Chapter 25
Chapter
Twenty-Five
The drone lifted from its landing pad, scattering grit across the gravel turnout. Ryder took it above the firs and tipped the camera toward the property on the other side of the trees.
The screened fence came into view, its privacy slats turning the compound into a long gray block from the road.
Beyond it, the metal storage building stretched across the center of the property.
Gravel surrounded the south loading doors, while cracked concrete spread beyond the open door on the north side.
Shipping containers formed a broken wall along the east service lane.
The north roll-up door stood open. Workers carried brown record cartons out of the building and stacked them beside a box truck backed onto the cracked concrete apron.
In the south yard, two more men moved cases and boxed equipment toward a white cargo van.
A dark SUV waited near the north wall, pointed toward the rear gate.
Another carton came through the north door.
Ryder widened the camera and gained altitude until the whole compound fit on the controller screen.
Morning light flashed across the building’s pale roof.
Axel stood beside the folding equipment table with the site map on his tablet, and the shared channel murmured in Ryder’s headset as the two police units finished moving into position.
At the southeast corner, Dom and Siren waited with the Portland officers outside the main gate. Beneath the trees along the secondary road, Blaze and Hunter stood with the rear unit beyond the northwest fence.
“Rear gate’s open and usable,” Ryder said.
Ryder marked the three vehicles, then shifted the drone west until the building no longer covered the north apron. At that width, faces were too small to identify, but both gates and both exterior yards remained on the screen.
The main gate began sliding back. Police vehicles entered, filling the south approach before anyone in the yard could reach it.
Officers spread away from the gate. Dom and Siren moved with them, crossing the pale gravel toward the building while the men at the cargo van abandoned what they were carrying.
One man dropped a black equipment case and raised his hands.
Another worker dropped to his knees. A third ran for the nearest loading door. Ryder tracked him until two officers cut across his path, then returned the camera to the larger view before he lost the rear route.
The entry group reached the building and disappeared beneath the south overhang.
Steel siding and the container band swallowed them from Ryder’s view.
A man carrying a carton stopped outside the roll-up door and set it on the ground.
Two others retreated inside. Another raised both hands and stayed beside the box truck.
Ryder eased the drone north and angled the camera down.
The rear gate stayed near the edge of the screen while the open roll-up door and the waiting cartons sharpened in the center.
A man in a gray jacket walked around the box truck instead of moving toward the building or raising his hands.
He bent beside the rear wheel and came up with a red fuel can in each hand.
“North apron,” Ryder said. “A man in a gray jacket, moving two fuel cans to the cartons outside the open roll-up door.”
The man crossed the concrete quickly. Ryder tightened the camera until the cartons filled the lower half of the screen. The man set down one can, twisted the cap off the other, and tipped it over the stack.
Clear liquid struck the top carton and darkened the cardboard. It ran down the sides, soaking the boxes beneath it, then splashed across the concrete as the man swung the can toward the loading threshold.
“He’s pouring fuel over the cartons.”
The man threw the empty can aside and grabbed the second. Near the rear gate, figures emerged from the tree cover and moved down the service track. Blaze and Hunter led the rear officers through the gate, then disappeared behind the box truck.
The man in the gray jacket emptied the second can over the cartons, then stepped closer to the doorway and poured the last of it inside.
Ryder slid the drone sideways. The roll-up door remained empty at one edge of the frame, and the rear unit stayed hidden behind the truck.
When the can was empty, the man dropped it and reached into his jacket. He pulled out a small metal lighter.
“Lighter in his right hand.”
The lighter snapped open.
Siren came through the roll-up door at a run.
She struck his arm before his thumb reached the wheel, drove him away from the soaked cartons, and took him to the concrete.
The lighter bounced once near her knee. The stacked boxes hid part of the struggle, and Ryder shifted the camera a few feet.
Two Portland officers were already closing around them.
One kicked the lighter clear while the other forced the man’s hands behind his back.
Blaze and Hunter reached the apron with the rear officers.
A door opened along the east wall, and a figure ran into the service lane.
Ryder widened the view as the figure passed between the building and the first container.
When the figure turned, Ryder caught the face on camera.
It was Marla Pike. She ran straight for the dark SUV.
“Marla Pike is attempting to escape in the dark SUV. North apron, moving for the rear gate.”
The vehicle crossed behind the box truck and entered the narrow circulation lane along the north fence. Ryder climbed and rotated the drone camera to keep the SUV in his sights as it accelerated toward the open gate.
Blaze and Hunter changed direction before the SUV cleared the apron.
The rear officers spread across the gate opening while Portland officers held the service road beyond it.
The SUV’s brake lights flared. Marla turned toward the inside edge of the yard, into the narrowing gap between the officers and the fence.
A utility enclosure blocked the corner. The fence ran unbroken behind it, and Dom appeared with three officers from the far side of the building. The SUV stopped short of the line at the gate.
Ryder held the camera high enough to keep every approach in view. Officers closed on the SUV from the front and rear. One opened the driver’s door, and Marla stepped out and put both hands on the roof. Police moved her away from the vehicle.
Ryder moved the camera back to the north loading door. Siren had moved clear of the fuel, and the man in the gray jacket was on his feet between two officers, his hands restrained behind him.
Officers cleared the building section by section while Ryder kept the drone above the compound and recorded the exits and fence line.
People emerged in small groups through the south loading doors.
They crossed the exposed gravel with officers beside them and joined the workers already held away from the vehicles.
“Building, yard, and both routes secure,” Dom said. “Bring it down.”
Ryder turned the drone away from the property. It was over. He could now return to Nell.