"Vance," Miller’s voice barked through the speakers. He sounded slightly out of breath, the background noise echoing as if he were standing in a large, empty room. "I told you to stand down and process the Daniels paperwork. I've got uniform units locking down the perimeter of every precinct in the district."
"We caught a snag, Captain," I said, forcing my voice to remain perfectly level, hiding the tremor of rage that was building in my chest. "Daniels isn't talking, but we dumped his phone. We pulled a location off his recent GPS history. The S.O.I.L. facility down by the docks."
There was a pause on the other end of the line. It lasted only a fraction of a second, but to an interrogator's ear, it was as loud as a gunshot.
"The Overflow Impound?" Miller asked, his tone suddenly tightly controlled, stripped of its previous bluster. "There’s nothing down there but rusted excavators and seized impound vehicles. It's a dead end. Return to headquarters immediately. That is a direct order, Detective."
"Can't do that, sir," I said, gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white. "We're two miles out. We’re going to sweep the perimeter, just to be sure."
"Vance, listen to me," Miller's voice dropped an octave, adopting a dangerous, commanding edge I had rarely heard him use. "You are completely off the reservation. You have no backup, and you are violating a direct chain of command. Turn that vehicle around right now, or I will have your badge before the sun comes up."
"I guess you'll just have to suspend me, Captain," I said.
I reached out and hit the button to sever the call.
Jenkins stared at me, her eyes wide. "You just hung up on the commanding officer of Internal Affairs."
"He's not acting like a commanding officer," I said, killing the headlights as we turned off the main avenue and onto the crumbling, pothole-riddled access road that led toward the industrial waterfront. "He's acting like a man who just realized his firewall is burning down. He’s covering his tracks."
The heavy, metallic scent of the harbor flooded through the air vents, mixed with the smell of rotting kelp and diesel exhaust. The S.O.I.L. facility was a massive, sprawling graveyard of chain-link fences and razor wire, tucked away in the forgotten southern edge of the commercial docks. It was designed to hold the massive evidence that wouldn't fit in a precinct locker: construction equipment used in mob hits, seized semi-trucks, and, currently, a modified armored transport vehicle loaded with enough uncut fentanyl to poison half the eastern seaboard.
I pulled the SUV into a narrow, trash-strewn alley a block away from the main entrance. I threw the gearshift into park and killed the engine.
"We go in quiet," I told Jenkins, popping the center console and pulling out two extra magazines for my Glock. "No radios. No flashlights. If Miller tipped them off, they’ll be waiting for a heavily armed SWAT assault. They won't be looking for two detectives on foot."
Jenkins nodded, racking the slide of her weapon and clicking the safety off. "Understood."
We slipped out of the vehicle and into the freezing rain. The darkness was almost absolute, broken only by the sporadic, flickering orange glow of the harbor sodium lamps. We moved fast, keeping our backs pinned to the rusted corrugated metal of the surrounding warehouses until we reached the main perimeter fence of the impound lot.
My heart hammered against my ribs as I looked at the main gate.
The heavy iron chains that usually secured the double gates had been sliced clean through with bolt cutters. The metal links lay coiled in the mud like dead snakes.
"They're already inside," Jenkins whispered, her breath pluming in the cold air.
We slipped through the gap in the gates and entered the yard. The shadows here were deep and treacherous, cast by towering mounds of seized, rusting machinery and stacks of shipping containers. We navigated through the maze of metal, our boots silent on the wet pavement, moving toward the massive concrete structure at the center of the lot: Bay 4. The secure, climate-controlled vault.
As we rounded a line of impounded city buses, I saw it.
The heavy steel roll-up door of Bay 4 was raised halfway. Harsh, white halogen light spilled out onto the wet tarmac.
Inside the cavernous bay, a massive, matte-black armored transport truck sat idling, its heavy diesel engine rumbling with a low, bone-rattling vibration. But it wasn't just sitting there. A heavy-duty, unmarked tow rig had been backed into the bay, and three men dressed in unmarked black tactical gear were rapidly securing heavy winch chains to the front axle of the armored truck.
They weren't cops. They moved with the frantic, brutal efficiency of private mercenaries. Cartel fixers.
But it was the fourth man in the room that made my blood run cold.
Standing near the concrete supervisor's booth, holding a digital tablet and arguing furiously with one of the mercenaries, was Captain Miller. He was out of uniform, wearing a dark trench coat over his civilian clothes, looking older and more desperate than I had ever seen him.
"Load it up! Faster!" Miller was shouting over the roar of the diesel engine, waving his arm frantically toward the open bay doors. "You have less than ten minutes before the automated system triggers a perimeter alarm for an unscheduled bay opening. Get this truck out of here!"
I felt a sickening wave of absolute betrayal wash over me. I had wanted a complicated explanation. I had wanted a misunderstanding. But here he was, my commanding officer, personally supervising the handover of the largest narcotics seizure in city history directly back to the cartel.
Jenkins caught my eye and gave a sharp, tactical nod. We had seen enough.
I broke from cover, stepping directly into the pool of halogen light, my weapon raised and the red dot of my laser sight painting the center of the lead mercenary’s chest.
"Internal Affairs! Drop your weapons! Hands in the air, right now!" I roared, my voice echoing off the concrete walls with deafening force.