We watched them load pallets stamped with disaster relief logos. The kind of shit that made people look the other way. Charity. Donations. A good deed on paper.
They worked fast, but sloppy. Too sloppy for real volunteers.
And then I saw it. The plates on the cab of the semi. The same state code Amanda had told me about from the hub. The same route she’d mapped out before everything went sideways.
My stomach went cold.
Ranger murmured, “That’s them.”
Ghost typed something one-handed, eyes never leaving the yard.
Brutus pointed at the men. “You wanna hit ‘em now?”
“No,” Ranger said. “We’re blind. We take a swing like that, we don’t see what comes back.”
Charging in got you killed.
We weren’t here to die.
We were here to learn.
One of the workers paused mid-step and glanced at his phone. Not casual. Sharp. Like he’d just gotten a ping he didn’t expect.
He didn’t look back toward the dock.
He looked outward.
Toward the tree line.
The hair on the back of my neck lifted.
Ghost’s mask angled. “Movement off the perimeter,” he murmured. Not guessing. Calling it.
I still didn’t see it. Not at first.
Ranger tapped Smoke’s harness twice.
The dog shifted instantly, nose dropping, body low. Ranger followed without a word. Brutus peeled off to flank, moving heavy and quiet, using the stacked crates for cover.
I stayed with Ghost, eyes scanning the dark beyond the yard.
“There,” Ghost said. Barely audible.
A shape moved along the edge of the pines. Not standing still. Sliding from shadow to shadow. Hood up. Phone raised briefly and then gone.
Not security. Not staff. Not some random hiker that was lost.
He was counter-surveillance. A lookout.
The moment Brutus broke cover, the figure bolted.
Brutus hit him like a freight train, shoulder driving into his ribs and slamming him into the dirt hard enough to knock the wind clean out of him. The guy wheezed, hands scrambling, panic setting in before he could even think about fighting back.
Ranger was on him immediately, knee between his shoulder blades, zip-ties snapping tight around his wrists.
That was when Smoke arrived.
Not charging.
