Holcomb Street
Holcomb Street didn't show up on tourist maps.
By daylight, it was just another tired line on the city's skin: old brick buildings patched with newer concrete, shuttered storefronts with fading paint, a grocery that sold more cheap liquor than vegetables, a laundromat full of machines that rattled like they were dying one spin at a time.
By evening, the neon signs woke up and tried to pretend the place was livelier than it was.
Kieran walked with his hands in his pockets, hood up against the wind. The rain had pulled back to a mist, turning the air damp and cold. Streetlights smeared halos across the wet pavement.
He passed a narrow alley full of trash bags and the sour smell of rot. A cat hissed at him from atop a crate and then decided he wasn't worth the energy.
Two blocks down, a sign flickered overhead: HOLCOMB STORAGE & LOGISTICS. In daylight it advertised cheap storage units and small-business shipping rates. At night, the shutters were down and the sign's last working tube buzzed like an insect someone had forgotten to swat.
The safehouse door was on the side, painted the same color as the wall, easy to miss if you weren't looking for the scuff mark at the bottom right corner.
He knocked twice, pause, once.
A bolt slid back. The door cracked open.
"On time," Jonas Rhee said. "What a novelty."
Kieran stepped inside. Rhee closed the door behind him and threw the bolt again.
The interior smelled of dust and machine oil. They stood in a loading bay that had been stripped down to its bones: bare concrete floor, exposed beams overhead, only one dim bulb dangling from a cable. Against one wall, a stack of cardboard boxes with fake labels. Against the other, a folding table and two metal chairs.
Jonas stood by the table, rolling his shoulders as if they were stiff from keeping still too long. He was a little taller than Kieran, lean, with close-cropped black hair and a face that looked younger than his file said. His eyes were dark and sharp, the kind that noticed details and filed them for later.
He wore civilian clothes too—hoodie, dark jeans, boots—but his rifle case leaned against the table, a quiet confession of his real purpose.
"Traffic?" Jonas asked.
"Manageable," Kieran said.
Rhee nodded toward the table.
"Come see the magic," he said.
The "magic" was laid out in precise lines: printed maps, a tablet with satellite imagery, a cheap burner phone in case the comms went dead, a small box of earpieces and throat mics. Someone had drawn circles and arrows in red pen across the maps, marking sightlines, alleys, and rooftops.
Jonas tapped a block on the paper.
"Ruiz is here," he said. "Third floor of the Caldera Inn. Seventeen rooms, most of them rented weekly. No central cameras, door lock system older than both of us."
Small black Xs showed side entrances and stairwells.
"Owner?" Kieran asked.
"Name on the deed is an old woman who hasn't left her apartment in five years," Rhee said. "Her nephew runs the day-to-day. He's on a list for minor trafficking but not serious enough to move up the queue."
"Armed?" Kieran said.
"Probably," Rhee said. "But not professionally. Think cheap handgun in a desk drawer, maybe a shotgun behind the counter. Nothing we can't handle if it comes to that."
He slid another map forward, this one showing a wider slice of the neighborhood.
"Ruiz's comms we intercepted say he wants to meet 'when it's loud enough,'" Jonas said. "He suggested 'somewhere near the river, where there's music.'"
Kieran traced a finger over the map.
Near the river, music narrowed the options. A dive club two streets over that hosted cheap bands. A corner where street performers set up speakers and played for digital tips. And Lena's bar, with its warm yellow light and weekend noise.
Jonas had circled all three.
"Source says he asked around at the front desk about 'a place nearby with a crowd but not too fancy,'" Jonas said. "Nephew recommended the club, the bar, and told him to stay away from the docks after dark unless he was buying or selling something."
"He listen?" Kieran asked.
"He's still alive," Jonas said. "So probably."
Kieran's eyes flicked, uninvited, to the spot on the map where he knew Lena's building sat. It was unmarked, indistinguishable from the other squares of gray and black.
"Any visuals?" he asked.
