Chapter 53. Meeting

S:

The room is thick with tension. Cigarette smoke. Ink-stained maps. Dry voices throwing opinions over each other. Government officials on one side, my team on the other. Kieran beside me, arms crossed, jaw tight. My security captain, Dom, is pointing at a sketched route drawn over a detailed terrain map.

"The western route gives us the least exposure. Mountain cover and limited traffic. But the incline could slow the trucks. Easy ambush." He taps the edge of the paper with the back of his pen.

A man in a navy-blue government suit snorts. "You'd rather we crawl through mountains than take a paved road with surveillance support? Ridiculous."

Another officer leans forward. "Your paranoia is exhausting. We've secured Route A. Drones, checkpoints, trackers—"

"And yet the last time we trusted your checkpoints," Kieran says, finally speaking, voice calm but biting, "my boss was ambushed. I was almost taken."

Silence.

The suit frowns. "That wasn't