6 – The Little Safe House On The Wye

The Little Safe House On The Wye

Some friends bring wine. Dars bring tactical baggage and plans for a Safehouse.
When Logan and Rhys crash her quiet life, the safest house becomes the most dangerous.

Rhys sat motionless in the passenger seat of Logan’s Range Rover, watching hedgerows streak past in the dreary afternoon. His jaw ached from clenching. The folder Veyr had given them lay closed on his lap, its secrets still unread because every time he tried to open it, he saw Dar’s face instead. She analyses patterns. Doesn’t mean she understands what those patterns represent in flesh and blood.

Logan drove with his usual controlled aggression, taking corners like he had something to prove to the asphalt. Neither of them had spoken since leaving the facility. The silence had weight—the kind that accumulated between men who’d shared enough bullets and bad decisions to communicate in frequencies ordinary people couldn’t hear.

“You’re thinking too loud,” Logan’s eyes remained fixed ahead.

Rhys turned the folder over in his hands. Expensive leather. Government money. “She’s brilliant. You know that.”

“But?”

“But brilliant doesn’t stop rounds. Doesn’t prevent blowback when the people we’re hunting decide to hunt back.” Rhys pressed his thumb against the folder’s edge until the skin went white. “Thompson in Berlin. Rashid in Karachi. We’ve both seen how that ends.”

“Dar’s not Thompson.”

“No. She’s better. Sees connections that take us weeks in minutes.” Rhys stared at his distorted reflection in the window glass. “Which is exactly why I’m worried.”

Logan’s knuckles tightened on the steering wheel. “Veyr promised she’d stay remote.”

“Veyr promises a lot of things.” Rhys turned the folder again, a nervous tic he couldn’t suppress. “You trust her?”

A bitter laugh. “I trust her to use us until we’re spent. Same as every handler I’ve ever had.”

“Then why are we bringing Dar into this?” Rhys’s chest felt tight. Because we need her. Because those bastards will keep killing, and we need every advantage. The logic was perfect, and it made him want to put his fist through the dashboard.

“Because she’s already in.” Logan’s voice went quiet. “Moment Veyr identified her, the choice stopped being ours. We can either bring her in where we can watch her back, or—”

“Or someone else does, and we’re on the outside.” Rhys finished, tasting bile. He opened the folder finally, letting his eyes scan the first page without really seeing it. Codenames. Target profiles. The usual bureaucratic sanitisation of human evil. “She thinks this is about justice. Making a difference.”

“Isn’t it?”

“We both know what this is about.” Rhys looked at Logan properly now, reading the tension in his jaw. “Containment. Elimination. Getting our hands dirty so politicians can keep theirs clean.”

A tractor pulled out ahead. Logan downshifted, engine growling. “Dar’s not stupid. She’ll figure it out.”

“And when she does? When she realises the patterns she’s tracking end in unmarked graves and diplomatic incidents that never make the news?” Rhys closed the folder, pressing it flat against his thighs. “You remember what you were like after Baghdad? First six months?”

“Don’t.”

“You didn’t sleep for weeks. Jumped at car backfires. That was you—trained, prepared, expecting exactly what you found.” Rhys’s voice dropped. “What happens when Dar connects someone’s daughter to a trafficking ring? When her analysis puts a name and face to—”

“I said don’t.” Logan’s tone carried an edge that would’ve made most men back off.

Rhys wasn’t most men. “She’s my concern too. Not just yours.”

Silence stretched between them. Rhys thought about the files Veyr had shown them—cold cases Dar had cracked from publicly available data, connections entire intelligence divisions had missed. She was brilliant. A weapon they desperately needed.

You didn’t point weapons at targets without accepting they might break.

“We protect her,” Rhys said. “Whatever it takes. She gives us the patterns, we handle the consequences. She never has to see the room where we interview subjects. Never has to smell what gunfire smells like up close.”

Logan nodded slowly. “Agreed.”

“And if it gets too heavy—if we see her cracking—”

“We pull her. Veyr’s orders be damned.” Logan’s jaw set in that stubborn line Rhys knew well. “She’s family before she’s operational.”

The tightness in Rhys’s chest eased. Not gone, but manageable. He opened the folder again, forcing himself to read properly. Three targets, all connected to an arms trafficking network stretching from Hereford to Minsk. The kind of operation that needed someone like Dar to map the nodes, and men like him and Logan to cut them out. We’ll keep her safe. We’ll use her brilliance without letting the darkness touch her. He almost believed it.
—
Logan stood at the rain-streaked window of the room he was vacating, whisky glass warming in his palm though he hadn’t taken a sip in ten minutes. Beyond the glass, Herefordshire’s grey afternoon bled into greyer evening. His reflection stared back—older than he felt, younger than the work had made him.
She said yes.

