And we were already forty minutes into the hour.
Forty minutes.
The words on the Cellebrite machine’s display glowed with a sickening, neon-green intensity in the dim light of the tech room. The decoy is secure. Move the real package. You have one hour.
Jenkins and I stood shoulder-to-shoulder, staring at the screen as if it might suddenly rearrange its pixels into a punchline. But this wasn’t a joke. The timestamp on the encrypted message was 12:11 a.m. It was now 12:31 a.m. The forty minutes weren't a vague estimate; they were a hard, unforgiving countdown.
"Trace the sender," I said, my voice sounding hollow even to my own ears.
Jenkins was already flying across her keyboard, her fingers a blur of desperate motion. "It’s a ghost number. Bounced through three different VPNs before it even hit the local cell tower. Best I can do is tell you it came from somewhere within city limits. Marcus, what the hell is the 'real package'?"
I looked back through the reinforced glass of the tech room, staring across the bullpen toward Observation Room B. I could just barely see the back of Daniels’ grey paper jumpsuit through the blinds. "I don't know," I muttered. "But Daniels does. And he’s sitting in there right now, waiting for the clock to run out."
I turned on my heel and sprinted back across the bullpen, ignoring the confused looks from the night-shift detectives processing the mountain of paperwork from the sting. I threw open the door to Observation Room B. Captain Miller was still standing there, arms crossed, looking thoroughly pleased with himself.
"What's the rush, Vance?" Miller asked, not taking his eyes off the two-way glass. "Let him stew. The longer he sits in silence, the more the reality of federal prison is going to sink in. We've got him."
"We don't have a damn thing, Captain," I snapped, pulling the slip of paper Jenkins had given me out of my pocket. I shoved it into Miller's hands. "Read it."
Miller frowned, his thick, silver eyebrows knitting together as he read the preliminary lab report. "Drywall dust? What is this, Vance? Did Martinez screw up the test?"
"Martinez didn't screw up anything. Daniels planted fake drugs on me. And three minutes after we put him in the transport, his burner phone got a message saying the decoy was secure, and they had one hour to move the real package." I pointed a rigid finger at the glass. "He wanted to get caught. He wanted every single IA investigator, every supervisor, and every surveillance vehicle on this side of the city tied up on Route 9."
The smug satisfaction drained out of Miller's face, replaced by a sudden, severe pallor. He looked from the paper, to me, and then through the glass at Daniels.
"A diversion," Miller breathed.
"A highly coordinated one," I agreed. "And whatever they are moving, it's big enough that they were willing to sacrifice a twenty-year veteran's career just to clear the board. I'm going back in there."
Before Miller could object, I pushed through the heavy steel door into the interrogation room.
Daniels hadn't moved an inch. He was still staring at the blank wall, still chewing the inside of his cheek. But as the door clicked shut behind me, the corner of his mouth twitched upward into that same, infuriating smirk.
"You look stressed, Detective," Daniels said smoothly, finally turning his dead, flat eyes toward me. "Heart rate up? Palms sweating? You guys always panic when the script changes."
I slammed both hands down flat on the metal table, leaning in so close I could smell the stale, sour scent of his nervous sweat mixed with cheap aftershave.
"Where is it?" I demanded, keeping my voice dangerously low. "What is the package, and where is it moving?"
Daniels leaned back in his chair, the metal handcuffs clinking against the seat. He let out a long, theatrical sigh. "I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, Marcus. May I call you Marcus? I feel like we've bonded tonight. You gave me a lovely pair of bracelets."
"Cut the crap, Tom. We dumped your phone. We saw the text." I tapped my wristwatch. "You've got thirty-six minutes left. If you tell me where the drop is right now, I will personally talk to the DA. I will tell them you cooperated. I will get you protective custody. Because whoever you're working for? They just burned you. You are the sacrificial lamb."
For a fraction of a second, something flickered behind Daniels’ eyes. A shadow of genuine fear. But he masked it instantly, his face hardening back into a mask of arrogant defiance.
"You IA guys," he chuckled, a wet, rattling sound in his throat. "You think you hold all the cards because you sit in an air-conditioned office and police the police. You don't know how the street works anymore. You don't know who really runs this city."
"Enlighten me."
"There is no deal you can offer me that is better than keeping my mouth shut," Daniels said, leaning forward, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "If I go to federal prison for a few years for official misconduct, my family is taken care of. There's a pension waiting for me that you can't touch. But if I talk to you? If I give you a location? I won't make it to county holding. I'll hang myself with my own shoelaces in a holding cell by dawn. And my wife will have a horrific, unexplainable car accident on her way to my funeral."
The absolute certainty in his voice sent a new, colder chill down my spine. He wasn't just corrupt. He was terrified. He was part of something massive, something with a reach far beyond a few dirty cops planting baggies on a highway.
"Tom," I started, trying a different angle. "If you don't..."