"Last camera hit was four hours ago," Jonas said, pulling up satellite footage on the tablet. Grainy images flickered: Ruiz emerging from the Caldera's front door, head down, hands in his jacket pockets. He blended in, one more anonymous man in a city that stopped caring what most people looked like a long time ago.
"He went to a corner store, bought bottled water, cheap noodles, a prepaid SIM," Jonas said. "No tail, no obvious watchers on him from what we saw. He's nervous, but not skilled."
"Armed?" Kieran asked.
"Unknown," Jonas said. "He doesn't have a registered carry permit, but that means exactly nothing here. Best to assume yes."
He zoomed in on the hotel's rooftop.
"I'll set up here," Jonas said, tapping the structure above the Caldera's fourth floor. "Line of sight to the entrance, windows on his floor, and clear lanes down-street if he heads toward the river."
"And if he goes the other way?" Kieran asked.
"Then you follow," Jonas said. "I adjust. We're not herding him, we're tailing him. The buyer will be more cautious than he is; they'll pick the spot. We watch him until that moment, and you move in when we have a shot that won't ripple too far."
"No internal protection at the meeting point?" Kieran said.
"They're present," Jonas said. "Just not on our side."
He turned the tablet so Kieran could see the live feed.
On the top-right of the screen, a small icon glowed—a stylized eye with three radiating lines.
"Internal security is already hooked," Jonas said. "We're broadcasting to them as soon as comms are live. They get my scope feed, both our heart rates, GPS, the works. Krell's people want full metrics on your performance."
"Including my pulse," Kieran said.
"Including your pulse," Jonas agreed. "You must have impressed someone."
"That wasn't my goal," Kieran said.
"Doesn't matter," Jonas said. "You did. They love you for now. Try not to ruin the relationship too fast."
He said it lightly, but there was caution underneath.
Kieran picked up one of the earpieces and examined it, then set it back down.
"What's their stated concern?" he asked. "Officially."
"Officially?" Jonas said. "They say Silent/402 is high exposure risk. Ruiz handled money for too many important clients. They want confirmation in real time that nothing goes sideways."
"And unofficially?" Kieran asked.
"Unofficially," Jonas said, "they want to see if the story about the hotel is true."
"The hotel," Kieran repeated.
"Dorrance," Jonas said. He leaned back against the table, folding his arms. "We get the same summary feed you do, you know. 'Ballistic termination recommended. Agent chose medical staging instead.'"
"Internal doesn't share full context," Kieran said.
"They don't share why," Jonas agreed. "Just what. But people in our line of work are good at filling in blanks."
He studied Kieran's face for a moment.
"I'm not judging," he said, tone quieter. "I've seen enough bodies painted in interesting patterns. A clean heart attack on tile sounds almost merciful by comparison."
"The target is dead either way," Kieran said.
"Sure," Jonas said. "The question is who else remembers the sound."
A gust of wind slipped in through the gaps around the loading bay door, stirring the edges of the maps.
"You got a problem with how it went down?" Kieran asked.
Jonas considered.
"No," he said at last. "Not if the job stayed clean. The people who do have a problem with it are watching this mission, though. So I'd prefer it if you didn't give them a second data point."
"You want me to be predictable," Kieran said.
"I want you to stay in the field," Jonas said. "The last guy they flagged for behavioral variance ended up teaching knife disarms to Green Forge recruits until his hands shook too much to hold the blade."
Kieran said nothing.
Jonas bent down, opened his rifle case, and began assembling the weapon with smooth, practiced motions: barrel, receiver, stock, scope. It was a collapsible precision rifle, matte finish, nothing flashy, designed to be broken down and carried in pieces through alleys without drawing eyes.
"Look," Jonas said, not taking his eyes off the rifle. "I'm not internal. I don't get paid to psychoanalyze you. My job is simple: I mark, you move, the target dies, we both walk out. I like simple. I'd like to keep it that way."
"I'll complete the objective," Kieran said.
