When It's Loud Enough
Ruiz didn't walk so much as leak down the street.
Kieran watched the man move through the drizzle with the twitchy energy of someone whose fear had outrun his sense. Ruiz's shoulders were hunched, his head jerked a little too often from side to side, and his hand never left the strap of his backpack, fingers whitening on the worn fabric whenever anyone passed too close.
"Target moving east," Jonas's voice murmured in Kieran's ear. "Pace: nervous pigeon."
Kieran blended into the flow behind him, far enough back not to cast a shadow, close enough that if Ruiz broke into a run he could cut that distance down before the man did anything stupid.
Rain beaded on car hoods and glistened on the uneven pavement. Headlights smeared across puddles. The air was full of small, human sounds: conversations, laughter, a shout from someone arguing into their phone, the distant hiss of traffic on the main road.
As they turned a corner, the noise thickened.
The club came into view first, halfway down the block: an old warehouse with its brick painted black, a glowing strip of LED above the doorway strobing through blues and reds. Two bouncers in heavy jackets stood on either side of the entrance, arms crossed, watching the line of people waiting to get in. Bass thumped through the walls, dull and relentless.
Kieran could feel it in his ribs from here.
Past the club, three buildings down, Lena's bar sign hummed, its yellow light softer, its doorway narrower. A couple of regulars smoked out front, hands cupped against the rain.
Ruiz slowed, caught between the two.
"Visual," Jonas said. "I have him at the corner by the lamppost, about to make his life choice."
Kieran's eyes flicked once toward the bar.
Lena was at the door, wiping down the glass with a rag, the movement brisk. She looked out at the street in the way small business owners did: not just seeing, but measuring, weighing who might be trouble, who might be worth a laugh, who might be worth cutting off early.
She didn't see him. His hood and the angle of the streetlight turned his face into a shadow.
She did see Ruiz.
The man hesitated within her line of sight, glancing toward her bar, toward the club, then back the way he'd come as if suddenly thinking of abandoning the whole plan. Water dripped from his hair onto the collar of his jacket.
Your move, Mateo, Kieran thought.
Ruiz's gaze darted once more to the bar. It was lit, but not packed. He could probably imagine himself sitting at the counter, small drink, small noise, small risk.
Then a burst of bass from the club rolled down the street, heavy as surf. Laughter spilled with it as the door opened to let a group inside, then shut again, muffling the sound to a heartbeat.
Ruiz's shoulders dropped a fraction, like he'd come to a decision.
He turned toward the club.
"Direction confirmed," Jonas said. "Target is heading to the warehouse. Bar's ignored."
Some quiet, irrational part of Kieran he didn't like admitting existed eased at that. The bar would still be there tomorrow. The club? That was another story.
He let a pair of women in cheap coats and smudged eyeliner pass between him and Ruiz. One of them laughed at something on her phone, head thrown back. Ruiz flinched again, then joined the short line outside the club, trying to look casual and failing.
Kieran took up position across the street, near a wall tagged with old spray paint. From here, he could see the club entrance, the bouncers, and most of the people queued up.
"Control, this is Rhee," Jonas reported. "Target at secondary location: Blackline Club. Crowd density moderate. Ambient noise high."
"Copy," Control's filtered voice replied. "Silent/402, be advised: kill window extends to internal spaces at operator discretion. Maintain minimal collateral."
Minimal, not zero, Kieran noted.
"Overwatch reposition needed if we're going indoors," Jonas added. "Current line of sight limited to exterior."
"Reposition authorized," Control said. "Do not lose target."
"Yes, mother," Jonas muttered with the mic covered, then louder: "Copy that. Moving."
Kieran saw Ruiz's turn in the line come up.
The taller bouncer, a thick man with a shaved head and a bored expression, gave Ruiz a quick up-and-down.
"Cover?" Kieran murmured.
"Ticketless walk-in," Jonas said. "It's Tuesday. They're not picky."
