"We know who you are, you Delta freak!" Riggins screamed, pacing the room. "We're cops! We'll put out a statewide APB on you! We'll bury you!"
"You didn't let me finish," Edmund said, his voice dropping to a terrifyingly quiet register. "You assumed the money was mine."
The laptop screen shifted from a black interface to a live video feed: it showed Riggins, Kessler, and Miller standing in the storage unit, shot from a camera mounted perfectly above the door.
"The $250,000 you stole was serialized bait money provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Public Corruption Task Force," Edmund explained. "The FBI has been trying to build a RICO case against your unit for two years. But you were too careful. You only targeted people who couldn't fight back. You only stole from people without a voice. So, the Bureau asked me for a favor: they needed a target you couldn't resist."
Kessler's breath hitched. He looked at Riggins, who had turned a sickly shade of gray. The twist hit them like a freight train: Edmund Hayes wasn't a vigilante acting on his own; he was an authorized, federally sanctioned operative running a deep-cover sting.
"Those pallets of cash you're looking for," Edmund continued, "they were loaded onto federal transport trucks three hours ago. The FBI has your ledgers. They have your cartel kickback receipts. And Tommy, they have the 400,000 I wired out of your Cayman account. It's sitting in a Department of Justice escrow account."
"No, no, no..." Miller muttered, dropping his gun to the concrete floor. It clattered loudly, echoing in the cavernous space. He put his hands on his head. "We're going to federal prison."
"Worse," Edmund corrected him. "You're going to federal prison as dirty cops who stole cartel money. I hear the cartel has a very long reach inside the federal penitentiary system."
"Screw this!" Riggins roared. He leveled his gun at the laptop and fired three times.
The screen shattered, sparking and going dark. The echo of the gunshots was deafening.
"Garrett, you idiot!" Kessler screamed.
Before Riggins could turn around, the storage facility's massive exterior floodlights snapped on, blinding them. The shrieking wail of sirens filled the air from every direction. Dozens of black SUVs with flashing red and blue lights swarmed the alleyway, blocking off both ends of the facility.