Page 57 of The ARC Unit: Breach

Wolf ignored them. “Reading a man isn’t the same as working him.”

“I’ve worked sources.”

Wolf’s attention sharpened at the mention of source work.

I continued before he could decide I was exaggerating. “I’ve done source meetings under cover names, sat through surveillance I knew was happening and interviewed people who couldn’t know why I cared about the answer. I’ve worked around financial investigations where the only way to get anyone talking was to sound like I belonged in the room. I speak Italian and French, plus Serbian and Russian. I’ve handled multilingual interviews where changing languages halfway through was the entire point.”

Wolf folded his arms.

“And when one of Bellandi’s friends decides to take you somewhere private?”

“I don’t go.”

“Security asks who invited you?”

“I use the cover Raven builds.”

“Somebody searches you?”

“Then we make sure I’m carrying nothing they find interesting.”

“Kade appears?”

“I observe him. I don’t try to arrest him with a cocktail umbrella.”

Jackal coughed into his fist.

Wolf’s gaze never left mine. “Somebody pulls a gun?”

“I leave.”

“Someone doesn’t let you leave?”

Well, that question felt different. I resisted the urge to glance toward the training yard where I had watched him move five operators through a building like pieces he could feel without looking.

“Then I use the extraction plan,” I said. “The one you’re already building.”

Wolf’s eyes narrowed.

“You don’t have a tactical extraction background.”

“Correct.”

“You don’t have close-quarters combat experience.”

“Also correct.”

“If it turns into a gunfight, you’re a liability.”

“Yes.”

He shifted.

Only slightly, but I saw it.

I leaned forward and put both hands on the table. “I’m not asking you to pretend I’m Viper. I’m not going to clear a house, breach a gate or crawl onto a ridge with Hawk. If the plan requires any of that from me, it’s a bad plan. I’m telling you there is one thing this operation needs that none of you can do cleanly, and guess what? I can. I can walk inside, talk to rich people, listen and leave without making the entire party wonder why a six-foot-three man with murder in his posture is pretending to care about private equity.”

Jackal made a strangled noise. Wolf slowly turned his head toward him.