The bouncer extended a hand. Ruiz froze for a second too long, then dug quickly into his pocket, producing a handful of crumpled bills. The bouncer took them, checked the notes, then jerked his head toward the door.
Ruiz stepped into the club.
"Target inside," Jonas said. "Holt, your turn."
Kieran crossed the street, waited for a car to pass, then merged with the small trickle of people joining the back of the line.
He didn't need to be subtle here. Places like this saw faces pass through like water; as long as he didn't start a fight or flash a badge, he'd be just another shape in the dark.
"How's the pulse, internal?" Jonas asked, amusement threading his tone.
"Within parameters," Control answered. "Maintain focus, Rhee."
"Always," Jonas said.
The line moved. Two girls with glitter on their cheeks giggled in front of Kieran, perfume thick enough that he could taste it. A guy behind him complained loudly about the cover charge until his friend elbowed him into silence.
Kieran took it all in: the bouncers, the throw of light from the doorway, the cameras tucked under the eaves, the way the bouncers' eyes kept flicking not to the impatient drunk guy or the flirty pair of girls, but to the street corners and passing cars. They'd seen trouble before. They didn't want it again.
His turn came.
The same shaved-head bouncer looked him over.
"You solo?" the man asked.
"Yes," Kieran said.
"Cover's twenty," the guy said.
Kieran handed over a twenty without drama.
The bouncer's hand lingered on the bill half a second longer than necessary, eyes scanning Kieran's face. It wasn't suspicion, exactly. More the instinctive curiosity of a man who spent every night cataloguing the city's nocturnal animals.
"You look like you're here on business," the bouncer said, almost joking.
"I dance very seriously," Kieran replied.
The hint of a smile touched the man's lip. He stepped aside.
"Don't start anything," he said. "We're closing early if there's trouble tonight. City's hot."
"I'm just here for the music," Kieran said.
"Right," the bouncer said, not believing him but not caring enough to block the way.
Inside, the sound hit like a physical shove.
The bass he'd felt on the street was just the surface. In here, the music saturated the air, vibrating through the metal railings and the concrete floor. Lights strobed intermittently, painting everyone in harsh colors and making movements jerky and surreal.
The club was a big rectangle: bar along one wall, dance floor occupying most of the center, raised platform at the far end where a DJ stood hunched over a console, one hand up, the other working sliders. People clustered in pockets: groups at high tables, couples near the back wall, a knot of bodies on the dance floor writhing in the shifting light.
Kieran's eyes adapted quickly, pulling useful details out of the chaos.
Emergency exits: one near the bar, another at the opposite corner near the toilets, both marked by green signs half-obscured by posters.
Cameras: two domes in the ceiling, one pointed at the bar, one angled toward the entrance, probably low-res and mainly there to discourage staff theft.
Security: one guard at the back, near the toilets; another patrolling the edge of the dance floor.
And Ruiz.
The man had taken up position near the middle of the club, but off the dance floor, back to the wall under a flickering strip of light. He clutched his backpack in front of him with both hands now, as if afraid someone would rip it away.
His eyes swept the crowd in frantic, useless loops.
"Visual inside," Kieran murmured. "Target is stationary, north wall, between bar and dance floor. Back to wall. No one with him."
"My line of sight is trash," Jonas said. "I can see the front door from here and one of the side windows, but inside's a blur. You're primary eyes now."
"Control copies," the filtered voice said. "Silent/402, ground lead has discretion inside the venue. Rhee, maintain external overwatch and alert for inbound law enforcement or unknowns."
"Copy," Jonas said.
Kieran didn't move straight for Ruiz. That would have been the obvious play, and obvious got people curious.
Instead, he went to the bar.
A harried bartender with an undercut and glitter smeared on her cheekbones shoved a drink menu toward him and then snatched it back to deal with someone shouting for shots further down.
He ordered a beer with a note of bored familiarity and took the bottle when it came, sliding a tip across the damp surface. The beer gave his hand something to do and his presence a reason to linger.