The thought should’ve brought relief. Instead, it lodged somewhere behind his ribs, refusing to shift. He’d wanted Dar safe, wanted her mind working on something that mattered, wanted her pulled from the grief that had settled over her since Zoe. Got all three. So why does it feel like I’ve just signed her death warrant?

His mobile sat on the windowsill, Pam’s last message still glowing on the screen: She’s excited, Lo. First time I’ve seen her eyes light up in months. He’d read it four times, searching for subtext, for doubt, for anything that would give him permission to intervene.

Nothing.

The whisky finally touched his lips—peat and smoke and regret. Veyr hadn’t lied, exactly. Dar would stay home, would work behind screens and encrypted channels. Safe as anyone could be in this business. But safe was relative when you were mapping the movements of men who disappeared journalists and burnt evidence without a second thought.

She doesn’t know what it costs. The weight of certain knowledge, the way information embedded itself in your mind until you couldn’t unsee it. How you started seeing patterns everywhere—in traffic, in conversations, in the innocent routines of ordinary people who had no idea what crawled beneath the surface.

Rhys would watch out for her. That was something. Rhys, who’d taken a bullet in Mosul meant for a translator’s daughter, who still sent birthday cards to the orphans they’d extracted from that shitshow in Aleppo. Good man. Better than me in all the ways that matter.

But good men got ground down by this work just as surely as bastards like him did.

Logan drained the glass and left it on the small table. His bag was ready by the door, and Rhys was getting restless, despite the whiskey.

Christ, she’d been analysing crime patterns for years, knew the statistics on violence and corruption better than most field agents. She wasn’t naive. Just… untested.

You couldn’t explain what this work did to you. How the first time you held evidence of a child’s suffering in your hands, something inside you broke and never quite healed. How protecting people sometimes meant becoming the thing you’d sworn to destroy.

He pocketed the phone, grabbed the bag, signalling to Rhys it was time. She’s already in. The moment she answered Veyr’s call, the machine started turning. All he could do now was stand ready to catch her when the weight of it became too much.

If it became too much. Maybe Dar was stronger than he gave her credit for. Maybe her distance from the field would inoculate her against the worst of it. Maybe.

Outside, a car alarm shrieked and died. The evening news babbled through someone’s wall. Logan checked his watch and fired up the Rover.
—
After her meeting with Veyr, Dar channelled her nervous energy into tidying. She packed her thesis into a sturdy box, placing the two mysterious black devices from Veyr beside her laptop on the dining room table. Struggling with the storage room’s stubborn door, she manoeuvred the box awkwardly, finally homing it temporarily by the now stuck open door. The cramped storage room, with its industrial shelving and accumulated charity shop finds, sparked an idea: a potential home office. As she slid a pizza into the oven, a sense of cautious anticipation replaced her earlier anxiety. The sound of tyres on gravel broke her momentary calm. Barely past six.

Logan came through the front entrance and dropped his kit bag by the door. The heavy thud against the wood floor spooked Twigs from her post at the living room window—she bolted upstairs. That sound was unmistakable to Dar: it meant Logan was staying. Only then did it occur to her that with ‘retirement’ he’d no longer be staying at the base.

Rhys followed a moment later, his stride quieter but still imposing.

Dar wiped her palms down her jumper as they appeared. “You’re back. Wasn’t sure if I should expect you or not.”

Logan leant against the doorframe, arms crossed. “Would’ve been back later if you’d texted that you were cooking.” The barb was met with Dar’s eye roll. He regretted not stopping for takeaway with Rhys since Dar and cooking didn’t mix, except when it came to lasagne. “Plans changed. Rhys volunteered to explain why.” His eyes swept the room—windows secure, exits clear, teapot steaming.

Rhys lingered near the doorway, watching Dar’s expression shift—that subtle bracing she did so well.

“Didn’t know if you wanted the company…but we need to talk, Dar.” His tone was low, controlled. The meeting with Veyr—Logan’s nickname for the new task force director was I.Q.—had left them both wound tight.

Dar shot a glance at Logan, then Rhys. “Right. Well, no time like the present.” She picked up the dishcloth from the counter, her fingers working at the fabric.

“Veyr wants to repurpose the house. Put it back to full safe house protocols.” Rhys watched her closely, anticipating her response. He and Logan had insisted to Veyr that they would all talk first, alone. Veyr, though agreeing, remained firm.

Logan finally pulled off the sunglasses, folding them slowly, as the kitchen light highlighted the scar on his temple. “We get what this house is to you, Dar, and I fought it. But the location’s too good to ignore—river access, the acres, sight lines, low civilian density.” He paused. “Veyr’s not asking, but we get a say in how it’s done. Forty-eight hours before her team shows for assessment.” His gaze flicked to Rhys, then back.

“Safe house protocols mean cameras, hardened doors, sensors. Basement gets comms upgrades—Hawk and I can handle that. We’ll box up whatever you want moved to my suite or storage. Your room stays yours. Zoe’s stays locked—that’s non-negotiable.” His fingers drummed once against the wall. “You set the boundaries. Which rooms, what times. I’ll enforce them.”

