Chapter 15 - The Courier of Graves Logistics
The trap was laid forty-eight hours later at the primary container terminal in Calumet Harbor.
It was 2:00 a.m. The wind off the lake had dropped to a bitter, freezing calm, leaving a thick, greasy fog rolling in off the water and wrapping around the towering cranes and stacked metal containers like a shroud.
I stood inside the open-bay shipping office, watching the security monitors on the wall. The camera feeds showed a single black sedan pulling past the outer perimeter gate without triggering the alarm codes—meaning someone on the inside had not only given them the access codes, but had actively rolled out the red carpet.
“They’re moving toward Bay 4,” Tony whispered from the shadows beside my desk. He was holding a heavy-duty tactical shotgun, his movements silent and fluid. “Two men in tactical gear, no insignia. Professional extraction unit. They think they’re picking up a flash-drive containing our entire financial ledger.”
“Let them take it,” I said, adjusting the cuffs of my dark shirt. “Let’s see who’s signing their paychecks.”
On the monitor, the two figures slipped out of the sedan, moving with the practiced, mechanical precision of ex-military contractors. They crept along the shadow of a towering stack of shipping crates, slipped through the side door of Bay 4, and disappeared into the labyrinth of steel containers.
We waited two minutes—long enough for them to reach the center of the bay where a dummy flash-drive sat on an empty wooden pallet under a single swinging halogen light.
“Now,” I said.
Tony didn't hesitate. He keyed the master control panel on the wall.
With a deafening mechanical clank, heavy steel security shutters dropped down over the windows and doors of Bay 4, sealing the exits in a fraction of a second. At the same time, high-intensity floodlights snapped on overhead, turning the gloomy interior of the bay into a blinding arena of white light.
We walked out of the office and into the bay, our boots clicking sharply against the concrete.
The two operatives were caught completely off guard. One of them had his hand outstretched toward the wooden pallet, while the other spun around with a suppressed carbine raised toward our voices.
Before he could pull the trigger, three of our enforcers stepped out from behind the adjacent crates, their weapons locked squarely on the intruders' chests.
“Drop the piece,” Tony commanded, his voice echoing coldly off the metal walls.
The operative holding the carbine looked at the sealed exits, looked at the red dots dancing across his chest, and slowly lowered his weapon, letting it clatter against the concrete floor. His partner stepped back against a stack of crates, his hands raised, breathing heavily beneath his black balaclava.
I walked slowly across the concrete, stopping ten feet away from them. I didn't pull a gun. I didn't need to.
“Take off the masks,” I ordered.
The lead operative hesitated, then slowly pulled the black fabric up over his chin, revealing the scarred, weathered face of a man I hadn't seen in over fifteen years.
May you like
“Marcus,” I said, the name slipping out of my mouth like old poison. “I thought you died in a warehouse fire in St. Louis back when the river wars were still hot.”
Marcus offered a thin, bloodless smile, wiping a drop of sweat from his forehead. “A good soldier never really dies, Dominic. He just waits for the boss to get soft enough for a coup.”
