Chapter 78 The Operation Begins

Chapter 78 The Operation Begins
They left before sunrise.

I stood at the library window and watched the cars move through the gates one after another, headlights cutting through the early dark, and counted them without meaning to because counting was something to do with my hands when everything else was out of reach. Seven vehicles. Dante in the third one. I knew his car without needing to see him and I watched it until the cypress trees swallowed the lights and the drive was empty and the gates closed and the estate went quiet in a way that was different from ordinary quiet.

Operational quiet.

The kind that had weight to it.

Nico appeared beside me at the window. He had stayed behind to manage the estate security and to be here and we both understood without saying it that the second reason mattered considerably more than the first.

"Six simultaneous moves," he said. "Three primary fronts. The coalition is positioned and ready on all of them."

"When does the first wave hit," I said.

"Sunrise," he said. "Forty minutes."

I turned from the window.

Elena was already in the kitchen. I could hear her moving around in it, the specific sounds of a woman who processed things through activity, the kettle and the cupboards and the quiet percussion of cups on saucers. I went to the kitchen and sat at the table and she put coffee in front of me without being asked and sat across from me with her own cup and we both held them and looked at the window and waited.

The morning came in slowly.

Grey first and then pale gold and then proper light filling the kitchen and the garden beyond it and the rose beds catching the early colour and the fountain doing its ordinary thing as though the city forty minutes away was not in the process of being fundamentally rearranged.

At seven fifteen Nico's radio crackled.

Elena and I both looked at the doorway where he was standing with the radio in his hand and his face doing nothing while he listened.

He looked at me.

"Eastern front," he said. "First wave complete. Viktor's primary holding in the district is secured."

I put both hands flat on the table and breathed out slowly.

"The coalition men," I said.

"Two injuries," he said. "Neither critical. The location is ours."

Elena stood up and went to the counter and began doing something with bread that was entirely unnecessary and entirely necessary at the same time and I understood it completely because I needed something to do with my hands too so I got up and stood beside her and started doing something equally unnecessary with the bread and we stood at the counter together and the kitchen was warm and the radio was quiet and the morning moved.

At eight forty Nico came into the kitchen.

His face was different from seven fifteen.

Not bad exactly. Something more complicated than bad. The face of a man who had received information that had several layers to it and was deciding how to present the layers.

"Tell me," I said.

"Port front is running ahead of schedule," he said. "Viktor's transit route is cut. His people on that front have scattered. No significant resistance."

"And the compound," I said.

Nico looked at me steadily.

"Compound front hit the compound perimeter on schedule," he said. "First team through the outer gate." He paused. "Second team hit an ambush on the approach road."

The kitchen went very still.

"What kind of ambush," Elena said. She had turned from the counter and was looking at Nico with the specific expression of a woman who had been in this family long enough to know exactly what ambush on the approach road could mean.

"Viktor had men positioned in the buildings on either side of the road," Nico said. "Elevated positions. The second team walked into it before the scouts completed the clearance sweep."

"How many men," I said.

"Four down," he said. "Two critical. Two stable."

I put my hand on the counter.

"Dante," I said.

"Is on the compound perimeter," Nico said immediately. "He was with the first team. He is not on the approach road. He is not among the four."

I held his gaze for a long moment making absolutely certain I believed him.

I believed him.

"The second team," I said. "Can they regroup."

"They're regrouping now," he said. "The ambush positions have been identified. The coalition is adjusting the approach."

"Viktor knew we were coming," I said. "He knew the approach road specifically."

"Yes," Nico said.

"He had more information than what Sophia gave him," I said.

Nico was quiet for a moment. "That's what it looks like," he said.

I turned and walked out of the kitchen and into the corridor and went to the window that looked over the front drive and the closed gates and the empty road beyond them and stood there and thought about Viktor in his compound with elevated positions already set before sunrise which meant he had known for longer than last night and the information had come from somewhere Dante had not yet identified.

The radio crackled from the kitchen.

I heard Dante's voice.

Still controlled. Giving orders. Redirecting the second team and calling in the reserve position from the northern approach and doing it in the specific flat certain cadence of a man who had anticipated this possibility and had already built the response into the plan before anyone fired a single shot.

He had known there might be a leak he hadn't found yet.

He had planned for it anyway.

The compound perimeter was still held.

The operation was still running.

But somewhere on an approach road four men were down and Viktor was inside his walls and the morning was fully arrived now and everything was only just beginning.