at him.

“Classy,” Jackal added.