Chapter 3

Sergeant First Class Terrence Nakamura did not hurry. He never hurried. He was forty-one years old, five-foot-ten, lean the way a fence post is lean, and he moved like a man who'd already decided how the next ten minutes were going to go.

He pushed the shack door open with one flat hand and stepped out onto the asphalt with his ruggedized tablet already live in both hands, reading glasses pushed up on his forehead, the audit lanyard tucked under his blouse so nobody on the lane could see what it said.

He walked to the podium without looking at Mullins. Stopped at my left shoulder. Looked down at the page under my fingers.

"Six thirty-eight," he said. Flat. Not to me. To the lane.

Then he turned the tablet around and held it up at chest height, screen facing out.

The screen showed the side-gate camera still. Same minute. 06:38 in the corner of the frame. A contractor box truck mid-pass through the side gate, wheels on the line, cab already past the arm. The gate arm was up. The post was empty.

No guard. No inspection. No entry on that camera's log except the one Mullins had signed.

I heard a car door open somewhere in the line. Then another.