He pulled his hand from the left pocket—empty.
Tonight, the equation was about to collapse.
Outside, gasping in the rain, Marcus finally hit the emergency tone.
“Officer down?” the dispatcher asked.
The meet was at a derelict fish-packing plant on the south pier. Salt wind clawed through broken windows. Marcus sat alone on a rusted barrel, waiting. In his left jacket pocket: a burner phone with a live line to his handler. In his right: a bag of uncut fentanyl—two kilos, enough to put a neighborhood in the ground.
“Shut up,” Marcus whispered.
But he knew—walking Leo toward the blue flash of arriving cruisers—that the other half would always be walking beside him in the dark.