Gamma mission (Part one)

River P.O.V.

The old brick foundry squats by the river like a rusted animal, belly full of shadows and pigeons, every arch a patient mouth. Wind comes upriver cold and clean; it knifes the oil stink down to something I can use; hot engine, old mortar, fear-sweat.

I’m on the bridge edge with three teams and a map in my head.

“A-Team anchor north arch,” I ordered, voice low. “B-Team drift south by the spillway. C-Team with me, high wire. No heroics. Eyes only until we get the green light from Alpha.”

Three sets of acknowledgments snap back, crisp and quiet as the teams break up to do as I told them.

Below, a dark sedan idles under the last intact arch on the north side, tucked just far enough back that a passerby on the access road might miss it if they aren’t looking. They’re looking. I can feel it, the driver hyper-alert in the way the exhaust burps, the passenger with the jittery twitch of prey who thinks he’s a hunter. Back seat: one heartbeat too fast and too shallow, the pattern