My hand grips the CZ and I actually have it halfway out of its holster when I realize the man isn’t moving. His eyes are fixed on a spot just to one side of me, and they will be fixed on that spot forever because he also has a small, dark circle the size of a dime in his forehead. I slide the CZ into its holster and awkwardly swing back onto the ladder before climbing down the last few rungs to the floor. I step off the ladder, the CZ back in my hand, my eyes sweeping the shadows. Nothing except the murmur of conversation from the back. I run in a crouch over to the dead man. The crates on the warehouse floor are stacked so there are aisles between them, and the dead man is sitting just inside one of those aisles, like he’s been tucked in there for a nap. His eyes are glassy, and he definitely has a bullet hole in his forehead, but his skin doesn’t yet have that pallor that only dead men have.

I grab his left arm and lift it up, noting the 13 tattooed on the back of his hand, then lower the arm back down. Still loose, almost boneless—rigor mortis hasn’t set in yet. He hasn’t been dead long. I reach out with one hand and gently tip his head forward, bracing myself for a bloody exit wound and brains on the crate behind him. The crate is clean, the back of the man’s head intact. I tilt his head back and the man resumes staring at the wall. The bullet must still be in his skull, which means it’s small caliber. A .22 with a good silencer wouldn’t make more noise than a bird fart, and a .22 subsonic round would ricochet inside a man’s skull until his brain was like a block of Swiss cheese.

Based on the 13 tattooed on his hand, I’m guessing this is one of Bala’s men. So who shot him in the face and then dragged him into this little alleyway in the crates? If Cargill or one of his boys did this, they’d likely be in twitching pieces on the floor right now. If Bala or his men did it, this dude would’ve already been wrapped up in a tarp and hauled out to a truck or van. Someone else did this, someone who may very well still be inside this warehouse. But is that someone an ally, or an even bigger threat than Bala or Cargill? I don’t know and I don’t have time to figure it out, but the fact that he left the man’s MAC-11 behind says he’s either careless or very confident. Holding my CZ low and ready, I head into the maze of crates, my ears and eyes wide open.