Warehouse Run

Ten minutes later, they were rolling behind two unmarked trucks on the logging road, snow slapping the wheel wells. The warehouse sat five miles off the coastal highway, a long metal box with one dock light burning yellow in the cold.

Then Miller lifted her phone and said, “There.”

On the dock, men in dark jackets were unloading tan crates from a freight container. No markings. No base seals. One crate slid hard onto the concrete and a man kicked it into place like he had done it a hundred times.

Catherine’s hand closed once around the folder.

“Stop here,” she said.

Ahead, one of the men looked up at the headlights. Another reached for his belt.

The snow started coming sideways the moment the convoy left the last row of lights.

Catherine sat in the front seat of the unmarked SUV, one hand on the grab bar, eyes on the road. Miller rode beside her with a tablet braced on her knees, one thumb flicking through images fast enough to make the screen flash.

“Here,” Miller said.

She turned the tablet. Grainy black-and-white footage filled the screen: a warehouse dock, floodlights, snow blowing through the beams, two unmarked trucks backed to the doors. Men in dark hats were moving crates by hand, fast and careful, like they knew the clock was running.

Catherine watched the timestamp. 0512.

“Freeze it,” she said.

Miller did. A crate swung into view, stenciled with a Marine inventory code. Then another. Then a pallet jack with a depot tag on it, still tied with blue plastic.

“Same markings we found in the audit,” Miller said. “Same route out of the depot.”

The driver glanced in the mirror. “Gate says the barrier’s up ahead.”

“Keep going,” Catherine said.

They hit the logging road five miles out. Pines crowded close on both sides, black trunks and wet branches, the ruts under the tires shining with ice. Ahead, the warehouse sat low against the shore, its dock lights throwing white bars across the snow.

Then the first pop cracked through the wind.

A round hit the hood of the lead truck and sparked off metal.

“Contact!” someone shouted over the radio.

Catherine opened the door before the SUV stopped rolling. Cold hit her face hard enough to sting. She was out with her sidearm in hand, boots slipping once on the packed snow, then steady. Marines spilled from the convoy behind her, moving to cover by the trucks and the ditch line.

At the dock, men ran for the warehouse doors. One dropped a crate and kept going. Another raised something dark and long in both hands.

“Marine Corps! Drop it!” Briggs’s security chief yelled.

The man fired instead.

The return shots came fast. Glass blew out of a loading bay window. A truck door slammed. Hale’s Range Rover sat near the side of the building, engine running, back end fishtailed in the snow.

Catherine saw him for half a second through the windshield. Preston Hale’s face was white and sharp behind the glass.

Then he bolted from the driver’s side and ran for the warehouse.

Catherine broke after him.