The satchel is heavy when I yank it free and drag it closer with my boot. Inside is a mixed mess, bolt cutters, a hard drive case,two wrapped bricks that look like cash, and a compact charge rig with magnet mounts.
“Plant and pull,” Conall says quietly.
“Or cut cameras and leave us blind for tomorrow,” I reply.
I crouch and hold the satchel open under the flood spill while Conall shines a torch from his phone. The charge rig is assembled, timer not armed yet, and the magnets are scored with rust from old marine use. These weren’t built in a hurry. They came prepared to hit infrastructure.
“Who sent you?” I ask the man on the ramp.
He spits blood to the side and says nothing.
I stand and look to the one by the fence, the one with my bullet in his leg. He’s younger, maybe twenty-five, trying to hold his face together while my men bind his thigh.
“You talk first,” I tell him, “you get a doctor first.”
He squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head.
Conall glances toward the water. “Police response window is shrinking.”
“I know.”
I point to the wounded pair. “Bag them, hood them, and move them to Shed Nine. Strip everything, including boots. I want photos of tattoos, scars, phones, all of it.”
He nods and starts issuing orders.
The catwalk team comes down with a third body, the roof shooter, dead before he hit the landing by the look of him. In hisjacket pocket they find a burner and a folded slip with two times and one code written in block capitals. No names.
That alone tells me enough.
This wasn’t random theft, and it wasn’t freelance sabotage. Someone wanted a lane dark and a route open, then wanted deniability when it went wrong. Patrick’s people have used that shape before, clean hands, borrowed crews, paid doors, no one important visible.
I walk the perimeter once myself, checking the unlocked gate, the cut chain hidden behind the post, the camera junction box near the second shed with its cover loosened but not yet pulled. They were seconds from blinding this entire section.
Conall meets me by the SUVs with a tablet already loaded. “Harbor master sent the wider pulls, and customs supervisor is on hold. Also, your mother texted.”
I take the tablet first, skim the timestamps, and hand it back. “What did she say?”
“She got Riley to eat soup and bread, and she’s resting. Maeve’s staying the night.”
A small part of me unclenches, and I hate that the timing lets me feel it.
“Good,” I say. “Send two extra to the estate perimeter, no uniforms, and rotate the inside hall watch. Quietly.”
Conall studies me for a second, then nods. “You think tonight was linked.”
“I think too many things are moving at once.”
We leave the sheds locked down behind us with two crews in place, one at the gate and one on the water side, and the drive back starts in silence, the kind that comes after a fight when everyone is running through details and counting what almost happened.
My knuckles ache where I braced against steel, my side is hot again under the jacket, and the smell of diesel is still in my throat. I lean back in the seat and replay the lane, the runner, the satchel, the camera box, and then, against my own preference, my mind shifts to Riley in my office doorway with that look on her face.
I should’ve made the time.
My phone vibrates in my hand as we hit the coastal road, no caller ID, unknown number, and I almost decline it until the timing itself feels wrong enough to answer. Instead I hit accept and slide my thumb across the recorder icon before I speak.
“Who is this?”
A soft breath, then a voice I know even through distortion and a bad line. “You think I’m your enemy, but you don’t know the people in your own house.”