The fluorescent lights in the DEA field office hummed with their usual monotonous drone, a sound Noah Jogensen had long ago learned to tune out. At 11:47 PM, the bullpen was nearly empty—just a few analysts hunched over their screens in distant cubicles, and the night-shift skeleton crew manning the phones. Noah sat at his desk, his coffee gone cold two hours ago, staring at his computer monitor without really seeing it.
Benjamin Perez hadn't checked in for thirty-six hours.
Noah had been in this business for twenty years. He knew the difference between a routine delay and the kind of silence that meant something had gone wrong. Benjamin was disciplined, almost obsessively so. In two years undercover, he'd never missed a scheduled contact by more than four hours. Even when communications were difficult, he found a way—a pay phone call, a dead drop, a coded message through one of their vetted intermediaries.
Thirty-six hours was a lifetime.
Noah's fingers drummed once against the desk—a rare display of tension from a man known throughout the agency for his unshakeable calm. He'd earned that reputation through two decades of controlled responses, measured decisions, strategic patience. But Benjamin Perez wasn't just another asset. Noah had recruited him personally, had spent months vetting him, training him, preparing him for the specific hell of deep cover work. He'd looked the younger man in the eye and promised him that the agency would have his back, that Noah himself would have his back.
Thirty-six hours of silence made that promise feel like ash in his mouth.
He reached for his phone and dialed Jim Lewis, one of his most reliable field agents. Lewis picked up on the second ring, his voice alert despite the late hour.
"Boss?"
"I need you to run a check on our friend," Noah said, using the vague terminology they always employed over potentially compromised lines. "Personal visit to his usual spots. Discreet."
There was a pause. Lewis knew what this meant. "How long?"
"Thirty-six."
Another pause, longer this time. "I'm on it. Want backup?"
"Take Joshua. Stay invisible. Just eyes, no contact unless absolutely necessary."
"Understood."
Noah hung up and leaned back in his chair, forcing himself to breathe slowly, deliberately. The office felt too quiet, the hum of the lights suddenly oppressive. He pulled up Benjamin's file on his screen—not that he needed to review it. He'd memorized every detail months ago.
Benjamin Perez. Twenty-nine years old. No family. Former Army, honorable discharge. Fluent in Spanish and English. Recruited to DEA three years ago, deployed undercover two years ago.
The photograph showed a lean-faced young man with sharp eyes and a carefully neutral expression. In the two years since that photo was taken, Benjamin had transformed himself into someone else entirely—a driver for HTBB, a mid-level money laundering operation that had been steadily expanding its reach through New York's underworld. Benjamin had delivered gold. Names, operations, financial routes, connections to their primary client—a millionaire named JK Mallman whose legitimate business empire concealed a vast network of illegal enterprises.
HTBB wasn't the biggest fish in New York, but they were ruthless and efficient. Led by Eliot King, a man whose reputation for brutal pragmatism preceded him, the organization had successfully insulated itself from law enforcement for years. Until Benjamin had gotten inside.
Noah had been building a case. A real case, the kind that could dismantle the entire operation from King down to the street-level money movers. Benjamin's intelligence had been meticulous, detailed, damning. They were maybe six months from having everything they needed for a coordinated takedown—simultaneous raids, asset seizures, arrests up and down the chain of command.
But intelligence work was a patient game, and patience required that your pieces stay on the board.
His desk phone rang, jolting him from his thoughts. Noah glanced at the caller ID—Lewis's number. Too soon. He'd only sent them out twenty minutes ago. The knot in his stomach tightened as he picked up.
"Yeah."
"Boss, you need to get down here." Lewis's voice was tight, controlled, but Noah could hear what lay beneath it. "Brooklyn. Corner of Meserole and Lorimer. There's a storm drain access point."
Noah's hand tightened on the phone. "Tell me."
"We found him."
The two words hung in the air like a death sentence. Noah closed his eyes briefly, his jaw clenching. When he spoke, his voice was perfectly level. "Status?"
"He's gone, boss. Looks like he's been there since last night. Single GSW to the head, close range. Whoever did this wanted him dead fast, then dumped him in the drain system."
