“How deep?” Ranger asked.
“As deep as I can go,” she said. “There’s an internal manifest that doesn’t match the external one. If I can pull the delta, we have proof. We don’t think they’re moving people as aid, we know.”
“And if they cut your access?”
“Then I walk out smiling and say my agency screwed me on the rate,” she said, fast. “Which they probably did.”
I looked at Cap. He looked back. We didn’t need words for what the look said: She’s inside. We’re outside. That sucks. It’s also a gift.
The radio hissed like a cat pretending to care. I heard voices behind her, men talking about pallets and coffee and why someone always forgets the 9mm in the supervisor drawer. The sound made my fingers itch for grip tape.
“Wreck,” Amanda said, quick. “I can send a dead drop if I get anything worth dying for.”
“You won’t,” I said. “You’ll send it and live for it.”
“Copy,” she said, and the shape of her smile on the word made my chest hurt. “I have to go. My break apparently ended before it started.”
“Amanda,” Cap said, soft enough I almost missed it. “We’re here.”
“I know,” she said. “Don’t be dumb.”
The line went to static. A full second of it. Two. I didn’t breathe. Then the tone chirped once, short and smug, and died.
I set the handheld down like a fragile animal and let my hands finally shake. Then I let them stop. You can’t run a crew with theater hands.
Ranger blew out a breath. “She’s either a genius or we’re about to buy a small war.”
“Why not both,” Ghost said.
Doc rubbed his thumb over his lower lip and left a soot mark he didn’t notice. “We can’t hit the front. Even if we had ammo, and we don’t, you start shooting at a depot stamped ‘relief,’ every cop in three counties shows up to film you.”
“So, we don’t hit the front,” Cap said. He was staring at the map again, the corner where the access road met the chain-link and the trees got cozy. “We walk in.”
I knew the shape of the thought the second he said it, because it lived in my mouth too. “As them,” I said. “Not the office. The trucks.”
Ghost nodded once. “Contract haulers. Short-term, cash, no questions. Every shell that moves boxes hires off a board.”
Ranger shrugged. “I can tolerate boredom. For like six minutes.”
Doc cleared his throat with a noise that said he had notes. “We need IDs that survive a glance. Plates that don’t bounce. A story that explains why we show up mid-cycle. And clothes that aren’t on fire.”
“Plates are easy,” Ghost said. “IDs are a day’s work if we want them to pass someone with a temper. A glance? I can do a glance before lunch.”
Cap tapped the map again. “We don’t all go,” he said. “Two inside, two outside, one float.”
“Who floats?” Ranger asked.
“You,” Cap and I said together.
Doc lifted two fingers. “I’d like to not be the guy who has to talk at a clipboard for more than thirty seconds.”
“Great,” I said. “You’re medical again if anyone asks. You’re always medical.” I scratched my jaw. “Ghost and I do the hire.”
Ghost’s mouth didn’t move. His eyes did. That’s a yes when it’s him.
Cap didn’t argue. He wanted inside, but he knows how to pick the lock then hand it to the man who looks better doing the opening. He puts a finger on his temple when he’s agreeing and saving the fight for later. He did that.
Ranger wandered to the sad pile that used to be our wardrobe and kicked a boot heel. “What do truck guys wear that we don’t already?”
