“Good,” Danforth said. His voice was quiet and rough, like someone dragging a boot across gravel. “Means we don’t have to go find him.”
Jack pulled up the satellite map of the dock district. Three properties highlighted. The fish processing plant at the center.
“Tonight is fight night. We’ve confirmed increased cell activity consistent with previous fight nights. We believe the operation will be at full capacity by ten.”
“What’s the plan?” Danforth asked.
“SWAT breaches here.” Jack tapped the fish processing plant on the screen. “Loading dock, northeast corner. That’s our primary access to the tunnels. Your team gets called at seven, briefed at eight, rolling by nine thirty.” He looked around the room. “Nobody on the SWAT team knows the target location until they’re in the vehicles. I don’t want anything slipping through the cracks. We want everyone inside with no place to run.”
“Comms?” Colburn asked.
“Lieutenant Derby and Doug will run comms from a surveillance van two blocks from the target.” Jack glanced at me. “Jaye will be with them coordinating medical if needed.”
Danforth studied the satellite image. “What’s the civilian count?”
“We estimate fifty to eighty spectators, plus fighters, organizers, and security. The civilians are witnesses, not targets. Controlled and contained.”
“Armed resistance?”
“Stavros’s security will be armed. There’s one in particular—tall, dark hair, tattoo on his neck. We’ve got a witness who identified him as the one who delivered T-Bone’s body. Consider him dangerous.”
“What about the other guy? Caruso?” Martinez asked.
“He’ll be ringside running the card. Sixty-something, bad knees, a lot of pride. He won’t run and he won’t cooperate.”
“And Stavros himself?” Colburn asked.
“Won’t be there. Not tonight.” Jack’s mouth curved, barely. “He’s been to the fights before—we’ve got the photos to prove it. But after last night’s phone call, he knows we’re looking at him. My gut says he’ll be somewhere public with witnesses and a clean alibi.” He paused. “We’ll have eyes on him either way. And when the raid’s done, we pick him up with a separate team. The warrant’s ready.”
I felt a quickening in my chest, adrenaline pumping at the thought of taking down the men who put Cole in the hospital. Who ended the lives of two men for no reason other than to assert their power.
“Six hours,” Jack said. “Go home. Eat. Gear up. Be back here at eight. I want everyone in full uniform. I don’t want anyone in those tunnels confused over what’s happening.” He looked at them one more time, each face in turn. “Thank you.”
The room was silent after that. A silence that didn’t need to be filled because someone had said the thing that mattered and there was nothing left to add.
Danforth stood first. The motion was decisive, a man who’d heard what he needed to hear and was already building the operation in his head. “I’ll have my team assembled and ready.” He looked around the table, and his dark eyes touched every face with the flat certainty of a man who did not deal in ambiguity. “Be clean with your hands tonight. Know your targets. Bring everybody home.”
Chairs scraped. They stood. But nobody rushed. Martinez shook Jack’s hand without a word. It was an implied understanding between two men who’d worked together long enough to know what was at stake and what it would cost. Chen squeezed Walters’s shoulder as she passed him, a small gesture that said more than a speech.
Hops and Cheek walked out the way they’d come in, side by side, already communicating in the silent shorthand of people who’d worked together a long time.
Colburn stopped at the door. He looked back at Jack with those hard hazel eyes.
“Cole know about Beckwith yet?”
“Not yet.”
“He’s going to want to be here tonight.”
“I know. And he can’t be.”
Colburn nodded once. “For what it’s worth, he’d be proud of how you’re running this.” He walked out.
The room emptied. The door swung shut. And then it was just us, standing in a locked conference room full of empty chairs with Dre’s photographs still glowing on the screen.
Jack looked at me across the table. I looked at him.
“You good?” he asked.
