The abandoned textile factory reeked of machine oil and decades of Caribbean humidity. Art deco windows, their geometric patterns now spider-webbed with cracks, filtered dawn light into harsh geometric shadows across the concrete floor. Steam rose from nearby processing plants, creating pockets of cover between the factory's chrome smokestacks that reached toward storm clouds like prayers to a future that had never quite arrived.
Hayes sat bound to a chair that had probably been elegant once, back when New Karenan industrialists believed good design could civilize the tropics. Now the brass fittings were green with corrosion, and the leather upholstery stank of mold and fear.
"Your backup never came," Kasper observed, checking his pocket watch. A gift from Isabella for his last birthday, its tiny gears clicking with clockwork precision she'd helped repair. "That's interesting."
Hayes smiled with bureaucratic patience. "Perhaps because they weren't backup."
Zariff emerged from the shadows where he'd been monitoring radio frequencies on equipment that looked like it belonged in a science fiction serial. His son had trained on similar devices before the Association took him. The Obsidian Syndicate coordinator moved with the fluid grace of someone who'd spent twenty years orchestrating shadow operations from Port Royal to Nassau, his dark skin gleaming with tropical sweat and his gold-capped teeth catching the harsh morning light.
"Association signals went dark three minutes after we extracted from the warehouse," Zariff reported, his cultured accent carrying undertones of islands and continents Kasper had never seen. "Someone's jamming their communications."
"Who has that kind of capability?" Marco asked from his position by the windows, expensive Italian leather shoes still stained with blood from the warehouse floor. The family prince had volunteered for this madness, and now he was beginning to understand why enhanced veterans were discussed in Policy Division meetings with the kind of respect usually reserved for natural disasters.
"The same people who've been watching your family for three generations," Hayes said quietly. "The same people who arranged for your grandfather's war records to disappear."
Kasper's enhanced reflexes went still. In combat situations, he could calculate twelve elimination scenarios in 2.3 seconds and execute any of them with surgical precision. But against the Association's new soldiers, enhanced capabilities might not be enough. "What did you just say?"
"Your mother Carmen has been asking questions, Mr. de la Fuente. Visiting archives. Requesting classified documents about her father's service record." Hayes checked his pocket watch with the habitual gesture of someone who measured conversations in billable hours. "Three months ago, she submitted a formal inquiry about Sergeant Eduardo de la Fuente's involvement in something called Operation Compass Rose."
The temperature in the factory seemed to drop ten degrees.
"Papa never mentioned a grandfather in the military," Marco muttered, his family's minor augmentations letting him process implications faster than normal humans. "Your family history was always... vague."
Zariff's radio crackled with encrypted transmissions. He adjusted the frequency with mechanical precision, the same movements his boy had practiced during training exercises. "Static's getting worse. We have maybe fifteen minutes before they breach the perimeter."
"Because Eduardo de la Fuente wasn't supposed to exist," Hayes continued with academic detachment. "Officially, he died in a training accident in 1897. Unofficially, he was recruited for the Bounty Hunter Association's first enhanced soldier program."
The radio equipment painted Zariff's weathered features in electronic blue light. When he spoke, his voice carried the weight of secrets that had been buried for decades. "Project Meridian. I've heard whispers about that from sources in the old country. British Imperial experiments, wasn't it?"
"Close. Project Meridian was joint British-American research into augmented human capabilities." Hayes smiled with the satisfied expression of someone who'd spent fifteen years collecting secrets like postage stamps. "Your grandfather, Mr. de la Fuente, was their most successful test subject."
Kasper thought about his mother's gentle hands, her laugh as she prepared dinner, her stubborn insistence on fixing broken clockwork mechanisms herself rather than hiring professionals. Carmen de la Fuente, asking questions about a grandfather who'd been erased from official records.
"You're lying."
"Enhanced strength, accelerated healing, modified reflexes. The prototype for what would eventually become the Costa del Sol program." Hayes leaned forward despite his restraints, bureaucratic enthusiasm overriding survival instincts. "Then explain why your enhancement compatibility ratings were off the charts. Why Costa del Sol selected you from thousands of candidates."
Through the factory windows, New Karenan city lights were fading as tropical dawn painted the Caribbean sky in shades of gold and crimson. Art deco spires reached toward storm clouds like chrome fingers, beautiful and fragile and completely unaware of the truth being negotiated in their shadows.
Enhanced capabilities don't occur randomly. The thought struck Kasper like cold water. His Costa del Sol training had included genetic compatibility assessments, but the instructors had explained them as routine medical screening.
"Zariff," Kasper said quietly, "is he telling the truth?"
Zariff's fingers hesitated on the radio controls. Twelve years ago, those same fingers had signed papers releasing his fourteen-year-old son to Association custody. Training accident, they'd called it. Augmentation rejection syndrome.
