Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 77051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Ranger’s jaw ticks. “They want you to come after them.”
“Good,” I say. “I’m already here.”
“It might be a set up.” Dean motions to the screens. “What do we have?”
Rae drags in camera grids like she’s playing piano. “We scraped every intersection within a four-mile radius of River’s building from twenty-one-thirty to twenty-two hundred. Two black vans within the capture window. One was a florist—confirmed GPS, tag, and stop-to-stop nav. The other… ran three lights and hugged blind spots like it had the route memorized.”
She zooms on a pixelated rectangle. Knight leans in. “There—driver’s side mirror rig. After-market.”
Rae nods. “Cargo lock replaced, too. That door’ll open quiet.”
Sawyer raps a knuckle softly on the glass. “You got a street trail?”
“Yeah.” Rae toggles lines that snake along the map—down Harker, across Ninth, then south along the docks. “They went dead here.” A square blinks along the waterfront: warehouses, most empty, some not.
Ranger says, “Dead because no cameras… or dead because someone cut their trail?”
Rae’s mouth is grim. “Both. These eight blocks are a surveillance desert. City grid’s old. Private cams are fake or fried. Half the buildings are owned by layered LLCs that all resolve to a PO box in Delaware.”
Dean’s gaze slides to Arrow. “Cathedral money.”
“Or Helena’s,” Arrow says. “Company discretionary slush, re-tithed through cathedral shells.”
“Either way,” Ranger says, “they’re not hiding cheap.”
My throat is raw. “So we hit every door.”
Dean looks at me like I’m a live wire. Not unkind. Just measuring if I’ll shock myself to death. “We will,” he says evenly. “But not like kids playing SWAT. We do this the way it gets her home.”
I nod, swallow the urge to run out the door and start tearing steel with my hands. “Tell me how.”
He turns to Rae. “Build me a heat map.”
She’s already on it—blueprints, parcel records, utility pulls. “If we assume they need power, water, and ingress large enough for a panel van, we cull to twelve possibles. If we assume they need load-out to water…” She drags two more away. “Down to ten.”
Sawyer points at three clustered near the east pier. “What’s the thermal?”
Rae chews her lip. “City thermals are on a six-minute delay. But—” She switches feeds. “The marina’s private lot shares a fence with this warehouse. Motion sensors go off every time raccoons party on the dumpster. But here?” She tags a dark rectangle behind a roll-up door. “Two triggers tonight. Twenty-one fifty-three and twenty-one fifty-five. Then nothing.”
Ranger says, “Roll-up door by a dead zone, motion trips and stops. Someone brought something in and stayed.”
“Or someone cut the sensor after entry,” Knight says.
Dean’s already building shapes in the air with his finger. “Stack one, stack two. Lateral entry points. Rooftop?”
Rae pulls a tax photo. “Angled corrugated with a skylight. Fiberglass, not glass.”
Sawyer shifts his stance. “We can silent-cut that.”
His eyes meet mine like the decision’s already made. The decision is already made.
Dean glances at Arrow. “You called me because you knew I’d say yes.”
Arrow’s mouth twitches. “Yes, sir.”
“Then here’s the plan.” Dean faces the room, and the room tilts toward him. “We split into three elements. Knight, Sawyer, and Ozzy with me on Entry One—rear roll-up. Ranger leads Entry Two—side personnel door under the stairwell. Poe and Render with Ranger. Gage, you’re with me on One. Remember boys, let us clear your path before you engage.” He lifts a brow, like he expects me to argue. I don’t. “Arrow floats as rover and coordination with Rae. Lark and Juno stay on deck with Rae to keep eyes on heat and cams, cycle locks as needed, spoof alarms, and open our door when we need it opened.”
Rae’s fingers dance. “I’ll spoof a rodent parade on the marina side to keep the security guard bored. Also pulling a false fire panel failure two blocks down so patrol cars pivot off the grid.”
Ranger nods. “Noise away from us.”
Knight taps the screen where the skylight sits. “You want a top-side contingency?”
Dean cuts me a glance. “Gage?”
I know what he’s asking without him saying it. Do I need to be the first face River sees? Yes. Do I trust myself not to blow the op if I am? Also yes, but I understand what happens if I’m wrong. I breathe around the barbed wire in my chest.
“Put me where I get to her fastest,” I say. “But don’t let me ruin it if I lose my head.”
Sawyer’s mouth curves, sympathy without condescension. “We’ve all got a person,” he says. “We’ll keep you aimed.”
Dean keeps going. “Rules of contact. Minimal flashbangs—unknown hostiles, unknown hostages. If Helena’s there, she’s mine. Gage, Arrow, and Knight… this is new for you, so we’ll make sure we hit and you follow behind.” Dean stares at me. “I’ll deal with Helena.”
That cuts through the static in my skull. “She took River—” I start.
“And she’ll face charges that stick,” Dean says, calm as winter. “You want River back and Helena in a cage. Let’s do the one that makes the second possible.”