The boy’s name was Leo Montgomery. He lived three blocks off the mountain road in a house that needed paint, with a mother who worked double shifts at the county hospital and a bicycle that was three years too small for him.
He had been collecting beetles that afternoon in the abandoned Harwick Industrial Building off Route 7. It was a long concrete structure perfect for finding bugs—and, apparently, for hiding other things. Leo had been on the third floor, flat on his stomach with a mason jar, when voices echoed up from the loading bay. He stayed flat because something in the quality of those voices told him to hide.
Low. Deliberate. The voices of men being careful not to be overheard.
He told Riker what he heard, and Riker listened the way he listened to field reports: without expression, without interruption, filing each piece in its proper place.
The Threat Assessment:
Vehicles: Three unidentified SUVs.
Location: Corner of Route 7 and the mountain road junction, under the old rail bridge.
Tactics: Barriers laid across the road to bottleneck the column.
Force: Twelve to fifteen men armed with heavy weapons.
Orders: Wait for the bikes. Nobody rides out.
“They kept saying 'the mayor said,'” Leo explained, his voice trembling slightly. “Like, ‘The mayor said make it look like a gang thing.’ And, ‘The mayor said make sure nobody finds the bikes.’” He paused. “Mayor Sterling.”
Riker went completely still. “You heard that name specifically?”
“Yes, sir. Three times. I wrote it down.”