The Alpha channel light blinked green.
"Alpha team, perimeter." Declan's voice. Low, controlled, stripped to pure function. The voice of a man who had sealed every soft thing behind a door and become a weapon. "Ghost, take the fence. Twelve o'clock. Wire cutters."
A pause. The faint metallic snip of wire being cut, transmitted through Ghost's open mic. Then Ghost, barely a whisper: "We're through. Clean."
"Copy. Moving to the north warehouse approach. Stay tight."
Tyler reached over and turned the speaker volume up two notches.
Bravo channel, active. Irish's voice, lower than his usual register, the brightness compressed into focus: "Bravo at the loading docks. Six of us on the east side. Blade, you've got the bay door. Axel, cover left."
Blade's voice came back clipped and steady: "On it."
"Axel copies." Calm. Measured. The voice of a man who'd been born in smoke and never learned to flinch.
The two channels overlapped, their voices braiding together in the dark van. I watched the indicator lights pulse with each transmission and felt my pulse synchronize with them, my bodylocking onto the rhythm of their voices the way it locked onto data streams.
"Alpha, approaching north warehouse door. Ghost on point. Tank, cover the corridor."
"Bravo, bay door's unlocked. That's wrong." Irish's voice carried a new edge. "They don't leave these open."
My stomach tightened.
"Proceed with caution," Declan communicated on Alpha. "We're at the main door. Breach on my count. Three. Two. One."
The sound of a door being forced. Metal on metal, sharp and brief. Then boots on concrete, the hollow echo of a large empty space. Declan's breathing, steady and slow, transmitted through his throat mic.
"Alpha inside the north warehouse. Dark. Moving to the main floor."
"Bravo inside the dock bay," Irish reported. "Crates everywhere. Hundreds. Starting at the east wall."
My fingers found the keyboard. This was my part. This was where I functioned.
"Irish, I need lot numbers. Start with the nearest crate, top label."
A pause. The sound of a crate lid being pried. Wood creaking. Then Irish: "DX-4471-R. That's the first one."
I typed it. The database searched. The match appeared in 0.3 seconds, highlighted in green: DX-4471-R, listed on Holt's destruction order dated fourteen months ago. Officially destroyed. Currently sitting in a Wolves' warehouse in the Nevada desert.
"Confirmed match," I confirmed. "Keep going."
"DX-4472-R."
Match. Green.
"DX-4473-R."
Match. Green.
"Nolan, these are sequential." Irish's voice carried something new. Awe, maybe, or horror. "Same batch. There must be fifty crates in this row alone."
"Photograph everything. Every label, every serial plate. Wide shots of the rows, then close-ups."
On Alpha, Declan: "Main warehouse floor. We've got pallets, military spec. Moving toward the center. Ghost, check the office stairwell."
Ghost: "Stairwell clear. Door at the top is locked."
"Leave it. Mark it. We'll come back."
