“He’s a bystander!”
“That’s your problem to worry about. Not mine.”
Pushing the guard’s limp form aside, Blaine deftly rises to his feet. Naturally, he stops to brush the odd speckles of concrete dust from his t-shirt and leather jacket like the mere sight offends him.
“Onwards? He won’t be out for long.”
When he steps past us all to lead the way, Hyland makes no attempt to block his path. “Fucking lunatic.”
“You just realising that?” Warner spits in frustration.
“Hey, you pardoned the psycho.”
“Don’t remind me.”
We catch up to Blaine then inch deeper into the terminal, passing empty offices filled with filing cabinets and dark desktop computers, boards plastered in shipping manifestos and half-empty vending machines.
The farther we traverse without seeing another soul, the deeper my anxiety sinks its claws in. Everything about this place seems normal. There’s nothing to suggest it’s a front for something far darker and illegal.
“There’s nothing here,” I whisper.
Warner walks beside me, his gun still raised. “If Luis was here, he’s long gone.”
“Did they know we were coming?”
“I don’t see how.”
“So what do we do now?”
“Keep moving,” he replies in a low tenor. “We need to check for any evidence.”
Beyond the offices and storage rooms, a vast loading bay is cluttered with neat rows of packed pallets. Each row is organised alphabetically, labelled with plastic-wrapped customs documents and shipping manifestos.
We carefully search every inch of the massive storage room, hackles raised and guns at the ready, but not a single threat presents itself. The place is empty. Not so much as an unlabelled box or splatter of blood to suggest anything illegal passed through here.
With each corner of the main floor assessed, we converge in the centre of the cardboard box city to debrief. Our infiltration was silent, invisible. Nothing to tip off anyone inside. Yet Luis isn’t here, and we’re empty-handed.
“Anything?” Axel whispers into our ears.
“Beyond the security guard Madden knocked out?” Warner grunts. “Not a damn soul.”
“Well, fuck. That’s disappointing.”
“We’ll sweep the place in case Luis has anything stowed away. Looks like it may be a false lead, though. The vehicle was abandoned, and if he was here, he’s already cleared out.”
“Bollocks,” Axel hisses. “I’ll pluck the rest of that asshole’s teeth out for wasting our time.”
“Why play this game?” I frown at our surroundings.
“Dominic Pit is a snake,” Hyland seethes from behind me. “He’s going down for a long time and he’d do anything to disrupt our investigation. This is him fucking with us.”
“No.”
“No?” Warner echoes.
“We have to be missing something.” I scan up and down the rows of boxes. “Dominic held out for hours before giving us this information. What was he protecting if Luis is already gone?”
Silence falls. Palpable. Tension-riddled. Half-formed thoughts fill the still air all around us, the echoing emptiness holding secrets we can’t seem to grasp hold of.