From this vantage, he could triangulate better: he saw the front entrance, the bar, most of the dance floor, and Ruiz's chosen corner. He also saw the kind of people this place attracted on a Tuesday night: locals blowing off shifts, a few students, some working girls, some guys hoping not to go home alone.
"Any sign of buyer?" Control asked.
"Not yet," Kieran said. "Ruiz is scanning. No one's approached. He's checking his watch every thirty seconds."
"Time from last message?" Jonas asked.
"An hour and a half," Control replied. "Buyer confirmed 'tonight' but not an exact time. Window remains open."
"Internal, you're monitoring chatter?" Jonas said. "Police bands, Aegis net?"
"Affirmative," Control said. "No alerts for this location. City this size, there are always other fires. None of them here yet."
Kieran took a sip of the beer. It was cold and tasteless. He let it sit on his tongue anyway, another layer between him and the metallic tang of adrenaline.
He watched Ruiz watch the door.
The man jumped slightly every time it opened. People streamed in: a couple arguing in low, intense tones; three friends already half-drunk; a lone older man who headed straight for the bar and ordered something strong.
No one looked like an obvious buyer. Which meant exactly nothing. Buyers who survived long in this sort of game rarely looked like anything at all.
Minutes stretched. The music changed tracks. The beat shifted, bodies adjusting unconsciously to the new rhythm. Lights stuttered.
Ruiz's pacing increased: two steps to the left, two to the right, back against the wall again. He checked his phone, frowned, shoved it back into his jacket.
"Heart rate?" Krell probably asked in some window Kieran couldn't see.
"Rising," Control would answer, numbers ticking on a screen.
Kieran tilted the bottle, pretending to examine the label, while his peripheral vision took in the whole entrance zone.
The buyer entered without fanfare.
A woman, late thirties, early forties maybe. Medium height, brown hair pulled back in a low knot that had been neat once and had since begun to lose small rebellions of strands. She wore a dark green coat that wasn't fashionable but was well made, jeans, boots. No visible jewelry except a thin silver band on one finger. Glasses pushed up on her head like she'd forgotten they were there.
Kieran clocked a few things fast:
Shoes practical, not clubbing.
Coat pockets heavy on one side: probable device or compact camera.
Eyes doing a quick evaluation sweep on entry: exits, bar, security, not the dance floor.
She belonged more in a newsroom than here.
"Possible buyer," he murmured. "Female, mid to late thirties, entering now. Dark green coat, hair tied back, glasses on head. Movements controlled. Line of sight to target's corner."
"I've got visual at the door," Jonas said. "I see her. No entourage, no obvious tail. She's not local flavor."
She paused near the entrance, scanning the interior more thoroughly. Her gaze slid over the bar, the dance floor, the back wall.
It paused on Ruiz.
Even at this distance, Kieran saw the recognition click into place. Her shoulders straightened fractionally, like she'd found the missing piece of an unpleasant puzzle.
"Control," Jonas said. "We have a probable buyer. Tagging as exposure risk."
"Confirmed," Control replied after a heartbeat. "Silent/402, buyer presence verified. Both subject Ruiz and buyer are categorized as critical exposure risk. Both are cleared for termination if containment by other means proves unfeasible."
"Defined 'other means,'" Jonas said.
"Data recovery without death," Control said. "High probability of failure. Trust levels below safe threshold. Default to termination."
"So basically no," Jonas muttered.
The woman began to move.
She didn't go straight to Ruiz either. She detoured to the bar first, passing within three people of Kieran. He caught a whiff of her scent under the sweat and cheap alcohol of the room: something clean and faintly citrus, like a soap that came in moderately priced bottles.
She flagged the bartender, ordered something short—a whiskey, from the look of the glass—and took it with a small nod.
Her hands didn't shake. That mattered to Kieran. She wasn't fearless—no one walked in here fearless when they thought someone might try to kill them—but she was composed. Fear under control was more dangerous than fear flailing around.