Professional. Execution-style. That was HTBB's signature when they dealt with threats.
"Secure the scene," Noah said, his tone clipped and mechanical. "I want a full perimeter. Get Crime Scene down there, and call Martinez from the ME's office—tell her I want her personally. No press, no leaks. This stays quiet until I say otherwise."
"Already in motion. Boss..." Lewis hesitated. "I'm sorry."
Noah didn't respond to that. Sympathy was a luxury he couldn't afford right now. "I'll be there in twenty minutes."
He hung up and sat motionless for a long moment, staring at Benjamin's photograph on his screen. Twenty-nine years old. No family. That had been one of the factors in his selection—fewer complications, fewer vulnerabilities that the targets could exploit, fewer people to notify when things went wrong.
Fewer people to mourn him.
Noah had seen plenty of agents die over twenty years. Some in shootouts, some in accidents, a few to the slow poison of the job—addiction, suicide, the grinding pressure that eventually crushed something vital inside. He'd learned to compartmentalize, to separate the tactical reality of loss from the emotional weight of it. That was how you survived in this work. You couldn't carry every death with you, or you'd collapse under the accumulated burden.
But this was different. This was someone he'd personally sent into the fire.
He stood, grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair. As he headed for the door, he passed Coe coming out of the tactical team's ready room. The younger man—ten years Noah's junior but already graying at the temples—took one look at his face and fell into step beside him.
"What happened?"
"Perez is dead," Noah said flatly. "Brooklyn. Looks like an execution."
Coe's expression hardened. "Fuck. When?"
"Last night, probably. Lewis and Joshua just found him."
They walked in silence through the hallway, their footsteps echoing off the linoleum. Coe had been Benjamin's primary tactical liaison, the one who'd provided security for the few in-person meetings they'd managed to arrange over two years. He'd also been one of the voices arguing for pulling Benjamin out six months ago, when the operation had started to feel too risky, too exposed.
Noah had overruled him. Six more months, he'd said. They were too close to bail out now.
"You know this isn't on you," Coe said quietly as they reached the elevator.
Noah pressed the button and watched the numbers descend. "Get the team together. Everyone in the office by oh-six-hundred. We're going operational."
"Noah—"
"Everyone, Coe. Tactical, intelligence, analysts, forensics. I want every resource we have focused on this. HTBB just declared war on us, and I intend to finish it."
The elevator doors opened. Noah stepped inside, and Coe followed. As they descended, Coe studied him with the assessing gaze of someone who'd worked with Noah long enough to read the subtle signs—the slight tension in his shoulders, the way his hands remained perfectly still at his sides, the careful neutrality of his expression.
"What's the play?" Coe asked.
"We dismantle them," Noah said simply. "All of them. King, his entire operation, everyone who had a hand in this. And we find out exactly who pulled the trigger."
"Rules of engagement?"
"By the book. But thorough." Noah's voice was cold, empty of inflection. "I want warrants, surveillance, financial forensics, informant development—everything. We're going to take HTBB apart piece by piece, and we're going to make sure every single charge sticks."
The elevator reached the ground floor. As they walked through the lobby toward the parking garage, Coe said, "The timing bothers me. Perez was compromised somehow. After two years of perfect cover, something gave him away."
"I know."
"Could be a leak on our end."
Noah had already considered that possibility. The thought made his blood run cold, but he couldn't dismiss it. "We'll audit everything. Every contact, every communication, every person who knew about Perez's placement. If there's a leak, we'll find it."
They reached Noah's car—a nondescript sedan that could have belonged to any middle-aged professional in the city. As Noah unlocked it, Coe grabbed his arm.
"He was a good agent," Coe said. "One of the best I've worked with. And you gave him every advantage you could. Whatever happened, he knew the risks."
Noah met his gaze. "That doesn't make him any less dead."
He pulled free and got into the car. Coe stood in the parking garage for a moment, then headed toward his own vehicle. Noah started the engine and sat there, hands on the steering wheel, breathing slowly and deliberately.
Benjamin Perez. Twenty-nine years old. No family.
He put the car in gear and headed for Brooklyn.