Page 111 of Eyes in the Shadows

SpyderMan: Vinny sent you? Then I know he told you how it works. Intel, then $.

mermaidav: fine. don’t stiff me… i know where you type

I laugh and send her my email for tip. Theheris part assumption, part deduction—I’ve never met a man with mermaid in the username. I’m not ruling it out, it’s just the most likely scenario.

Just as the email comes through, I spot headlights down the road. It’s not a back road, but traffic has been slim, so I watch as it approaches. The car slows, then comes to a screeching halt, nearly missing the entrance to the car park. After a wide turn that rolls over some of the grass, the car drives around the front and I lose eyes on it.

I pull up the cameras and split the screen into six. There are two outside, one that gets a south-east visual and one that gets the north-west sides. The four inside are basically pointing in from each corner of the rectangular building.

I watch McCloskey park facing the chain link fence. He keeps up a pretty steady stream of nervous babbling to himself—standard stuff, like, “what the fuck is this place,” and “looks pretty empty.” He’s a bit too thick around the middle to consider trying to scale the fence, and a little too nervous to think about trying to break the chain. He goes to the door on the side by the fence, tries it, and finds it unlocked.

Just how I left it for him.

Gun drawn forward in one hand and police-issued torch in the other resting on top, he creeps through the building, about as silently as a hunting house cat. I can hear his ragged breath and I wonder how long it’s been since he was really in the field.

Deciding he’s alone in the echoing silence and dark, he tucks his gun in his holster and winds through the racks, empty of everything except stacked pallets on the ground. He comes around into the large open space and notices the truck.

“He found it and he’s approaching,” I tell the others.

I get no response. From Dimitri, it’s nothing less than I’d expect, though from Mac… As much as I’m not particularly opposed to a bit of adrenaline-fueled fun, it would be remarkably poor decision making on Mac’s part to act on those fuck-or-kill urges we all get. We’re in the literal thick of things.

“You’ve gotta be shitting me,”McCloskey says, as he pulls open the right trailer door.

I don’t have the correct angle to see into the truck, but I can see McCloskey shine his light into the bed. I also see his jaw drop.

Awkwardly, he uses the foothold under the doors and pulls himself into the truck, disappearing into the 50’ steel box filled with crates of stolen weapons.

Now begins the true nail-biting portion of the evening.

“Come on… take the bait,” I urge him, moving closer to the screen, like it’s going to help me see through the solid metal walls.

I hear the sound of plywood lids being lifted and dropped, and some surprised laughter that turns gleeful the further he gets into the truck.“No fucking way,”he mutters.“No fucking way!”

Here it is. Our crossroads, thanks to the unknown that is McCloskey. We couldn’t be sure how much he knows—if he knows about the smuggling and selling, if he ever saw these weapons, if he ever learned they were missing…

But any corrupt cop of reasonable intelligence, confronted with a truck full of illegal goods, would likely go one of two ways. If he’s Rossi’s man, he’s going to call his boss back and let him know what he’s discovered. If he’s Anderson’s, he’s going to the mayor with this.

If he calls Rossi, we follow one response plan. If he calls Anderson, we go with the other.

I see a faint light spill out the back of the truck and hear him lift the phone to his ear. The voice that picks up is faint, only really audible from the utter silence in the room and the amplification provided by the metal box he’s standing in.

Rossi asks,“They on the move?”

“No, they’re probably still there, fucking.”McCloskey sounds relaxed. In control.

“Probably? The fuck you mean, proba—”

“I found ‘em. The crates. Still on the truck and everything.”

There’s a beat of silence, then Rossi’s greedy voice,“No shit? Where are you, I can be right there—”

“Yeah, it’s not gonna be like that, Jay. I’m thinking this info is worth a little more to you than that.”

“You motherfucker.”

“I could call Mayor Anderson, give him my location, if you want—”

“No,”Rossi hurries to say.“That’s… not a good idea.”

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