Theo’s voice cut in on the comms from his position near the fence line. “What’s the interior layout?”
Lincoln raised the scope again, grateful for the pivot to tactics. “Six heat signatures total. Four clustered in what appear to be sleeping quarters, second floor, west side. Two on patrol—one covers the north corridor, one covers the south. They pass the northeast section every eight minutes. There’s a four-minute window where the target area is unobserved.”
“Entry point?” Bear asked.
“Side door, northeast corner. Electronic lock. I can bypass it in under thirty seconds.”
“And if you can’t?”
“I brought cutters that’ll go through pretty much anything.” That was Theo—Linear Tactical’s gear room had everything.
Lincoln allowed himself a small exhale. Four hours ago, he’d been ready to make this drive alone. Bear had stopped him before he’d even made it out of his house.
“You’re not doing this by yourself.”
“I don’t have time to?—”
“Make time. Twenty minutes.”
Twenty minutes had turned into Bear calling Derek and Theo. Both had shown up at Lincoln’s compound within the hour, already pulling gear from their trucks. Nobody had asked for explanations. Nobody had demanded justification. Lincoln had needed them, and they’d come.
That was it. That was everything.
He’d spent the four-hour drive on his laptop, chasing every digital thread he could find. The warehouse hadn’t been used in over two years, according to city records. The lease was buried under a shell corporation registered in Delaware—layers of misdirection he’d unravel eventually, but not tonight.
Tonight, all that mattered was the thermal signature curled in that box.
“Tell me about the target,” Bear said.
Lincoln swept the scope to the northeast corner. The heat signature hadn’t moved—same impossible position, same four-foot container. “Single occupant in a confined space. Dimensions approximately four by four by four feet.”
“Fuck.” Theo’s voice had gone flat. “That’s a coffin. Can’t even stretch out.”
The comms went silent. Lincoln watched the heat signature shift slightly—knees drawing tighter, arms adjusting—and felt something twist in his chest.
“The occupant has been stationary for the entire observation period. Two hours, fourteen minutes. They shift occasionally but don’t leave the container.”
“Because they can’t.” Bear’s voice had changed. The tactical calm was still there, but something harder had crept underneath. “They’re locked in.”
“The latch is external. Yes.”
More silence. Lincoln could feel the calculationhappening on the other end—three men recalibrating their understanding of what they were walking into.
“Well.” Derek’s voice was different now too. The skepticism hadn’t disappeared, but it had shifted into something colder. “That settles one question.”
“Which question?”
“Whether we’re the good guys tonight.” A pause. “Whatever else is going on in there, nobody who locks a person in a four-foot box is running a legitimate operation.”
Lincoln hadn’t thought of it in those terms. Good guys, bad guys—those were categories that required moral frameworks his brain didn’t naturally process. But Derek was right. Whatever variables remained unknown, this one had resolved.
“So that’s our target,” Derek continued. “We go in, we get to the box, we get them out. Even if it’s not Mercury, we’re not leaving them in there.”
Lincoln nodded. Mercury or not, someone needed rescue.
Bear made a sound that might have been approval. “Rules of engagement?”
“We don’t engage unless forced. We don’t clear rooms. We don’t investigate. We avoid contact with the sleeping signatures, and we work around the patrol rotation. In and out.”
