Page 24 of Rogue Hope (Hope Landing: New Recruits #4)

The abandoned restaurant wavered in the distance, its details—peeling paint, reinforced deadbolts, modified security cameras disguised as ancient fixtures—all perfectly preserved in his memory from satellite imagery yet somehow more ominous in person.

He glanced at Zara beside him, noting the tight control in her expression that told him her lupus was flaring, adding another variable to an equation already tipping toward danger.

At least there were plenty of ways out of Phoenix if things went sideways.

While Ronan and Axel had completed the jet’s pre-flight, he’d memorized several layouts of the city.

The greater Phoenix area sprawled like an intricate circuit board.

His photographic memory sketched a precise mental grid, sharply delineated streets running north-south and east-west, disrupted only occasionally by a defiant diagonal.

Outside the city center, squat stucco neighborhoods nestled between desert-scrubbed hills contrasted sharply with gleaming high-rise towers clustered at the city’s vibrant core, each detail vivid and precise in his mind’s eye.

Sweat beaded at his hairline as he and Zara approached the safehouse.

The abandoned Mexican restaurant—“Cielito Lindo” according to the faded sign hanging askew above the entrance—sat nestled between a vacant lot and a pawnshop whose barred windows reflected the merciless sun.

Plywood sheets covered most of the restaurant’s windows, secured with rusting screws and decorated with peeling graffiti tags in faded reds and blues.

“Perimeter scan complete,” Griffin’s voice came through the nearly invisible earbud nestled in Finn’s right ear. “No movement within three blocks. Rooftop position secured.”

“Escape routes prepped and standing by,” Axel confirmed next, his laid-back Midwestern drawl incongruous with the tension of the situation. “Vehicle positioned for immediate extraction, eastern approach.”

“Deploying heat scan,” Deke added, his baritone sounding slightly distorted through the comm system. “Initial sweep indicates no thermal signatures inside.”

This team operated like a single organism, each member instinctively understanding their role without excessive communication. It was the kind of cohesion that only came from years of working together, surviving together, trusting each other implicitly.

Nothing he’d ever experienced.

Beside him, Zara remained stoically focused on the mission, her posture rigid. He recognized the additional stiffness in her movements. Her expression remained impassive, but the slight tightness around her eyes spoke volumes.

“Building interior confirmed clear,” Deke reported after several tense minutes. “No visible threats or occupants detected. Entry point identified through rear kitchen access—minimal visibility from surrounding structures.”

“Acknowledged,” Zara responded, her first verbal contribution since they’d left the van. “Team maintain positions. Commencing entry.”

She turned to him, her gaze coolly professional, as if their earlier confrontation had never happened.

“Careful now kids,” Ronan ordered over the comlink. “Heads on a swivel.”

“Copy that,” Zara responded.

They moved around the building’s perimeter, staying close to the sunbaked brick wall.

The heat radiating from the structure was palpable, like standing too close to an oven.

Every step stirred tiny dust devils in the parched alleyway, the fine particles coating Finn’s throat despite the lightweight mask covering his lower face.

The kitchen entrance was secured with a padlocked chain, but Deke’s drone had identified it as the optimal entry point.

Zara produced a compact bolt cutter from her vest, the metal gleaming momentarily in the harsh sunlight before she efficiently severed the chain.

The lock fell to the dirt with a dull thud that seemed unnaturally loud in the surrounding silence.

“We’re in,” she murmured into her comm as Finn eased the door open, wincing at the screech of rusted hinges.

They slipped inside, the temperature dropping abruptly as they moved from direct sunlight into the shadowed interior.

The smell hit him immediately—a complex bouquet of abandonment: mold, dust, stale cooking oil, and the unmistakable mustiness of long-disused spaces, all with a curious overlay of the chemical smells of plastics, and various electronic components.

Exactly the way a former safehouse would smell.

Particles swirled in the thin shafts of light penetrating through small gaps in the boarded windows, creating ghostly patterns that danced with their movements.

The kitchen was a graveyard of restaurant equipment.

An industrial mixer stood like a silent sentinel, it’s once-shining metal surfaces dulled with years of neglect, cobwebs strung around the wide bowl.

Prep tables lined the walls, drawers partially opened as if the previous occupants had left in a hurry.

A heavy layer of dust covered every surface, undisturbed except for the occasional small animal tracks.

“Kitchen clear,” Zara reported quietly. “Moving to dining area.”

The swinging doors separating kitchen from dining room protested with a mournful creak as they pushed through.

The main restaurant space stretched before them—a time capsule of abandoned commerce.