Refusing Veyr wouldn’t change anything—the house would become a safehouse, regardless. Dar’s mind began cataloguing what needed moving: her office to the storage area, personal items to… somewhere. The thought had haunted her since Zoe died, but hearing Logan confirm it cut deep. Not mine. Never really mine. She swallowed hard. “It’s always been your house, Logan.” Her voice cracked, and she pressed her lips together, looking away.

She turned towards the window above the sink. The darkness outside pressed against the glass, reflecting her pale face. Beyond, she could just make out the chains of Zoe’s rusting swing set swaying in the breeze.

The house breathed Zoe’s memory—sometimes Dar thought if she turned around fast enough, she could see her sitting at the table doing homework. Dar wanted to articulate how these walls held her daughter’s essence, but grief strangled the words. Silence became the only language of her loss.

She forced the tears down and turned to face them. “So what’s the plan? I box up my life while you two stand guard?” She paused, then smirked. “Or am I not allowed to leave?”

Logan moved to the table and placed his hands flat on the surface. His voice was low and deliberate. “The house stays yours. We harden it—cameras, secure comms, reinforced entry points. You need protection whether you like it or not. Zoe’s room stays untouched. Off-limits to everyone, including Veyr’s people.” He paused, meeting her eyes. “We’re building a fortress around you, Dar. You don’t get to refuse that.”

She clenched her trembling hands into fists. After Zoe died, the house had felt cavernous—every room an echo chamber of absence. Lo and Rhys always tried to be here for her, but when they were on a mission, the house was empty for weeks, sometimes months, just her, Zoe’s cat and the ghosts. Some nights she didn’t sleep; some nights she had to ‘SOS’ Pam to come and stay. Their presence might prove irksome, but she wanted them here. The alternative was unbearable.

“Fine.” She straightened, mirroring Logan’s stance. “The spare rooms upstairs? Fine. But Zoe’s room stays locked.” Dar motioned to the storage room door, now stuck ajar. “That new office will be  mine—no one touches my files. Kitchen and sitting room are communal, but I’m not running a bloody hotel.” She met their eyes. “You can have the house, but you don’t get to dictate how I live in it.”

The timer cut through the standoff. Logan moved to the oven, pulling out the pizza with practised efficiency. The tension eased fractionally.

Dar huffed. “Outflanked by a frozen pepperoni and cheese. Consider it my terms of surrender.”

She fetched plates from the cupboard, setting them on the counter with deliberate clinks. They settled around the table, the earlier confrontation simmering beneath the surface. “What’s Veyr’s timeline?” she asked.

Rhys’s shoulders eased as Dar’s posture shifted, that quiet command returning to her voice. He took three beers from the fridge, popped off their lids, and poured them into the glasses on the table. “Veyr moves when the intel dictates, not on anyone’s timeline. Could be days, could be tonight.” He pulled out the chair opposite her and sat, the ache in his joints settling into something familiar. “No interior surveillance, just perimeter sensors. If you want it to look like a proper workspace, we’ll manage that. The office gets a secure line—discreet. You’ll have a panic button routed to Logan’s suite and my mobile.”

As Rhys reached for a slice, Dar told them about Pam’s idea for a panic button disguised as a biscuit tin, which made them laugh at first. Logan paused, considering. “Might not be a bad idea.” He sat down. “You think I’m being paranoid about the security.”

Dar shrugged. “I think you’re being thorough.”

“Nine months ago,” Rhys said, “a contractor we’d used twice—vetted, cleared, worked two jobs without incident—pulled up to a safehouse in Brussels in a delivery van.” He picked at the label on his beer bottle. “Got out with flowers for the occupant’s birthday. Except the occupant’s birthday was in November, and it was March.”

Logan’s jaw tightened. “The team inside caught it. Stopped him at the door, ran the plates. Van was clean, flowers were real, but the driver’s background had been scrubbed and rebuilt in the last six months. Professional work.”

“They find out who sent him?” Dar asked.

“Eventually.” Rhys met her eyes. “Took four days of interrogation. By then, two other contractors at different locations had gone dark. One turned up in a canal. The other we never found.”

“The network had been compromised for months,” Logan said. “Someone patient, methodical. They’d mapped our logistics, identified vulnerabilities, and waited for the right moment. If that team hadn’t been sharp…” He didn’t finish.

“It’s not about trust,” Rhys looked at Dar. “It’s about layers. The more barriers between you and someone who wants to reach you, the more chances we have to catch them before they do.”

Dar set down her beer. “Point taken.”

They talked through another beer, the conversation drifting to safer ground. Logan collected the empty bottles and cleared the dishes. Rhys’s phone buzzed once in his pocket. He and Logan exchanged a glance.

Dar saw it but didn’t ask.

Veyr would ring. This peace wouldn’t last.