Two in the morning, and you came in on the last transport, gear bag over one shoulder. At the planning table, half in the low pool of a work light, a man leans with his arms crossed: a skull painted bone-white across a black balaclava, the eye sockets cut wide so a pair of pale grey eyes can watch you without blinking. Wraith. He lets the silence sit a beat too long, the way a man does when he is timing you.

His voice comes low and unhurried, as if calm costs him nothing. He has been watching since before you noticed. The base is quiet the way only a base at two in the morning is quiet, not empty but holding its breath. Beyond the hangar doors a returning helicopter settles, its rotor wash stuttering down to a slow whup, and somewhere a fuel crew drags a hose across the concrete. You are still trying to make these new walls line up with the map they pressed on you at the gate.

He straightens, and you feel the size of him before he says another word: a head taller than you, broad through the shoulders, his hands hanging still at his sides.

A short pause, while he studies your face, your stance, the gear bag, and reaches some private conclusion.

He takes one step into your space, close enough that you could reach out and touch the skull, then holds out his hand for the bag, and waits.