“Anton.”
“Anton, if you speak again before I ask you a question, I will assume you’re trying to hide something and adjust my mood accordingly.”
He nods so hard I think his neck might snap.
“Good,” I say. “Now tell me exactly who had access to Bay Fourteen.”
This takes twelve minutes.
By the end of it, Anton is shaking badly enough that one of my men has to hand him water. He’s useless but not lying. Good enough.
The new man is dragged in through the side office door.
He’s younger than I expected. Twenty-five, maybe. Cheap beard. Expensive sneakers. Blood on his mouth from resisting the men who brought him. He looks at the floodlit yard, at me, at the body under the thermal blanket, and makes the mistake of trying to be defiant.
“I didn’t do anything.”
I hit him before the sentence is fully out.
He goes down to one knee, coughing blood onto the concrete.
Mikhail says nothing. The men around us say nothing. The fire crews pretend not to see.
I crouch in front of him.
“You had one job tonight,” I say. “Stand near a gate, look stupid, and let me go home without learning your name.”
He tries to straighten. “I was told?—”
I hit him again. This time he falls.
I take his phone from his jacket pocket while he’s still trying to remember where the pavement is. Locked. Cheap. Burner.
I hand the phone to Mikhail. “Open it.”
The man on the ground spits blood and says, “You can’t touch me.”
I look down at him. Then at the body under the blanket. Then back at him.
“You have misunderstood me greatly.”
He stops breathing for a second.
We take him inside.
The office above the yard is glass on three sides and freezing because one of the windows blew during the attack. There’s blood on the floor from someone else. No one has cleaned it yet, which is fine for now. Fear sharpens memory.
We sit him in a chair.
I remain standing.
It takes seven minutes to break him.
Not because I enjoy it, though men like him always assume that’s why this happens. It’s because there is no point drawing out the performance once the answer is already weakening in front of you. I ask the questions in the order that matters. Name ofcontact. Number used. How payment moved. What he was told was in Bay Fourteen. Who else knew the patrol gaps.
He lies twice.
The first lie costs him two teeth.
