The Unkillable Warlord

The Leak

The warehouse held nineteen people by Friday night. Reggie's recruits, mostly, laid-off dock workers and drivers who'd watched their old employers fold one by one and never understood why until now. Grant stood at the front of the loading bay with a whiteboard he'd dragged out of the office, feeling less like a warehouse worker and more like a man briefing a war council for the first time in two lifetimes.

"Someone in our circle is talking to Marchetti," Grant said. "Two warnings in five days, both times information that only a handful of people knew. That's not luck. That's a leak."

The room went tense. Reggie folded his arms. "You think it's one of us?"

"I think it's someone who was in this building both times," Grant said. "Which narrows it down more than you'd like."

"That's a hell of an accusation to make to a room full of people who just signed up to help you," a woman near the back said. Younger, sharp-eyed, arms crossed like she was ready to argue.

"What's your name?" Grant asked her.

"Deb Kowalski. I drove for Henderson Freight before it folded."

"Deb, I'm not accusing anyone in this room. I'm telling you the truth, because I think you'd rather have it ugly than comfortable." Grant looked around at the nineteen faces watching him. "Every one of you took a risk showing up here tonight. I owe you the same risk back. That means I don't hide problems from you, even when the problem might be standing in this warehouse."

Deb held his gaze a second longer, then nodded once, slow. "Fair enough."

"It's not an accusation," Grant said. "It's a fact we need to solve, or every plan we make from here gets handed to Marchetti before we finish making it."

Tasha stepped forward, laptop under her arm. "I can check who had access to the diner meeting location. It wasn't public. I only told two people."

"Who," Grant said.

"You," Tasha said, "and my sister. Who doesn't even live in this state."

"Then it's not your leak," Grant said. "Which means it's mine, or it's someone who overheard something they shouldn't have."

Dom, standing near the door, cleared his throat. "Kessler mentioned Reggie by name in that text. Only people who knew Reggie was recruiting were us, and the guys Reggie personally called."

All eyes turned toward Reggie. He didn't flinch, but his jaw tightened.

"I called eleven guys," Reggie said. "All of them I've known fifteen years. I'd stake my life on every one."

"Somebody's listening to more than phone calls," Grant said slowly. He looked around the warehouse, at the old office in the corner, at the loading dock cameras that had been installed years before he was born in this body. "Or somebody bugged this building before we ever set foot in it as a headquarters."

The room went quiet.

"That's paranoid," the sharp-eyed woman said.

"That's exactly what someone who planted a bug would want me to think," Grant said, and something in his tone made even Dom go still.

He walked to the old office phone mounted on the wall, an ancient thing that hadn't rung in years, and pulled it apart with his bare hands while the room watched. Nothing. He checked the smoke detector above the desk next, unscrewed it with a coin from his pocket.

Small. Black. Unmistakable.

The room erupted into noise, everyone talking at once, but Grant just stood there holding the device, feeling a cold and familiar clarity settle over him. In another life, this was the moment he would have executed everyone in the room to be certain, and slept fine that night. In this one, he had exactly one thing he trusted more than certainty.

His family, watching him from the front row, hadn't moved.

"Whoever installed this," Grant said quietly, "did it before Reggie ever brought anyone here. Which means Marchetti's known about this warehouse as a meeting point since before we called it one."

"How is that possible?" Piper asked.

Grant turned the bug over in his hand, and for the first time since waking up in this body, he felt something that wasn't quite fear and wasn't quite anger. Something closer to recognition.

"Because," he said, "somebody gave him the blueprints to this building before I was ever born into it."

"That's not possible," Walter said from the back of the room. "I've owned this building eighteen years."

"Eighteen years is plenty of time for somebody to plant something and wait," Grant said. "Marchetti doesn't rush. Tasha's records go back three years. Maybe this bug's been recording since before any of us knew his name."

Reggie let out a low whistle. "Man's patient."

"Patient men still lose," Grant said, "when somebody finally notices what they've been planting."

His phone rang. Not a text this time. A call, from Kessler's number.

The room went silent as Grant answered and put it on speaker.

"Cute little bug hunt," Kessler's voice said, tinny and amused. "Found it faster than I expected. Doesn't matter, though."

"Why's that?" Grant said.

"Because," Kessler said, "we already know everything we needed to know. Four days, Calloway. And this time, it's not just the warehouse that's on the table."

The line went dead, and every person in that room turned to look at Grant at once.