Then I stand.
When I look up, Katerina is there at the edge of the room, one hand closing around Sofia’s shoulder, her face unreadable from this distance except for the fact that she saw every second of that.
Good. Let her.
Or no. Maybe it’s not good. Really, nothing about any of this is good.
Mikhail opens the outer door, and cold air cuts in from the street.
As I step through it, my mind is already splitting itself in two directions.
Pier Nine.
And Katerina’s voice in the corridor.
The city night closes around us, black cars waiting at the curb, men already moving before I give the order.
I get into the car and say, “Call the hospital first. Then the terminal. And lock down Bay Fourteen before the fire department remembers how to ask questions.”
Mikhail nods and starts making calls.
By the time I get there, the fire crews are being held at the outer gate by men with badges they did not earn and uniforms they borrowed from one of our contractors. The ambulances are real. The panic is real too. That’s the problem with operations like this. When something goes wrong, you have to separate useful fear from waste quickly or the whole night rots.
The terminal yard is lit too brightly, cold white floodlights reflecting off wet pavement and steel containers stacked three high. One refrigeration unit stands open near Bay Fourteen, its metal doors wide, mist curling out into the air like breath from a wounded animal. Two men are on stretchers near the loading ramp. One is conscious and crying. The other has gone so pale I know before anyone tells me he will not make it.
Mikhail falls into step beside me. “Fire crews found the override box cut,” he says. “Not hacked. Opened manually.”
“Inside man.”
“Yes.”
“Who was on shift?”
Mikhail gives me four names.
I know three. The fourth is new.
“Bring me the new one first.”
Mikhail signals to two men near the loading dock. They disappear into the terminal office.
I keep walking.
There’s a body near the side entrance covered with a thermal blanket. One of ours. I do not ask his name yet. There’s time for that when the more urgent work is done. Men always think ruthlessness looks like indifference to the dead. It doesn’t. Indifference is lazy. Ruthlessness is order. You deal with the living first because they can still make the dead matter.
A foreman hurries toward me, wringing his hands, face gray with terror.
“Mr. Sokolov, I swear to God, I never saw him near the cold unit before tonight. He said dispatch moved him from Jersey City.”
I look at him.
He stops talking.
“Name.”
“Luis.”
“No,” I say. “Yours.”
