Chapter 6 - THE BAYONNE RAID
The silence that fell over the Obsidian Room was instantaneous and absolute.
The senior men in the smoking corner stopped talking mid-sentence. Sullivan’s cigar dropped an inch of gray ash onto his silk vest, though he didn't seem to notice. Every eye turned toward Declan.
Declan didn't flinch. He didn't swear. He simply set his glass down on the mahogany table with a quiet, deliberate click, stood up, and buttoned his vest with two smooth, practiced movements of his large fingers.
"Who authorized the warrant?" Declan asked, his voice dead calm.
"Judge Harrison," Miller said, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead with the back of his thick hand. "Federal magistrate out of Newark. The feds got a tip from an anonymous source about the secondary manifest on the Tangier shipment—the one Clara flagged this morning."
Every head in the room slowly turned.
Twelve pairs of eyes—suspicious, angry, fearful—landed squarely on Clara.
Clara didn't flinch. She sat up a little straighter in her chair, adjusted her glasses with the tip of her forefinger, and looked back at Miller with an expression of cold, clinical irritation.
"If I wanted to sink the Bayonne operation, Miller, I wouldn't have tipped off a federal magistrate," Clara said, her voice cutting across the room like a cold wind off the river. "I would have sent the unredacted digital audit trail directly to the IRS criminal investigation division and the New York Times financial desk. You’d all be wearing orange jumpsuits before breakfast."
Miller swallowed hard, his eyes darting back to Declan.
Declan was looking at Clara. There was no anger in his dark eyes—only a strange, intense focus, as if he were watching a complex chess puzzle resolve itself in real time.
"She’s right," Declan said quietly, stepping away from the table. He reached for his charcoal wool suit jacket draped over the back of the chair and slid his arms into the sleeves with fluid, effortless power. "Clara’s audits are surgical. If she wanted you in handcuffs, Miller, you wouldn't know about it until the marshals were kicking down your front door at five a.m."
He turned to the rest of the room.
"Sullivan, stay here and finish your brandy. Don't touch your phones. Miller, get the encrypted burner phones from the wall safe in my study. We’re going to Bayonne."
He paused, looking down at Clara, who was already sliding her leather notebook and red pen into her tote bag.
"And you," Declan said.
"Mr. Shaw," Clara said, standing up and smoothing the front of her modest navy slip dress. "I am off the clock. My contract explicitly states that my working hours terminate at five o'clock p.m. on Fridays."
"Your contract also has a force majeure clause covering federal law enforcement actions that threaten the company’s primary assets," Declan replied, his mouth twitching with that same faint, dangerous shadow of a smile. "Get your coat, Clara. You’re taking notes."
Ten minutes later, the Lincoln Navigator was tearing through the rain-slicked streets of lower Manhattan, its heavy V8 engine roaring as it hurtled toward the Holland Tunnel.
Inside the backseat, the air smelled of cold leather, rain, and the dry electric hum of three different encrypted satellite phones resting on the center console.
Declan sat beside her in the dark leather interior, his laptop open on his knees. The blue glow of the screen illuminated the harsh, clean lines of his profile.
"They have the secondary manifest," Clara said, staring out the rain-streaked window as the neon lights of the city smeared into long ribbons of red and yellow. "Judge Harrison wouldn't sign off on a midnight raid without the digital signature from the port authority server. Someone inside our network exported the files."
"Who?" Declan asked without looking up from his screen.
"Not Sullivan," Clara said instantly. "Sullivan is too stupid to operate an SFTP client without help. He’d probably try to fax the encrypted files to the FBI."
Declan let out a low, dark chuckle. "True. Then who?"
"Higgins," she said quietly.
Declan’s fingers stopped moving across the keyboard. He turned his head slowly, his dark eyes fixing on her in the dim cabin light. "Higgins? The payroll guy who hyperventilates when the printer runs out of cyan toner?"
"Higgins has two daughters at NYU," Clara said, her voice entirely flat. "Tuition went up fourteen percent this semester. He bought a new Audi Q5 two weeks ago—paid in cash, according to the parking garage registry on East Seventy-Fourth. And he’s the only person besides me who has root access to the central server logs on the thirty-second floor."
Declan stared at her for a long moment. Then he picked up one of the encrypted satellite phones from the console, pressed a single speed-dial button, and held it to his ear.
"Miller," he said when the line connected. "Turn the car around. We’re not going to Bayonne."
"Boss?" Miller’s voice crackled through the speaker, thick with confusion. "The feds are at the container yard—"
"The feds are looking at a decoy manifest that Higgins uploaded three hours ago," Declan said, his voice dropping into that dark, lethal baritone that made the blood run cold. "Pick up Higgins. Bring him to the warehouse on Tenth Avenue. And don't break his fingers until I get there—I want him to sign his resignation letter first."
Declan hung up the phone, tossed it onto the console, and turned back to Clara.
May you like
"You're a terrifying woman, Clara Hayes," he said softly.
"I’m an efficient woman, Mr. Shaw," she replied, adjusting her glasses as the Navigator swung around in a wide, illegal U-turn toward the West Side Highway. "Now, about my salary increase effective Monday morning..."