Drink in hand, she threaded her way around the edge of the dance floor, staying clear of flailing elbows and spilled drinks, until she reached Ruiz's corner.
Up close, they looked like mismatched colleagues meeting after work. If you didn't know, you could have believed they were just there to complain about their boss.
She said something too low for Kieran to hear over the music. Ruiz tensed, then nodded, eyes wide.
They faced each other, backs partially shielded, the woman angling herself so that her face was turned slightly away from the cameras in the ceiling.
"Control, is audio possible?" Jonas asked.
"Negative," came the reply. "Ambient noise level too high. Camera pick-up minimal. We're running lips, but angles are bad. We can't pull clean phrases."
"Ground, can you close?" Jonas asked.
"Not without being obvious," Kieran said. "They're against the wall. Anyone hovering nearby will stand out."
He turned slightly, leaning one elbow on the bar behind him as if tired, shifting his weight so he could see more of them in the mirrors behind the bottles.
The mirror solved two problems at once: it let him observe them without staring, and it let him check who was watching them.
Almost no one.
People at the nearest high table were wrapped up in their own world. A couple was making out against a pillar like the room didn't exist. The security guard at the back was scanning for fights, not quiet conversations.
No visible second team. Yet.
"Description on buyer?" Control asked.
"Civilian profile," Kieran said. "No obvious weapons. Carrying a shoulder bag under the coat, right side. Likely laptop or tablet. She's holding the drink with her left. Stance is steady. She keeps her feet planted, not shifting weight like Ruiz."
"Could be a journalist," Jonas said.
"Could be many things," Control said. "Risk level unchanged."
In the mirror, Kieran saw the woman lean in, speaking close to Ruiz's ear. He watched her mouth shape words he couldn't hear.
If this is a trap, we need to separate, she might be saying. Or I need proof you're not wasting my time. Or Tell me about the Forges.
He wouldn't know. But he could read reactions.
Ruiz swallowed hard, his Adam's apple jerking. He unzipped his backpack slightly. She shook her head sharply, one quick motion, hand coming up in a small stop gesture.
Not here, then. Not yet.
She tapped her wrist, miming a watch.
Later. Different place. Less noise, more control.
"Any handoff?" Control asked.
"Negative," Kieran said. "No visible devices exchanged. Backpack still on him. She's refusing to see contents here, probably wants a more secure environment."
"We can take them on exit," Jonas said. "One shot each at the door, crowd loud enough to blur the pop. Holt can clean the bag."
"Collateral probability?" Control said.
"Moderate," Jonas said. "These people will hit the floor if they hear a crack. Most won't even know what they heard. Cameras will see, but that's your problem, not mine."
It would be his too, Kieran knew. Every messy bullet became more paperwork, more scrutiny.
In the mirror, the woman finished her drink in one swallow. Ruiz fumbled his phone out, thumbed quickly over the screen, then shoved it away again.
He nodded frantically at whatever she'd said, running a hand through his hair. She put a hand on his forearm, pressing, saying something that looked like: Do not be stupid.
Then she pulled back, set the empty glass on a nearby speaker, and moved toward the back, away from the front door.
"Buyer moving," Kieran said.
"Direction?" Jonas asked.
"Rear," Kieran said. "Past the toilets. There's an exit sign there."
"I see it," Jonas said. "Side alley door. I can't see her once she's through."
Ruiz stayed where he was for a heartbeat, watching her go, then pushed off the wall to follow.
Instead of heading for the front, he slid through the crowd toward the back.
"They're not leaving the way they came in," Kieran said. "They're taking the alley."
"That's worse," Jonas said immediately. "Fewer witnesses, tighter space, no cameras worth a damn."
"Better," Control said in the same instant. "Lower collateral, cleaner kill zone. Overwatch, adjust position to cover rear exit."
