Chapter 22 - The Infiltration
The shipping yard at night was a cathedral of rusted iron and shadows. The air smelled of diesel and sea salt. Arthur and I moved through the stacks of containers, our breathing shallow, weapons drawn.
"The manifest said sector four," I whispered into my comms.
"I have the feed," Arthur replied, his voice tinny in my earpiece. He was stationed in the van a mile away, hacking the security cameras. "There’s a guard patrol every five minutes. You have a thirty-second window."
I crouched behind a stack of steel boxes, watching the flashlights of the guards sweep the yard. They weren't standard security; they wore tactical gear with the serpent emblem stitched onto their sleeves.
They are here, I thought. The source.
As the guards turned, I moved, sliding into the darkness of the main warehouse. Inside, the space was cavernous, filled with crates marked with international shipping codes. But one section was different. It was reinforced with heavy steel doors and biometric scanners.
"Arthur, I’m at the core," I said.
"Be careful, Amanda. I’m reading high energy signatures inside. This isn't just logistics."
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I reached the control panel, my hands moving with a decade of muscle memory. I bypassed the lockout, the door hissing open to reveal a sight that froze my blood: a bank of servers, humming with artificial intelligence, connected to a vast, glowing holographic map of the country’s power grid.
They weren't just traffickers. They were saboteurs.