Tables still set with dusty glasses and tarnished silverware.

Chairs upended on tabletops as if for a final cleaning that never happened.

Faded Mexican tourism posters curled at the edges on walls once brightly painted but now peeling and water-stained.

Finn’s combat instincts registered every detail while cataloging potential threats and escape routes.

The main entrance. Two emergency exits. Windows—limited visibility due to boarding but potentially usable.

A bar area with a pass-through to the kitchen.

A narrow hallway likely leading to restrooms, a sad office space, and the hidden entry to the safehouse facility below.

Once they uncovered the entrance, Zara’s team would send the drones back to scout it out.

As they advanced into the center of the dining area, Finn caught the glint of something metallic near the floor.

His arm shot out to stop Zara’s forward movement. “Hold up.”

She tensed beside him, hand automatically moving toward the sidearm strapped to her thigh. “What is it?”

Thin wires, copper, encased in clear plastic or silicone stretching across the path they’d been about to take. The copper blended into the earth-toned concrete floor. With the dust and debris, he almost hadn’t noticed.

He crouched down, signaling Zara to remain still. The wire bisected the room, disappearing behind a sagging particleboard bookcase.

“We need a drone in here ASAP,” Zara ordered over comms. “Suspicious wire. Might be energized.”

“Drone in flight,” Deke responded instantly. “ETA thirty seconds.”

“Good idea,” Finn acknowledged. He was too used to winging things. Running on adrenaline and brainpower and little else.

While they waited for the tiny electronic scout, he tiptoed along the line, following it to its source at the base of the far wall. Frayed ends curled skyward.

He exhaled slowly. “False alarm. Old speaker wire.”

The tiny drone zipped silently overhead, dipping close and hovering before flying back out the window.

“We concur,” Ronan announced in Finn’s ear. “Old-school speaker wire. You’re good to continue.”

Finn straightened, meeting Zara’s irritated gaze. He shrugged. “I haven’t seen tech that old in years. It’s from the eighties. Maybe older. Better safe than sorry.”

She didn’t respond verbally, but her expression spoke volumes—part annoyance, part grudging acknowledgment of his caution. They resumed their search, moving in tandem across the dining area, checking under tables and behind the bar.

“Perimeter remains secure,” Griffin updated through their earbuds. “No movement in the vicinity.”

“Vehicle standing by,” Axel confirmed again. “All quiet on the eastern approach.”

“Thermal scans still negative,” Deke added. “No heat signatures detected inside or within thirty meters of your position.”

Each reassurance from the team should have eased Finn’s tension, but instead, it heightened it. Years of fieldwork had taught him that when things appeared this clean, they rarely were.

They moved toward the narrow hallway at the back of the space. A small office sat at the end of the corridor, its door ajar. Inside, a dust-covered desk held nothing but scattered papers. A filing cabinet stood with drawers partially opened, apparently emptied in haste.

The entry to the safehouse would be there somewhere.

Finn moved back into the hallway, something about the office’s condition triggering his suspicion.

If this truly had been an active safehouse, even a rarely used one, basic maintenance protocols would ensure it didn’t look this abandoned.

The dust layer was too thick, the neglect too thorough, even for CIA spooks.

“Hang tight,” he ordered Zara.

Her mouth opened, but whatever protest she planned to make, she kept to herself.

He made his way back toward the kitchen, scanning more carefully now, looking for anything that didn’t match the overall pattern of abandonment.

As he pushed through the swinging doors again, something caught his eye—a slight irregularity in the dust pattern near the industrial shelving unit against the far wall.

Moving closer, he noticed what had triggered his attention: a relatively clean rectangular outline on the floor, as if something had been placed there recently. Most people wouldn’t have noticed. Neither Zara nor her team noted it.

If his brain weren’t so finely-tuned to patterns of every kind, he wouldn’t have either. He craned his neck, leaning his cheek against the wall to see the back of the shelving unit.

And there it was, a cardboard box tucked behind rusting metal containers. Unlike everything else in the room, the box was new.

The incongruity set off immediate alarm bells. He rose up on his tiptoes and edged closer. Through a gap in the box’s lid, he caught the distinct rhythmic blinking of tiny LED lights.

Recognition hit him like a physical blow. “IED!” he shouted into his comm, already turning to race back through the swinging doors. “Clear the area! Zara, get down!”

He burst into the dining area, eyes locking on Zara’s position across the room. She had turned at his shout, expression shifting from confusion to alarm in an instant.

The distance between them felt impossible to cross in time.

Three strides. Two. One.

Please, Lord, keep her safe.