POV: MIKE
The first call came at 8:47 PM.
Mike was in his office, the city spreading out below him like a map of all the connections he'd spent years building. He dialed a number from memory, not from his phone, from actual memory. This was too sensitive for digital trails.
The phone rang twice.
"Yeah?" The voice on the other end was gravelly, suspicious. Tommy. A port manager Mike had cultivated for three years. A man with access to shipping manifests, customs records, and the kind of information that flowed through the city's lifeblood.
"Tommy," Mike said. "I need information."
"The kind that costs?" Tommy asked.
"The kind that costs a lot," Mike confirmed. "I'm looking for financial flows. Large ones. Moving through New York in the last six months. Flowing toward a specific organization."
"What organization?" Tommy asked.