"I know," Jonas said. "That's not what they're testing."
He slid a magazine into the rifle with a clean click.
"They're testing what happens when it's not just the target in the crosshairs," he said.
He didn't say "when it's a child." He didn't need to.
Kieran checked the rest of the gear: his own sidearm, extra magazines, a compact submachine pistol for close-quarters if needed, a folded knife, a pair of nitrile gloves, lock picks, a small wallet with cash and a metro card in case of improvisation.
"Timeline?" he asked.
"Buyer hasn't answered Ruiz's latest message yet," Jonas said, glancing at the burner phone. "Last text from Ruiz was an hour ago: 'Tonight. When there's music.' Buyer replied: 'I'll be there. No cops. No surprises.'"
"They always say that," Kieran said.
"They always lie," Jonas added. "Signal pings show the buyer's device isn't in the district yet. Probably waiting until last minute."
"Any ID?" Kieran asked.
"Nothing solid," Jonas said. "Spoofed IPs, burner accounts jumping between nodes. Could be a journalist, a corporate competitor, an agency rat, or some idealist with a blog and a death wish. Doesn't matter. They show, we tag them as exposure risk, they don't leave."
"Unless?" Kieran said.
"Unless Krell's people open a channel mid-op and tell us different," Jonas said. "I don't see that happening. People who want to expose Forges don't tend to become clients."
He slung the rifle over his shoulder in its case and picked up one of the maps.
"Alright," he said. "You're ground shadow. No direct contact until I give you eyes-on, and we confirm he's not walking into a trap with six friends carrying automatic weapons. Stay within a block, blend with the locals."
"Locals?" Kieran said, arching a brow.
Jonas's mouth quirked.
"You do know how to look like you're wasting your life on a street corner, right?" he said. "Or did the Forges skip that part of the training?"
"I improvise," Kieran said.
"They love that about you," Jonas muttered.
The comm unit on the table chirped, a small sharp sound.
Jonas tapped it. A flat, distorted voice came through.
"Control for Silent/402," it said. Genderless, filtered. "Telemetry live in twenty. Rhee, confirm overwatch position within thirty. Holt, confirm ground position by forty-five. Authenticate."
"Rhee, Jonas," he said. "Authentication: Quiet-seven-two-black."
"Holt, Kieran," Kieran said. "Authentication: Veil-nine-one-grey."
A soft chime acknowledged their codes.
"Link established," the voice said. "Internal security monitoring. Architect channel read-only. Proceed per mission brief."
The line went dead.
"See?" Jonas said. "You're a celebrity. Architect channel. You rate."
"That a good thing?" Kieran asked.
"No," Jonas said. "It's interest. Interest is bad."
They split without more talk.
Jonas went up through the interior stairwell to the roof access, rifle case in hand, moving with the easy confidence of someone who'd spent half his life behind glass and scope.
Kieran slipped back out into the street.
Evening had thickened. The neighborhood was waking up in its own way. A couple of kids played soccer with a dented can in front of a convenience store. A woman in a puffy jacket dragged a reluctant dog down the sidewalk. A cluster of men smoked under a broken streetlamp, talking low, laughter brief and sharp.
Three blocks over, he saw the glow of Lena's bar sign, even if he didn't look directly at it. Closer, he could hear faint music from the direction of the club: bass leaking out of thin walls, trying to pretend it belonged to something more glamorous than a converted warehouse with sticky floors.
He checked his watch. 18:42.
He had time to drift.
He stopped at a vendor cart that sold skewers of meat that might have been beef once and bought one with crumpled cash. It gave him a reason to stand still at a corner, to lean against a pole and watch the foot traffic without looking like he was watching.
"Rhee," he said quietly, touching the throat mic. "Status."
"Roof in sight," Jonas's voice replied, faint but clear. "Going up. Two flights, no cameras. No residents in the stairwell. Caldera lights are on; front desk occupied. No obvious watchers outside. You?"
"Street level," Kieran said. "Near the club. Bar's open too. Enough noise if he chooses either."