"My daughter Nailah mentioned something during her intelligence analysis training. About enhanced soldier programs predating the official military augmentation projects. British Colonial Office experiments that were classified beyond even Intelligence Division access." Zariff's gold teeth glinted as he smiled grimly. "The Obsidian Syndicate has been tracking Association activities for fifteen years. We've always wondered why they seemed to know which soldiers would succeed in enhancement programs before the candidates themselves were selected."
"Because they've been maintaining genetic records for forty years," Hayes said with the satisfied tone of someone revealing a particularly elegant solution. "Project Meridian didn't end with your grandfather's generation. It evolved."
Marco checked his pistol with nervous precision, expensive family augmentations letting him maintain weapon discipline despite psychological stress. "That's why they're so interested in Kasper's family. They're not just hunting an enhanced veteran."
"They're protecting a research investment," Hayes finished. "More than that. They're preventing contamination of future experimental populations. Enhanced genetics combined with civilian breeding patterns could produce augmented individuals outside Association control."
The factory's steam pipes hissed like angry serpents. Emergency lighting cast geometric shadows across industrial space that had been transformed into a revelation chamber.
"How many others?" Kasper asked quietly. His enhanced hearing picked up vehicle engines in the distance, still several blocks away but approaching with military precision. "How many enhanced veterans have families with Project Meridian connections?"
"Classified information, I'm afraid."
Enhanced strength grabbed Hayes by the throat with pressure that demonstrated exactly how little effort would be required to end his bureaucratic career permanently. Kasper's grip could crush a man's windpipe or simply apply enough pressure to encourage cooperation. Right now, it was the latter.
"Not anymore."
"Seventeen active enhanced veterans. Twelve families under surveillance. Three scheduled for Protocol Seven elimination within the next six months." Hayes spoke with the clinical detachment of someone reading grocery lists. "Your family wasn't randomly selected, Mr. de la Fuente. You were specifically recruited because of your genetic profile."
Zariff's radio crackled with urgent transmissions. Static filled with coded phrases that suggested the approaching storm was worse than anticipated. "Kasper, we've got Association response teams mobilizing from three different bases. They're not coming to rescue Hayes."
"How much time?"
"Fifteen minutes. Maybe less."
Through reinforced factory windows, Marco watched military vehicles moving through New Karenan streets with the precision of people who'd practiced this exact scenario. Black sedans with diplomatic plates. Trucks with equipment that looked suspiciously like enhanced veteran containment systems.
"They're not just coming for us," he realized with family-trained tactical awareness. "They're coming for evidence."
Hayes laughed with genuine amusement, the sound echoing off concrete walls like broken glass. "Mr. de la Fuente, you still don't understand what you're fighting. The Bounty Hunter Association isn't a government agency. It's a scientific research corporation with international jurisdiction and enhanced veteran elimination protocols that make your Costa del Sol training look like preparatory coursework."
"Then why haven't they just killed us already?"
"Because you represent valuable research data. Enhanced genetics combined with unpredictable civilian behavior patterns." Hayes straightened his tie with careful precision despite his restraints. "Your survival instincts, your tactical adaptations, your psychological responses to family-based threats. All of it provides intelligence about enhanced veteran capabilities under extreme stress conditions."
Kasper thought about Isabella's drawings taped to the kitchen refrigerator. Stick figures of the family holding hands under a smiling sun. In every single picture, Papa stood between his girls and anything that might hurt them.
But Papa didn't know his father had been a laboratory experiment. Didn't know his enhanced son was part of a decades-long research program. Didn't know his granddaughter's bedroom had cameras installed by people who saw her as genetic material rather than an eight-year-old girl who loved clockwork mechanisms and bedtime stories.
"What do they want from us?"
Zariff's equipment registered multiple encrypted channels going active simultaneously. The Association was coordinating something big.
Hayes checked his pocket watch with ingrained habit, counting down to something none of them understood yet. "Compliance. Your voluntary participation in ongoing research programs. Your family's cooperation with genetic monitoring protocols. Your children's enrollment in enhanced soldier training programs when they reach appropriate age."
"And if we refuse?"
"Protocol Seven. Family elimination. Elimination of all genetic evidence. Elimination of all witness testimony." Hayes smiled like a shark who had just realized the hook worked in both directions. "But the Association prefers willing cooperation to unnecessary violence. That's why I'm authorized to offer alternative arrangements."
The sirens were closer now, maybe six blocks away. Military response time in the dock district was carefully calculated by people who understood enhanced veteran capabilities and civilian collateral damage potential.
"Zariff, extraction routes?"