"Copy," Jonas said, already moving. Kieran could hear, under the music and voices, faint traces of Jonas's breathing in the mic, the dull echo of his boots on a new set of stairs. "I'll get angle."
Kieran left the bar, bottle abandoned, and drifted toward the corridor that led to the toilets and the rear exit. It was narrow, badly lit, one wall lined with posters and graffiti, the other with doors: men's, women's, staff only.
At the far end, the green glow of an emergency exit sign spilled weakly over a metal door with a crash bar.
Ruiz pushed through it without looking back.
The woman followed, glancing once over her shoulder.
Kieran let three drunken men stumble ahead of him into the corridor. They lurched toward the toilets, arguing about whose turn it was to pay.
It gave him cover to reach the end of the hallway without being the only one walking there.
The door swung shut behind Ruiz and the woman with a dull thunk.
The bass dropped to a muffled thud back here, the insulation doing its best to keep the noise inside for the neighbors' sake.
Kieran pushed the bar and stepped out into the alley.
The air hit him colder than before, sharp and wet. The alley was a narrow slice between buildings, slick with rain, lit by a single jaundiced bulb over the door and the weak spill of light from the street at the far end.
Dumpster to the left. Stacks of crates to the right. Graffiti climbing the brick walls. The smell of old beer, piss, and rot.
The door shut behind him, cutting the music down to a distant heartbeat.
Ruiz and the woman were ten meters ahead.
They'd stopped near the crates, just beyond the reach of the light. The woman had her back half-turned to the wall, blocking the backpack from clear view of anyone standing at the door. Ruiz was hunched over the bag, fingers fumbling with the zipper.
Kieran didn't walk straight to them. He stepped to the side as if taking a smoke break, leaned a shoulder against the wall near the door, and pretended to fish for a cigarette he didn't carry.
"Overwatch?" he murmured.
"Repositioning," Jonas said. His voice was slightly winded. "Roof across the alley is lower; I've got a partial angle. I can see Ruiz's upper body, not the buyer's torso. I've got a head shot on him if I need it. Buyer is mostly behind shadow."
"Control, this is Holt," Kieran said quietly. "Target and buyer have moved to alley, ten meters from exit. No other civilians present. No obvious second team. Engagement window optimal."
There was a small pause. Somewhere, Krell was deciding how much rope to give him.
"Silent/402," Control said finally. "Objective unchanged. Primary is Ruiz. Secondary is buyer. Execute when you can guarantee recovery of data. Confirm you have means to secure the bag."
"I do," Kieran said.
He watched Ruiz pull a laptop from the backpack and fumble it open on the crate stack. The lid glowed faintly, a rectangle of light in the damp dark.
The woman pulled something from her coat pocket too—a small external drive, sleek and black, no branding. She held it out in a way that minimized its visibility to anyone looking from the door; she'd done this before.
She said something, gesturing to the laptop with a sharp flick of her hand.
Hurry up.
Ruiz nodded, shoulders shaking, and plugged the drive in.
"Jonas," Kieran murmured. "You see that?"
"Yeah," Jonas said. "Drive looks high-capacity. If he dumps everything on there, that's all the story in one pocket."
"Control," Kieran said. "We might have a single-point data extraction here. If we recover that drive before it leaves the alley, we may not need to chase other copies."
"Assumption unverified," Control said. "Ruiz's device may contain redundant or additional data. Default to full recovery: drive and laptop. Both parties remain termination-approved."
The woman checked the alley mouth again, eyes narrowing, then stepped closer to Ruiz, shielding the laptop with her body.
In that movement, the light from his screen splashed across her face.
Kieran saw the lines there: tired eyes, the faint start of creases around her mouth, stress carved into the set of her jaw. Not a zealot's face. Not a mercenary's, either. Someone who'd spent nights staring at documents that didn't let her sleep.
He wondered, not for the first time, what the Forges looked like from her side of the glass.
Ruiz's voice floated faint and broken through the dark, barely audible even this close.
