Thirty-one hours earlier.
Vancouver Sell stood in the third-floor office of an unremarkable building in Williamsburg, looking out over the Brooklyn streets below. The room was sparse—a desk, two chairs, a filing cabinet that contained nothing but decoys. HTBB didn't keep records in such places. This was a meeting space, a neutral ground where certain conversations could happen away from their primary operations.
Behind him, Eliot King sat at the desk, perfectly still. That was one of the things that had always distinguished King from other men in their line of work—his absolute economy of movement. He never fidgeted, never paced, never betrayed nervousness through unconscious gesture. When King moved, it was with purpose. When he was still, he could have been carved from stone.
"Tell me again," King said, his voice flat and cold.
The technician—a nervous man named Russell Kingsley who handled their encrypted communications and digital security—stood near the door, shifting his weight from foot to foot. He'd been like that for the past ten minutes, ever since delivering news that had transformed the evening from routine to critical.
"I was getting gas," Russell said, his voice tight. "Station on Atlantic Avenue. And I saw him—Perez, our driver. He was at the far pump, talking to two men in a sedan. It didn't look right, so I stayed back, watched."
"Describe them," Vancouver said without turning around.
"White guy, maybe forty-five, fifty. Short hair, fit. The other one was younger, Hispanic, also fit. They weren't dressed like civilians—tactical pants, boots. And the way they moved, the way they were positioned..." Russell swallowed. "They were law enforcement. I'd bet my life on it."
"You might be," King observed mildly.
Russel's face paled, but he continued. "Perez handed something to the older guy—looked like a phone or maybe a hard drive. Small, fit in his palm. They talked for maybe two minutes, then Perez got back in his car and left. The two men watched him go, then drove off in the opposite direction."
Vancouver finally turned from the window. He was a tall man, lean and angular, with the kind of face that people had trouble remembering—not ugly, not handsome, just aggressively average. It was a useful trait in their business. He could disappear into a crowd, be forgotten by witnesses, exist in the spaces between people's attention.
"When was this?" he asked.
"Three hours ago."
King stood, moving with that characteristic deliberation. "And you're certain it was Perez?"
"Positive. I've worked with him for six months. It was him."
Vancouver and King exchanged a glance. Two years. Perez had been with them for two years, working his way up from occasional driver to one of their regular transport operators. He'd been reliable, professional, kept his mouth shut and his eyes open. Vancouver had even considered recommending him for more sensitive work.
And all that time, he'd been feeding them to the DEA.
"Where is he now?" King asked.
Russell pulled out his phone, checking the tracking app they used to monitor their drivers. "Still in Brooklyn. Looks like he's at the warehouse on Meserole."
The warehouse was one of their smaller operations—a storage facility they used for short-term holds on certain shipments before redistribution. Not a critical location, but it contained enough evidence to be problematic if law enforcement ever gained access.
King walked to the window and looked out at the city lights. "Two years," he said softly. "That's a significant investment. The DEA doesn't maintain deep cover operations lightly. Which means they're not after street-level operators or small-time dealers."
"They're after you," Vancouver said. It wasn't a question.
"Us," King corrected. "HTBB represents a significant target—our connections to Mallman, our operations across three states, our financial networks. If Perez has been reporting for two years, they have everything. Names, locations, transaction records, operational procedures."
"So we shut down," Chen said quickly. "Disappear, start over somewhere else—"
"No." King's voice cut through the suggestion like a blade. "Running would be an admission of guilt and a demonstration of weakness. It would invite every rival organization to move on our territory, every law enforcement agency to intensify their pursuit. And it would anger Mallman, which would be... inadvisable."
He turned from the window and looked at Vancouver. No words were necessary. They'd worked together for twelve years, built HTBB from a small-time money laundering operation into a multi-million dollar enterprise. They'd made hard decisions before, eliminated threats, adapted to changing circumstances. This was just another problem that required a solution.
"I'll handle it," Vancouver said.
King nodded once. "Clean. Fast. And make sure there's nothing that leads back to us. If the DEA already has enough to move against us, Perez's death won't stop that. But if they're still building their case, we need to eliminate their primary source and destroy whatever evidence he might have accumulated."
"His apartment?"
"Send a team. Everything electronic gets destroyed or brought to our people for analysis. Anything that looks like dead drops, hidden communications, backup plans—eliminate it."
Vancouver pulled out his own phone and began making calls. Within minutes, he had a team mobilizing toward Perez's apartment in Bushwick, and another team assembling for the primary operation. King's people were professionals—they understood that some situations required immediate and decisive action.
"What about me?" Russell asked nervously.
King regarded him with those flat, emotionless eyes. "You did well to bring this to us immediately. There will be a bonus in your next payment. For now, go home. Say nothing to anyone. If law enforcement contacts you for any reason, you know nothing and you refer them to our attorneys."
Russell nodded eagerly and practically fled from the office.
When the door closed behind him, King said, "We'll need to review Perez's reliability. If Perez was deep cover for two years without us detecting it, we have significant gaps in our security protocols."
"I'll audit everything," Vancouver agreed. "Personnel, communications, financial trails. If there are other leaks, we'll find them."
"See that you do." King picked up his coat from the back of the chair. "I'll be at the primary location. Call me when it's done."
Vancouver watched him leave, then turned back to the window. Somewhere out there in the Brooklyn night, Benjamin Perez was going about his business, completely unaware that his cover had just been burned. By morning, he would be dead, his apartment would be sanitized, and HTBB would have eliminated a critical threat.
It was just business. Nothing personal.
Vancouver made three more calls, coordinating timing and logistics. Then he left the office and headed for his car.