Do you copy?” “Who the fuck is this?” “Party, this is HOC. Go ahead.” “Target is in custody.” “Spook? Are those ours?” “What fucking target?” “Channel cue.” “Cue-back.” I jumped channels. “HOC, this is Party. Do you copy?” “Copy, Party. Go ahead.” “Coming home.” “Copy. Code check.” I pinged Levi with a flurry of dots and dashes. “S E C U R E,” so he knew. So he knew we weren’t under duress. “Copy. Did you encounter resistance?” “Affirmative. We neutralized a mob at WHIS.PER’s Rule and Mulberry Street.” “Did you take casualties?” “Negative.” “Copy. Look twice. Over.” “Copy, HOC. Over.” I started a different route back. We couldn’t take chances with the Mulberry mob. Likely, they’d be lying in wait now. More road spikes—real ones. Some guns. Something bad. Those that hadn’t burned. I could see Ruth looking at my sword in the backseat. I hadn’t cleaned the blood from it yet. The edge had taken a severe curve when it hit that girl’s shins.
