Page 255 of The Devil's Thorn
The car turned off the main road and onto a stretch of cracked pavement leading toward the docks. The lights changed here—yellow, flickering, casting everything in a dirty goldhaze. Cargo cranes loomed in the distance like steel skeletons. Stacks of containers towered over the asphalt, color-coded and numbered, silent witnesses to a thousand secrets no customs officer ever documented.
Our car slowed as the entrance gates came into view—unmarked. No logos. Just rusted chain-link and a checkpoint booth manned by one of ours. Maksim.
He stepped out when he saw us. Hand on his earpiece. Gun visible on his hip.
I rolled down the window before the car even stopped. “Clear?”
“All clear, Boss,” he said. “Security swept the lot. No external eyes. Cameras on loop. We’ve got five on the perimeter and two on the rooftop. Just in case.”
“Container status?”
“Dropped twenty minutes ago. Still sealed. Handler’s waiting.”
I nodded once, and the car rolled past him into the heart of the yard.
The smell hit immediately—salt, oil, steel. The kind of industrial mix that never washes out of your clothes.
Spotlights cut through the dark in patches, illuminating flashes of metal and shadow. There were four men standing by the shipment—two of ours, two from the secondary port handler team we paid extra to keep their mouths shut.
The container sat at the edge of the stacked line—mid-size, ocean blue, with a manifest sticker already scuffed at the corner.
I stepped out of the car before the engine cut. Boots on wet concrete. The sound echoed.
Everything stopped for a second. Conversations, movement. Eyes shifted toward me like gravity had shifted.
Good.
Let them feel it.
Yuri and Nikolai followed at my flanks, a half-step behind.
Maksim was already walking us toward the container, nodding at the others to back off as we approached.
“Two rows in,” he said, gesturing at the seal. “Guns first—Ukrainian origin, repackaged in Greek shipping crates. Hidden beneath electrical equipment. We checked half. All clean.”
I reached for the clipboard Maksim handed me. The manifest was fake—but perfect. Weight match, serial alignment, even the name of the import company in Marseille we’d fabricated six months ago.
“Crates labeled?” I asked.
“Marked with red tape under the lids.”
I handed the clipboard to Nikolai. “Crack the seal,” I said.
He gave a short nod and moved forward, unlocking the metal latch with a mechanical hiss. The doors swung open slowly, the internal lighting inside the container flickering to life. The smell of cold metal and oil hit like a wall.
Inside—rows of industrial crates. Neatly stacked. Professionally arranged. You’d think it was high-grade refrigeration equipment if you didn’t know what you were looking for.
Yuri stepped up beside Nikolai and popped the lid off one. Inside—foam casing. Red tape beneath.
He peeled it back carefully. Exposed steel. An assault rifle, matte black. No serial. Ukrainian modification, custom suppressor. Three more beneath it.
“That’s clean,” Yuri muttered.
“And the coke?” I asked.
“Back left. Tucked behind the dummy cooling units.”
Nikolai moved toward the back with Maksim, checking the codes.
