Chapter 100 — Night Run: The White Rose
Ricky
He’d been watching the hangar for an hour before anyone touched the plane. South American heat clung to him, thick as guilt, but he didn’t move. Patience was something life had beaten into him, one job at a time. His sweat soaked through his shirt, waiting as he watched for the moment he could get in and out without being seen. He was no Clause—maybe Clause should have taken this job—but he was better at reading people than paperwork. Reggy could trace code like veins; Ricky found the pulse that hid underneath. He didn’t need algorithms—just instinct.
He had no room to fail. His brothers were counting on him to deliver. The sun beat down harder, the air thick like its own punishment. He took a drink of water and kept watching. By the time night crawled in, he knew every rotation of guards, every worker’s rhythm. When the heat finally broke, he moved.
He slipped through the fence gap and stayed low between stacked pallets slick with oil. The air stank of jet fuel and rust. A single sodium lamp buzzed above, flickering between gold and shadow. Ricky moved when the fans were loudest and froze when they weren’t, using the hangar’s own noise to hide the sound of his boots.
Inside, the hangar was all bones and silence—the plane crouched in the dark, its belly open. A stair truck waited at the back, and half a dozen crates rested on dollies near the wall. Their corners were branded with a small white rose, burned into the wood. Not painted. Burned. He felt his jaw grind at the sight.
A small office sat raised at the far end, its window glowing dim yellow. He crept along the wall, hugging the crates until he reached the door. Inside, the air was stale, paper-thick. A corkboard hung crooked behind a dented desk, pinned with flight manifests and receipts. A clipboard lay front and center, a pen tied to it with a string.
He flipped through the first few sheets—routine cargo forms, maintenance sign-offs—until one header caught him:
Load: BP-17 Components
Description: Architectural Steel / Floral Lattice (Ceremonial)
Custodian: Black Pines Logistics
Ricky’s stomach sank. He turned another page.
CALL SIGN: N731-LA
ROUTE: SCL → ??? → SIN (charter)
WHEELS UP: 0400L
NOTES: No customs. No delay.
He pulled his burner phone and snapped three photos, quick and close, making sure the flash stayed off. As he slid the clipboard back, footsteps passed outside—slow, uneven, dragging like the worker had been here too long. Ricky ducked behind a filing cabinet and held his breath. The door creaked open.
A man stepped in, muttering in Spanish about coffee and cigarettes. He rummaged through a drawer, found his lighter, and left again. The door swung half shut. Ricky waited until the steps faded, then exhaled quietly.
On the edge of the corkboard, half-covered by a fuel receipt, he spotted a torn packing slip with a white-rose seal stamped in waxy gray. Beneath it, a smudged line read:
Destination: Singapore (Ceremonial Imports)
He slipped the corner free and folded it into his pocket.
Then the radio on the desk crackled to life, sharp enough to make him flinch.
“Confirm preflight complete on N-seven-three-one-Lima-Alpha.”
A second voice replied from somewhere outside:
“Tower copies. Cleared taxi two-seven at oh-three-forty-five. Departure oh-four-hundred for Singapore.”
That was his cue.
He eased out the door, keeping low between the crates until the hangar wall cut off the light. The night air hit cold and damp. The guard at the post lit a cigarette, blue glow of his phone lighting his face—same pattern as before. Predictable.
Ricky slipped through the gap in the fence again, rolled once into the scrub, and didn’t look back. Two lots over, he crouched behind a concrete barrier and pulled his burner from his pocket.
“Got you a tail,” he said when Liam answered. “N-seven-three-one-Lima-Alpha. Charter. Wheels up at zero-four-hundred local. Destination: Singapore. Manifest flagged ‘Ceremonial Imports.’ White-rose stamp.”
Static, then Liam’s breath—tight and controlled. “You certain?”
“Read it and heard it. They’re moving before dawn.”
A pause, then Liam’s voice came back, low and cold. “Then so are we.”
The line went dead. Ricky stared at the hangar lights in the distance as engines coughed to life, one after another, until the night began to shake with sound. He let it burn into memory, the last quiet before everything changed.
But even as he turned away, something in his gut twisted. A plane headed for Singapore—the same destination tied to Killian’s logistics and Amara’s silence.
He swore softly under his breath. Logic said to wait.
Instinct said otherwise.
He slipped his pistol back into its holster, eyes locked on the flicker of the taxi lights. There was room for one more passenger, if he was quiet enough.
“Guess I’m taking the red-eye,” he muttered, and started back toward the hangar’s shadow.