If so, it just made our job a little easier. Fewer threats to address.

Ralph made it to the semi’s open door while I glanced into the greenhouse, where half a dozen mannequins stood stoically beneath a sprinkler system. Wet, heavy snow was collecting on the glass ceiling above them.

“Hands where I can see them,” I heard Ralph shout.

I rushed over to help and ended up close enough to see what happened next, to watch it all go down.

The man that Ralph was confronting made a fatal mistake. Instead of complying, he drew a handgun. Ralph commanded him to drop it, but the guy raised it toward Ralph’s chest.

Ralph fired.

Three shots. Center mass.

Put him down.

Textbook.

Hot blood splattering across the snow.

While Ralph went to the body to secure the man’s weapon, I gazed into the semi, which was loaded with crates and mannequins. I wasn’t sure how much each of the silent ladies weighed, but I guessed that if they were all made of Selzucaine, with this many we could easily be talking tens of millions of dollars.

But this time, based on what Reese had told us, it wasn’t about the street value; it was about the Tranadyl. As he’d put it, the addicts would be snorting their way “into a coma or a casket.”

Movement in the truck. I leveled my gun. “Hands up!” Then I said to Ralph, “There’s someone in here!”

Fifty meters to the east, I noticed smoke coming from the first-floor windows of the office building.

Ralph joined me near the back of the semi. “Come out!” He repositioned himself to get a more direct line of fire. “And let’s see your hands!”

Suddenly, as if from nowhere, Mannie emerged from behind the crates, passed through the row of mannequins, and agilely leapt to the ground.

“Agent Hawkins,” he said.

“Mannie.”

I thought back to last summer, to the only fight I’d ever known Ralph to come away from without a clear victory—when these two had fought in Detroit. Since Mannie had managed to get away, Ralph considered it a lost fight.

I didn’t know of anyone else who could go mano a mano with Ralph.

Or with Mannie.

The giant held up his hands as he faced me. “Remember at the Field Office when I told you that you’d do what needed to be done? Now’s the time. He’s inside the office.”

“I’ve got this, Pat,” Ralph said to me. “Clear the building. Go!”

I took off in a sprint toward the burning office complex.

++++

Christie tightened her grip on the keys.

Open the door. Come on, open the door.