Her earpiece crackled.
"Seven. This is Harmon. I've got the secondary ledger photographed. Both drives are confirmed. I'm ready to move on your signal."
Special Agent Clarence Harmon, 41. 13 years with the Bureau, the last four of those spent embedded in varying degrees of proximity to Moss's supply chain.
He had been inside Warehouse 7 for three hours now, wearing a faded work shirt and broken-in cargo pants, looking entirely like what Moss's people expected to see in that building at this hour. A dock-level fixer who had been vouched for by a contact two tiers up and trusted enough to move inventory between sites.
The wire in his collar had been transmitting cleanly since he entered. The photographs he had just taken would be the spine of a federal prosecution that would run for years.
"Copy that, Harmon," Baines said, keeping her voice level. "Tactical is in position. Breach on my mark. 60 seconds."
At the compound's southern perimeter, a joint operations boundary had been established with the Detroit Police Department four hours prior.
The role of local law enforcement was precisely defined. Hold the outer perimeter. Redirect any civilian foot or vehicle traffic. Maintain absolute radio silence on all non-encrypted channels until federal tactical teams had completed the breach and secured the interior.
The Detroit Violent Crimes Unit captain who had signed off on the joint protocol had been clear with his people. This was a federal show. You hold your line. You do not cross it.
Sitting in a marked cruiser at the southwest corner of that perimeter was Patrol Officer Dade Culvin. 28 years old, four years on the force.
He had transferred into the east side patrol unit 14 months prior after a disciplinary review in his previous district. A complaint for excessive force that had been sustained but not actioned. The kind of outcome that created officers who believed consequence was negotiable.
Culvin was compact and broad-shouldered, with restless hands and the specific brand of confidence that came not from experience, but from never having been seriously checked.
He resented perimeter assignments the way some men resent being seated at the back of a room. Not because the view was bad, but because it confirmed a status he refused to accept.
His partner that night was Sergeant Ansel Doss, a 16-year veteran who had drawn this assignment specifically because his lieutenant trusted him to manage Culvin.
Doss had been managing Culvin for three months and was running out of strategies.
"They've been in there 40 minutes," Culvin said, his fingers drumming a steady pattern against the steering wheel. "40 minutes. If Moss got wind, he's already gone."
"We don't know that," Doss said, not looking at him. "And it isn't our job to know. We watch the corner."