Page 39 of Hawkeye

Stryker studied the feeds, then looked around at the brothers. “Hawkeye calls the entry. Once we’re inside, take the whole fucking yard.”

We rolled out in unmarked trucks and on bikes, splitting before the final turn so that no single approach would announce the size of the force closing in around the property. I moved with Stryker along the western drainage line while Nomad slipped toward the rear road and the other teams took their positions. The estate yard looked quiet beneath the morning sun, but the silence felt wrong. Doors had been left half open, one truck was idling without a driver, and packing material was scattered where men had worked too fast to clean up.

Nomad’s voice came through my earpiece. “Rear route closed.”

I waited until the teams securing the place confirmed they’d completed their objectives, then gave the order. “Move.”

We hit the property from three directions. Skyfall and Breach crossed the east lot and disappeared through the dispatch door while Trigger and Smoke drove the shed guard away from cover before he understood how many men had entered. Bishop, Stryker, and I cleared the main lane, using the trucks and stacked pallets to break the longest sightlines.

A rifleman came up behind the office vehicle with his weapon already in his hands. I saw his elbow clear the hood before the barrel did, and the direction of his movement told me he was turning toward Zero’s position. My first shot put him down before his finger found the trigger, and his body struck the gravel hard enough to knock the rifle from his grip.

The second guard ran for the rear lane after Smoke tore the pistol from his waistband. He reached the gate, found Nomad waiting on the other side, and changed direction…too late. Nomad drove him into the fence, stripped the knife from his hand, and left him facedown with one arm locked between his shoulder blades.

“Yard secure,” Stryker reported after the building teams checked in. “Start tearing the place apart.”

The storage sheds held recently stolen military heirlooms mixed with ordinary estate property, some still wrapped in auction-house packing. Medal cases sat beside burglary tools, false executor forms, memorial announcements, and photographs of homes marked with notes about doors, windows, cameras, and neighboring properties. One table carried blank source-document templates ready to be filled with whatever invented estate name Tippon needed next.

The dispatch building was worse. Auction labels, delivery records, and photographs of grieving families’ property were stacked beside legitimate work orders as though stealing a veteran’s history was merely another service the company provided. Wraith found a cabinet full of portable valuables already sorted by likely resale route, while Breach uncovered several boxes of military letters and ribbons shoved beneath heavier metal pieces.

Smoke walked out of Tippon’s office with his mouth pulled into a grim line. “Chet fucking ran again.”

I stepped inside and found drawers hanging open, the computer removed, and a grease-marked company ledger abandoned beneath a pile of empty folders. Picking it up, I flipped through the first pages. I found legitimate estate jobs sharing columns with clipped notes, address fragments, vehicle numbers, access windows, and codes that looked meaningless without the auction-house files Josie had been building.

“Call it a head start,” I replied.

The surviving guard lasted less than five minutes once Stryker put him in a chair inside the dispatch building. He claimed Tippon had moved the valuable pieces after Wynnock questioned the shadow box, splitting everything among rented garages, commercial storage units, and temporary properties controlled by the burglary crew. The unidentified leader chose the houses and secondary locations, while Tippon handled the ledger, transport, and auction routes.

“He left before sunrise,” the guard muttered, blood running from one corner of his mouth. “Took the boss’s truck and the last locked cases.”

“Where?” I asked, watching his eyes instead of his bruised face.

“I don’t know the address.” He swallowed when Stryker stepped closer. “The ledger has the codes. Tippon kept saying nobody could read the fucking thing without the auction numbers.”

That was the first useful sentence he had given us. I photographed several pages and sent them to Cipher, then moved through the recovered property with my phone camera while the brothers kept searching. Josie answered on the second vibration.

“We have military pieces in both sheds and the dispatch building,” I told her. “I’m sending images now.”

Her breath caught faintly as the first photographs reached her. “The carved flag case was in a recent Wynnock lot, and I recognize the leather portfolio beside it. Move that away from the open door before the sun reaches it.”

I pointed toward the portfolio, and Breach shifted it onto a shaded table. “Done.”

“The service letters beneath the metal case need to come out before the weight damages them,” she continued, her words accelerating as more images loaded. “Keep the established order if they’re still tied, support them from underneath, and don’t slide anything across the paper.”

I crouched beside the medal cases and photographed the labels. “Anything else?”

She identified three more objects from Wynnock records and gave concise directions for the ribbons, leather, and photographs until we could bring everything to Black Castle. The confidence in her voice wrapped around the cold anger inside me, and the memory of her wearing nothing while explaining a damaged hinge sent another hard pull through my groin. Getting back to her had become considerably more appealing than standing in a stolen-property warehouse with Smoke.

We photographed and uploaded every page of the dispatch ledger before moving anything useful. Cipher confirmed the scans were clear, then began running the codes against the auction-house information while the brothers loaded the recovered property into secured vehicles. Tippon and the burglary leader had escaped the yard, but they had left behind the system that connected the legitimate company to years of theft.

I returned to Black Castle shortly after noon and found Josie beside Cipher at the conference table in my office. Printouts of the scanned ledger covered one side, while her auction-house cross-reference occupied the other. She looked up when I entered, pleasure warming her face, and the fitted top beneath her cardigan pulled tight across her breasts as she turned toward me.

My cock reacted before I reached the table. The bruise around her wrist was still there, but so was the woman who had wrapped those arms around me and demanded more until my control broke. I rested one hand on the back of her neck, kissed the top of her head, and sat beside her.

Josie’s finger stopped beside a grease-smeared job number. She checked the page once, then reached across for her Wynnock list and found the same digits written beside three separate consignments.

“This number is on three of our source sheets,” she murmured, excitement sharpening every word.

I shifted closer, following the line beneath her fingertip. “Show me.”