Page 107 of Boomer

Then word came that theRovikahad docked in the Balkans. The same ship he and Taylor had tagged in the harbor with an RFID tracker had finally returned to home base.

Taylor froze mid-brief. Just for a breath. But Boomer saw it. Felt the shift in her like static in his blood.

The CIA was already on the ground, circling it like wolves. They were feeding intel live to MAOC, and with every update, the net pulled tighter.

The name that rose from the wreckage?

Arkan Holdings. This time it wasn’t a whisper. It was a full-blown shout.

Boomer’s jaw clenched the second it was mentioned…again. They had been chasing that corporate ghost since this op began. The answer to who was running this outfit. Old-world, blood-fed, Balkan warlord wealth, scrubbed through shell corps and diplomatic immunity. Taylor didn’t say anything for a long minute. Just stared at the screen, her lips parted, eyes unreadable.

She didn’t need to say a damn thing. He knew what it meant to her.

Then cameMálaga’s Reach.

The flagship.

The linchpin.

She wasn’t listed on any registry. No AIS. No current manifest. No open port log. But she existed. Big, fast, and dangerous. Like theGaspard, she tried to run, making for Moroccan waters.

But the American Navy didn’t play games. The USSFalchionfired a missile across her bow. Boom. That was it.

No shots fired after. No standoff. Just complete surrender under the black sky.

They stormed the ship at sunrise. InsideMálaga’s Reachwas everything.

Vaulted files, burner drives, full manifests from six other ghost ships, live ships, still in rotation. GPS logs. Offshore accounts. Photos. Names. Payoffs. Blood money and supply chain intel that could rewrite the entire fentanyl war across two continents. Tucked in the nav panel’s side chamber? A hardwired server drive. Encrypted. Untraceable. Until now.

The CIA was already diving into it. MAOC, Taylor’s MAOC, would be the face of the takedown.

When they returned to the compound. He found her in TOC. She hadn’t slept in days. Her hair was scraped back, eyes heavy with fatigue. But she stood tall. Steady. Her voice like cut glass when she reported to Esteves. When the British liaison stepped up and offered her the floor and the French rep handed her a folder and called herCommissioner Hoffmanwith the kind of deference Boomer didn’t think was possible from someone that senior, it was clear she was going to get everything she’d worked for.

All of it.

Hell, this op alone would put her in line for a NATO cross-departmental leadership position. She’d be untouchable. Elevated.

He’d never been prouder. Never more certain she was about to outgrow him and maybe leave him behind. That thoughtsettled in his chest like a slow explosion. No fire. Just ache. He told himself it didn’t matter. That loving her meant letting her rise.

That if all he ever got was this moment, this mission, this fight fought shoulder to shoulder, breath to breath, he could live with it.

He didn’t know if it was true.

But he whispered it to himself anyway.

Then he turned back toward the team. Toward the next ghost still waiting to be hunted. Toward the breach.

If nothing else, he could still follow her into the fire and keep the monsters from taking her under.

The Adriatic was stillblack at this hour, glassed out and indifferent.

Dragomir “Draža” Milic stood barefoot on the edge of the pier, cigarette in one hand, a tumbler of rakija in the other, the warmth bleeding through his fingers like oil. Behind him, the stone villa loomed over the sea, lights out, dogs still asleep. But he didn’t sleep. He never did when the tide was turning, and in the last twenty-four hours, someone was ghosting his ghost ships.

He gritted his teeth. MAOC-N. The thorn in his side, and the source of all those thorns he knew quite well. Had tagged her and watched her.

A red dot blinked on the encrypted laptop balanced on the weathered outdoor table behind him. Signal lost. TheAnastazija.

Dragomir’s lips flattened. He inhaled slowly, no emotion in it, no surprise.