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“Yeah, we know.”

Containers. The word turned over in my head. We were not in a truck. We were in a steel box, and the truck had only been carrying us.

Machinery whirred to life, a deep mechanical groan. The floor lurched. My stomach dropped as the whole world tilted, and we all began to slide toward the doors. We tumbled into one big pile. Heads, limbs, torsos. Someone’s weight pressed down on my back, and the burn from where the asshole had dragged me across the gravel flared white-hot.

“Shit. This is the best part,” a man said outside, laughing. “Hearing those screams.”

A scream tore out of the feisty one. She began to bang on the metal with her fists, the sound booming through the box like a drum.

“Hijo de tu puta madre, me las vas a pagar. Que te parta un rayo.”

I managed to catch mother and whore. I really wished I had learned Spanish. I tried to untangle myself, but the container swung again and sent us all sliding.

“Culero!” she screamed, just as I found her.

My fingers curled around her shoulder. It was small and hot and shaking.

“Save your energy,” I whispered. The laughter outside made it difficult not to snap. I ground my molars together, ignoring the pain.

With a thump that rang through my bones, the container landed.

No one moved.

The doors didn’t open.

I think we all sighed in relief. A small, shameful relief, as though a closed door were a kindness.

Chapter 6

Tau

The long black sleek car was early and definitely out of place. I swivelled the rifle around. I could just about get sight of Calloway in the backseat. Damn. The car turned around the corner and was hidden behind some containers.

The headlights remained still for a few moments before the car moved again. I followed it until the driver parked it beside the two containers. Zero might be many things, but his information on this job was impeccable.

The driver stepped out first. He circled the car at an unhurried pace and opened the rear door with the ease of long habit.

A shape unfolded from the backseat. Then another from the far side. Two suits.

I let the scope drift from one to the other, reading them the way I read everything. The first was broad through the shoulders, silver at the temples, standing with his weight settled and his hands in his pockets, waiting for the world to arrange itself around him. A flag pin caught the light on his lapel. A wedding ring flashed as he adjusted his cuff.

Calloway. The easy face from the file, built for campaign posters. Out here, away from the cameras, it had slackened into something harder.

The second suit was younger and thinner, narrow through the shoulders, a leather folio clutched to his chest. He stepped out half a pace behind the senator and stayed there. A man who carried the schedule and the sins, and had learned to do both without asking questions. Staff. An aide.

The two men I had watched earlier crossed the gravel to meet them. The terrible shirt came forward with his arms spread, a host welcoming a guest. The leather jacket hung back, hands loose, eyes on the dark.

Calloway took the leather jacket’s hand and did not let go. He tilted his head and smiled, and I could almost hear the warmth in it from here. A handshake that lingered.

They talked. The distance swallowed the sound, so I read their bodies instead. The terrible shirt laughed a beat too quickly. The leather jacket’s shoulders stayed tight. The aide checked his watch.

I settled my cheek against the stock. Breathed out. Breathed out again. The world narrowed to a bright circle and a patient crosshair, and everything else fell away.

Then the two local men peeled away from the car and walked to the nearer container.

One of them seized the latch. The bars shrieked in the dark, a sound that crossed the channel and set my teeth on edge. The doors swung open.

Blackness first. Then glimpses. A shoulder. A tangle of braids. A hand lifted against the lights. The pale gleam of eyes. Women. More than I could count from this angle, pressed together like something poured into a mould.