More hacienda footage, recent, timestamped three days ago. A figure moving through the inner courtyard, well-dressed, unhurried, moving with the ease of someone who belongs there.
“The man I flagged weeks ago,” Cable says. “Still coming and going regularly. Still can’t get a clean ID. The cameras don’t give me enough, but he’s significant. The way Clemente’s security moves around him, he’s not a guest.”
I look at the figure on the screen.
The build, the height, the way he moves…
Something tugs at the edge of recognition, faint and unformed, like a word on the tip of my tongue that won’t come, so I file it away.
“We go in, regardless.”
“Yeah,” Cable says. “Just wanted you to know he’s a variable.”
I nod, looking at the full picture and feeling the plan settle into something real and imminent.
“Two days.”
“Two days,” Cable confirms.
***
The call to Quill comes from the parking lot, the Nevada morning already warm around me, the sun properly up, the heat beginning to build. He picks up on the second ring the way he always does when he has been waiting for the call.
“Brother.”
“It’s time. Two days. Cable’s got everything, including the route, the entry, the timeline. We’re ready.”
A silence on the other end.
Not surprise or hesitation, but relief.
“I’ll tell Rhyder,” Quill says. The weight in those three words—a president who has been holding a very strong man back for a very long time and is finally able to let him go—says everything.
“How is he?”
“Ready. We’re all ready.”
We work through it together, border crossing point, timing, vehicles, and communication protocols. Two presidents, twoclubs, one plan built carefully enough that nobody outside these two phone calls will know it is moving until it is already done.
When finished, Quill is quiet for a moment.
“Two days.”
“Two days.”
“Don’t be late.”
“Never am.”
Cable walks me to the door, staying behind to track the movement and make sure there are no surprises on this end.
“Come back.”
“That’s the plan.”
I stand in the parking lot for a long time afterward, thinking about Sophia making dinner tonight, not knowing yet what is coming. She deserves the truth. She has already been through this once with Tracker, and there is no version of tonight where she doesn’t get it.
Not telling her isn’t an option.