All right, Agent Reyes," he said. " Give me 24 hours." He ended the call and sat in the small bathroom for a moment longer, and then he stood and opened the door and walked back into the room. And eight men looked at him and he said, "I need the warehouse layout, everything we can get without going inside. Satellite, public records, anything former employees might have, and I need it by morning."
Cutter stood up from the bed. The measuring expression was gone. In its place was something simpler and more direct. Tell us what to do, Cutter said. Cole told them.
What followed was three hours of work that looked nothing like the dramatic planning sequences in films. No maps spread on tables, no shouted arguments, no cinematic music. It was quiet and methodical and it relied on the particular skill set of eight men who had spent years operating in difficult circumstances and had learned that the most dangerous thing you can do before a r complicated operation is to let emotion override procedure. Bur had contacts in the commercial property records office and had the warehouse's original construction permits and floor plans pulled digitally within 40 minutes. Lomax knew a man who had worked a delivery route into that facility six months ago.
And by midnight, he had the man on the phone and had extracted through a conversation that never directly asked the right question but always got close enough to it. the information they needed about interior layout, shift patterns, and the specific geography of the second floor office. Tuck spent an hour on the phone with the former associate who'd spoken to Reyes, a careful conversation, walking the edge of what could be said without crossing into territory that would compromise the federal case, and came back on confirmation of which safe, what kind, and the approximate procedure used to access it. Cole sat at the small desk by the window and assembled the information as it came in, building the picture piece by piece with the focused patience of a man who has done this before and understands that the difference between a clean operation and a catastrophic one is almost always the quality of the preparation. At 1:00 in the morning, Cutter sat down next to him and looked at what he'd assembled.
Two men, Cutter said anymore and it's too many moving parts. Agreed. Cole said, "You and me." Cutter said. Cole looked at him.
Cutter was not a subtle man and had never claimed to be, but he was steady and he was skilled. And Cole trusted him with the specific and non-negotiable trust of a man who has watched someone perform under pressure repeatedly and has never once been let down. You and me, Cole said. Reeves, who had been listening from the chair without inserting himself, said, "I want it on the record that I don't like this." noted.
Cole said, "Garrison's people are watching that facility." Reeves said, "Not just the inside, the outside. If they make you going in, they won't." Cutter said, "You don't know that, Reeves." Cole said, "We've been in harder rooms."
Reeves looked at him. There was something old and complicated in that looked the history of 21 years compressed into a few seconds of eye contact. Then he looked away and said, "Don't get killed, either of you. I'm too old to break in new people. Cole almost smiled.
At 2:00 in the morning, Cole stepped outside alone and called Reyes's back and gave her the layout information specific firsthand quality described in the language of someone who had been inside the building. He did not tell her how he had obtained it. She did not ask. When he was done, she said, "This is enough." and her voice had the quality of someone lifting something heavy they've been holding for a long time.
I'll have the application ready. Wait until you hear from me, Cole said. Don't file until I confirm. Why? Because if something goes wrong tonight, you file and the records disappear before you can execute.
If everything goes right, you'll have confirmation within 6 hours and you can file at first light. A pause. You're going in tonight. I'm going to confirm the location of the records, Cole said. That's all I'm going to confirm.
Reyes was quiet for a moment. Mr. Decker, she said, and there was something in her voice now that hadn't been there before. Something human underneath the professional precision. Be careful always, Cole said. He put the phone in his pocket and stood in the parking lot and looked at the November sky and felt for the first time in 11 months fully awake.
Not the managed controlled alertness of a bartender reading a room, something older and more complete. The total presence of a man moving towards something that matters with everything he is. Cutter appeared beside him. Ready in a minute, Cole said. He took out his personal phone, the Harrisville one, and called Patrice.
It was 2:00 in the morning, and she answered on the second ring, which meant she hadn't been sleeping, which meant she'd been waiting. You all right? She said. Yes. Cole said I need you to know something.
What? Whatever happens in the next 6 hours, he said nothing that comes from it is going to land on Harrisville. On you? On any of the people there. Patrice was quiet for a moment.
I know that. She said, I wanted to say it anyway. Cole. Her voice was steady and certain. Go what you need to do.
He put the phone away. He and Cutter took Cutter's truck unremarkable Tennessee plates and drove toward Clarksville in the dark. They didn't talk much. Men who know each other well enough don't need to fill the silence before something difficult. And Cole and Cutter had the specific comfortable quiet of two people who have calibrated each other thoroughly and trust what they found.
Halfway there. Cutter said. You know what the first thing I thought was when Reeves told me Cole Decker was tending bar in Harrisville. What I thought of course he is. Cutter said.
Of course he found the smallest, quietest, most out of the way place he could and made himself useful and kept his head down and tried to be a regular person. He glanced over because that's what you do when something costs you. You go somewhere small and you try to be small and it never works because you're not built small. Cole looked at the road. It worked for 11 months.