"Control, this is Rhee," Jonas added, voice flattening into report mode. "ETA to overwatch position: three minutes."
"Copy," came the filtered reply. "Telemetry going live in five."
Kieran let his body fall into the rhythm of the street: shoulders slightly slouched, weight on one hip, gaze unfocused enough to be harmless. He chewed the skewer without really tasting it.
He watched a pair of young men argue over a cracked phone screen, an old woman mutter to herself as she counted coins, a delivery drone zip overhead with a faint whine.
From somewhere down the block came a burst of laughter, Lena's voice among them, though he couldn't make out the words.
He didn't turn toward it.
"Overwatch set," Jonas reported. "Rooftop across from Caldera. Good sightlines. Ruiz's window visible. Curtain is half open."
"Any movement?" Kieran asked.
"Silhouette passed twice in the last minute," Jonas said. "Pacing. Man's nervous."
Kieran pictured Ruiz in that room, wearing down the carpet between bed and window.
"He's about to leave or about to bail," Jonas said. "Control, this is Rhee. Silent/402 in overwatch. Requesting confirmation on kill window."
"Kill window opens at subject's next exit from Caldera," Control's voice responded. "No engagement inside hotel unless target attempts contact with law enforcement. Repeat: primary engagement zone is external."
"Copy," Jonas said.
Kieran adjusted his stance, finished the skewer, and tossed the stick into a trash barrel.
"Visual on hotel front," Jonas said. "Door's in my scope. Holt, you've got two routes to cover: east toward the river and club, west toward the main road. Which side are you taking?"
"East," Kieran said. Toward the river. Toward the club. Toward the bar.
"Got it," Jonas said. "I'll cover west with glass. If he runs that way, I'll call it."
Kieran moved slowly up the block, placing himself where he could see the Caldera entrance at a slant. He stopped near a half-closed mechanics' shop, pretending to scroll through his phone while watching reflections in the dirty glass.
Rain began again, light but insistent, casting everything in a soft sheen.
For a few minutes, nothing happened.
Then Jonas's voice broke into his ear.
"Door opening," he said. "Target coming out."
Kieran's pulse ticked up, the comm unit somewhere in the dark registering the change.
"Describe," Control's voice said.
"Male, early forties, matches Ruiz's file," Jonas said. "Gray jacket, dark jeans, black backpack. No visible weapon. Head on a swivel, checking corners but not professionally. He's scared, not trained."
"Direction?" Kieran said.
"Hold," Jonas murmured. "He's hesitating at the sidewalk. Checking both ways."
Kieran could see him now: a thin man under the hotel's sad awning, his posture tight, his free hand worrying at the strap of his backpack.
Two teenagers pushed past him, laughing. He flinched away from their shoulders as if expecting a blade.
"Come on," Jonas said softly in Kieran's ear. "Pick a sin, Mateo."
Ruiz looked toward the club. The bass was louder now, someone testing levels inside. Colored lights flashed in the cracks around the door.
He looked the other way, toward the main road, where traffic honked and a bus chugged exhaust into the damp air.
Then he turned his head toward the side street that would curve down toward the river, past the bar, toward the noisy places where voices and music blurred into a single, concealing hum.
"Direction: east," Jonas said. "He's moving. Holt, he's coming your way."
Kieran pushed off the wall and began to walk, not too fast, not too slow, folding himself into the flow.
"Control, this is Rhee," Jonas said. "Target is mobile. Silent/402 is active."
In some room with no windows, Sebastian Krell watched heart rate lines flicker up a screen, the numbers next to Kieran Holt's name rising just enough to be interesting.
On Holcomb Street, the rain thickened around the thin man with the backpack and the killer who followed him.
The music from the club got louder as they drew closer, and somewhere behind it, faint but familiar, Lena Vos's bar sign hummed as it tried its best to stay lit.
The night was getting ready to be "loud enough."
And none of them were ready for what noise would cover.