"North exit leads to processing plants. Good cover, but they'll have that monitored." Zariff's tactical analysis carried undertones of personal investment that suggested this wasn't just professional interest. "South exit goes to the main docks. Vincenzo's territory, but Association has maritime jurisdiction. East takes us into residential areas. Too many civilians."
"West?"
"Old cemetery. Art deco mausoleums, good sight lines, defensible positions." Zariff paused, his fingers working radio controls with practiced efficiency. "I've run this scenario before."
"Why do you sound like you've planned this?"
Zariff was quiet for a moment, his radio equipment painting geometric shadows across weathered features that spoke of decades navigating shadow operations across three continents. When he spoke, his voice carried weight that suggested personal history rather than professional obligation.
"Because the Association took my son twelve years ago. Enhanced soldier recruitment. He was fourteen years old." Gold teeth glinted as he smiled without humor. "They told me it was voluntary. They told me it was for his own protection. They told me genetic compatibility made resistance futile."
"What happened to him?"
"Training accident. Officially. Augmentation rejection syndrome. Sixty percent fatality rate for enhanced soldier modification surgery, remember?" Zariff's fingers moved across radio controls with mechanical precision. "They sent me his personal effects in a brass box with Association seals. Very official. Very final."
Marco understood family loyalty in ways that went beyond tactical calculation or professional obligation. The Moretti family had spent three generations learning that some losses carved hollow spaces in your chest that never healed properly.
"That's why you're helping us. This isn't about Obsidian Syndicate politics."
"The Syndicate has strategic interest in limiting Association power. But yes, this is personal." Zariff checked his equipment one more time, ensuring encrypted channels remained secure. "My daughter Nailah is eighteen now. Enhanced genetics, exceptional intelligence, exactly the profile they recruit. I will not lose another child to their research programs."
The vehicles were four blocks away now. Rotating red and blue lights painted the industrial district in colors that felt mockingly cheerful against the reality of what was approaching.
"Hayes, what kind of deal are you authorized to offer?"
The bureaucrat straightened his tie with careful precision despite his restraints, professional instincts recognizing negotiation opportunities even in life-threatening circumstances.
"Voluntary relocation. New identities for your entire family. Financial compensation. Regular medical monitoring to ensure augmentation stability." Hayes spoke with the practiced efficiency of someone who'd made similar offers before. "In exchange, you provide periodic intelligence about enhanced veteran capabilities and participate in controlled psychological assessments."
"For how long?"
"Indefinitely."
Kasper thought about his mother's coffee, Isabella's laughter, Camila's typewriter clicking as she worked on another article about dock worker conditions. Normal life. Family dinners. Bedtime stories. Everything he'd been trying to protect.
"And if something happens to you, Hayes? If you have an accident before we reach this arrangement?"
Hayes smiled with bureaucratic confidence that suggested contingency planning was his specialty. "Then Protocol Seven activates automatically. Failsafe systems, Mr. de la Fuente. The Association has been planning contingencies for forty years."
The sirens stopped. Red and blue lights still painted the factory walls, but no more sound. Military precision replacing police response protocols.
Zariff's radio crackled with final position reports. "They're here."
"How long until they breach the perimeter?"
"Two minutes. Maybe less. Whatever we're doing, we decide now."
Through factory windows, Kasper could see figures moving with enhanced veteran precision and military equipment that suggested this was elimination rather than negotiation. Black body armor, weapons designed for enhanced human targets, coordination that spoke of extensive training in enhanced veteran containment protocols.
"How many?"
"Twelve. Maybe more. All enhanced, all Association-trained." Zariff's tactical assessment carried professional respect mixed with personal hatred. "They're not here to arrest anyone."
Hayes checked his pocket watch one final time, bureaucratic satisfaction suggesting the countdown had reached its intended conclusion.
"Gentlemen, meet the Association's Enhanced Response Division. Soldiers who've been specifically trained to eliminate enhanced veterans who've become security risks." His smile widened with terrible anticipation. "Your Costa del Sol modifications are impressive, Mr. de la Fuente. But they're forty years out of date."
The factory's main entrance exploded inward with precision that turned reinforced steel into twisted sculpture. Enhanced soldiers moved through the breach like death given tactical coordination, their weapons trained on positions that suggested extensive intelligence about the building's layout.
Kasper's enhanced reflexes calculated elimination scenarios in real time. Twelve enhanced soldiers. Four defenders. Marco's family augmentations provided minor advantages, but nothing compared to military-grade modifications. Zariff had experience but no physical enhancements. Against Association soldiers with forty years of technological advancement, the mathematics were grim.
"Move!" Zariff shouted, but Kasper was already in motion, enhanced strength and speed turning desperate odds into pure survival instinct.
The real war had finally started.
And for the first time since Santos Negros, he wasn't sure they were going to win.