Page 54 of Tater
He switched channels and sent the files to Tater too, thumbing a short message: Pier 7 hit. reroute. Junior & Hef tracking. Luis on standby. Moving manifests to you now.
Eagle asked the question on everyone’s mind. “Any security detail on site? Numbers?”
“Two unpatched guards on the door, one inside is a local ex-cop,” Sac replied. “But the suit brought at least three men in suits—clean guns, no patch. They don’t loiter. They drop, load, leave. That’s why we ghosted—no direct contact unless we blow open a supply chain.”
Brick’s voice went low, “Times you got?”
Sac rattled them off like bullets—02:10 pier load, 03:45 rig reroute, 04:30 transfer pings. “If you hit tonight, you hit between 01:00 and 04:00. That’s your window. We can keep the dock cam feed live to you—Luis will stream if he sees that Transit return. I’ll keep the manifest trail open and poke the long-haul. If Sanchez shows a face, we’ll get plates and a hotel match. I’ll send you plates as they come.”
Eagle’s tone was tight but steady. “Good. Brick and I will keep eyes on the north approach. If Ren rolls in, she goes quiet—ghost team only. Tater’s feeding Sac—he’s on the yard. We move at dusk.”
“Copy,” Sac said. He patched the live cam to the group, then added, “And one more—Luis says the Transit’s crew didn’t bother with tarps. There’s a smell on the air column near the pier—kerosene and a spice he swears he’s smelled before when cartel freight’s nearby. That’s your cartel mark. Don’t treat it like a gang scrap.”
There was a beat of static, then Brick’s voice: “We’ll be sharp. Sac—keep the feed tight. If that van goes dark, you call. If the manifest disappears, you call. No heroics. Bring back proof.”
“Understood,” Sac said. He closed the loop with one more message to Tater—photos, plates, manifests, and a short map of the I-84 pings. Eyes up. We got heat. Hit the supply chain, choke the money. If Sanchez shows, we freeze them.
He dropped the line and sat back, phone still warm in his palm. Outside, the world went on—trucks, a distant siren—like the same country with a new fault line. He rubbed his thumb over the screen where the plate numbers sat, then leaned forward to recheck the dock cam. If they moved right, they could snip the head off this snake before the next shipment went north.
Sac fed the feeds into Cleveland’s safe channels, tightened the net, and then—because brotherhood ran on action, not words—he started naming men and times, calling favors, lining riders for the long haul. The relay was live; the warmap updated. Boise, Cleveland, and the south route had lines now, and Sac would keep those lines hot until someone brought him what he wanted: the suit’s face, his receipts, and a direct route to Sanchez’s money.
CHAPTER 31
Static in the Wire
The feed stayed hot all day, a thread of static and images running through every man’s pocket like a live wire.
Sac’s manifests and dock frames looped through the clubhouse at Boise like a pulse. The map on the church wall grew new pins—time stamps in smudged ink, a scatter of claw marks where men had circled the same idea until it looked inevitable. The plan came to look like that map: no glory, no dumb runs, just surgical strikes.
The Bastards prepared in quiet ways. They checked bolts, polished barrels, and patched tires. Conversations thinned to murmurs and short laughs that broke too quickly. Every man carried the same weight behind the eyes.
Ren helped Smoke pack charges, her hands steady, her mind elsewhere. The dragon slept quietly now, not gone—just waiting. She liked the stillness. It meant she could think.
Tater worked the yard like a mechanic and a preacher, tightening both bolts and resolve. When someone asked if the Hounds would hit first, he said only, “Let’s not give ’em the chance.”
By dusk, the club house looked half-alive, half-haunted. Barrel fires burned low, throwing long light across chrome. Ren sat on a crate, picking at a loose thread on her sleeve, and watched sparks drift up to the dark. Tater passed her once, nodded, and said nothing. Words weren’t their language tonight; readiness was.
When the last light bled out of the sky, Ren stood. “It’s time,” she said.
Tater pulled his gloves tight and smiled, small and grim. “Then let’s go earn the silence.”
CHAPTER 32
The Ghost Team
They left under moonlight, three shadows on two bikes—Ren, Smoke, and Billy—riding south to the old warehouse Sac had marked red on the feed.
The road there smelled of rain. No traffic. No witnesses.
The building loomed from the dark like a tired beast: rusted ribs, corrugated skin, the faint hum of generators inside. The dragon stirred beneath Ren’s ribs, not in rage but in recognition. Fire sleeps here, it seemed to whisper.
They cut the engines half a mile out and walked the rest. The night was thick, breath turning to smoke in the cold.
Inside, the warehouse pulsed with quiet industry—low voices, metal clinks, the hiss of something being sealed. They crept between stacks of crates stamped with languages Ren couldn’t read and smelled the fumes of solvent.
A camera swept the aisle. Smoke froze mid-step. Billy’s hand darted up, clipped the feed with a tiny loop of wire. The red light blinked twice, then died.
“Two minutes,” he whispered.
