Near midnight, we load into vehicles. Isabella rides with me and Luc in the lead car. Van der Berg's team follows in their two vehicles, staggered to avoid convoy appearance.
Rotterdam's port district spreads out before us at night. Shipping containers cast long shadows under sodium lights, diesel and salt water thick in the air, industrial silence broken only by distant machinery.
We park several blocks from the target facility. The rest of the approach is on foot.
Van der Berg's team moves first. Silent shadows disappearing into the maze of warehouses and containers. Luc, Isabella, and I follow moments behind.
The facility appears, reinforced doors, cameras at corners, motion sensors on the roofline. Two guards are visible on exterior patrol, both armed with automatic weapons, moving in coordinated patterns that suggest professional training.
Van der Berg's voice crackles through the comm unit. "Exterior guards neutralized. North wall is clear. Move now."
We move fast. Luc leads, weapon up, scanning for threats. I follow with Isabella between us, hand on her shoulder to guide her through the darkness.
The north wall emergency exit appears ahead. Card reader glowing red, locked.
I pull the bypass kit from my tactical vest. Military-grade electronics spoofing, illegal as hell and completely untraceable. The kind of equipment Cerberus provides for ops that need to stay off the books.
Seconds to crack the reader, then the lock clicks. Red light shifts to green.
"We're in," I say into the comm. "Moving to target section."
The door opens onto a dim corridor. Emergency lighting casts everything in red. The air smells like chemicals and metal, cold and sterile in a way that feels wrong.
Luc moves ahead, clearing corners. I keep Isabella close, one hand on her vest, guiding her through the facility layout we memorized.
The storage section opens up ahead. Refrigerated units line the walls, pharmaceutical labels in Dutch and German, rows of reinforced containers designed to move dangerous materials without triggering customs alerts.
"There," Isabella whispers. She points to a section along the east wall. Units marked with specific handling codes. "Those match the profile Brenner described."
We move closer. Isabella pulls out the UV scanner, starts checking containers.
The first unit glows faint blue under UV. Wrong wavelength.
The second unit shows pale yellow. She shakes it carefully, and the viscosity looks right through the sealed container.
"Activation compound," she says. "Confirmed."
"Keep going," I say. "Find the other two."
She works fast. Scanning, checking, moving to the next unit. The training drills paying off with no hesitation, no second-guessing.
Third unit glows pale yellow but the viscosity is wrong when she shakes it. A decoy.
Fourth unit shows nothing under UV but the viscosity when she shakes it is honey-thick. "Binding agent. Confirmed."
Two down, one to go.
Fifth unit is larger than the others. Medical-grade labeling, hazard warnings in three languages. Isabella scans it with no UV reaction. She checks the seal, frowns.
"Seal's been compromised," she says quietly. "I can smell ammonia."
Base catalyst. The third component.
"Confirmed," she says. "All three components present and verified."
"Good. Step back."
I pull the shaped charges from my tactical bag. Pre-configured explosive packages designed to contain and incinerate without dispersing aerosols. Each charge gets positioned on the verified units. Activation compound first, then binding agent, then base catalyst.