"…you don't understand… if they find out I met you…"
Her reply was sharper, but still too low for words: just the cadence of hard truths delivered too late.
Kieran's hand brushed the grip of his pistol under his jacket.
He had a clean angle on Ruiz. One step forward, one suppressed shot to the head, another for her. Two quick moves, grab the bag and the drive, step back through the door into the corridor before someone else wandered out to smoke.
Easy.
It was almost too easy. That was what bothered him.
"Jonas," he said. "Any movement at street end?"
"Negative," Jonas replied. "No silhouettes. No engines. No doors opening. It's just them and you."
"Control, any chatter?" Kieran asked. "Law enforcement reroute, Aegis pings?"
"None within six blocks," Control said. "You're clear. Execute."
For a moment, he let the orders hang there, cold and hard as the brick against his shoulder.
He watched the woman lean in, her hand touching the laptop trackpad, her other arm braced on the crate near Ruiz's.
Say it, he thought. Say "Forges" so I know exactly what you think you're buying.
Her lips moved.
He didn't hear the word, but he saw the shape of it.
Forges.
His pulse spiked. The comm system registered it, a small red uptick next to his ID on some screen.
"Kieran," Jonas said quietly, not question, not order. Just his name.
He could picture the graphs in front of Krell now: heart rate, respiration, maybe micro-tremors in his trigger hand if they'd wired him that deeply.
He could picture Krell leaning forward, interested.
He stepped away from the wall.
One pace forward put him within five meters. Another would cut that to three. At that range, even a rushed shot would hit. They would both go down almost before they knew he was there.
The gun cleared its holster as if of its own will. Suppressor, full mag, safety already off.
"Silent/402, execute," Control said.
Kieran raised the weapon.
Ruiz's head was a pale oval over the laptop's glow. The woman's face was turned slightly away, cheek lit by the screen.
He exhaled.
Time didn't slow, exactly. It just stretched.
Two futures forked out in front of him.
In one, he squeezed the trigger twice. Blood, bone, laptop screen spiderwebbing with impact, hard drives scooped into his bag. A quick exit, a quiet report, a clean mission file that made the architects happy and his graph line neat.
In the other, he did something else.
Internally, somewhere, a small voice that sounded a little like Elena's and a lot like a boy in the Forge asked him how many people had to die to keep the lie about his childhood neat.
Jonas spoke again, voice low.
"Whatever you do," he said, "do it on purpose."
Kieran adjusted his aim.
Not at Ruiz's head.
At the laptop.
He fired.
The suppressed shot was still loud in the alley, a flat, ugly crack swallowed by the bass and muffled walls behind him. The bullet tore through the screen, splintering glass and plastic, punching into the crate behind it.
Ruiz yelped, stumbling backward. The laptop jerked off the crate, clattering to the wet ground, its brief window of light dying in a smear.
The woman swore, instinctively crouching, one hand going for the drive, the other reaching for the pocket where Kieran had seen weight.
"Kieran," Control snapped in his ear, a single syllable sharp as an open hand.
He moved before the echo of the shot faded.
If he'd aimed at her instead, she'd be dead. If he'd aimed at Ruiz, the mission would be clean. This choice was neither.
Intentional, though.
He reached the shattered laptop in two strides, boot smashing down on the hinge, preventing Ruiz from grabbing it and bolting. His free hand snapped out and seized Ruiz by the front of the jacket, slamming him back against the brick.
The woman pivoted toward him, her coat flaring. Something metal glinted in her hand—a compact pistol, not aimed well yet but pointed in his direction.
He let the muzzle of his own gun swing toward her in response.
Everything tightened to the width of the alley and the circle of his front sight.
"Everyone stop," he said.
The word cut through the sound around them, not because it was loud, but because of the way he said it: flat, absolute, the tone of someone used to being obeyed in the half-second before someone died.
For a heartbeat, they listened.
Then the future snapped forward.