Chen Mo stood at the other end of the observation gallery, the outer corners of his white eye lenses tilted upward.
Inside the B-4 Reserve Warehouse, cash boxes were stacked up to the second shelf. Gun crates sat underneath, ledgers and hard drives lay on a folding table, and nine people were locked inside a wire-mesh enclosure.
A woman's singing drifted down through the ventilation shaft.
Two streets away, the church's midnight Mass had not yet ended.
O Holy Night.
Chen Mo said, "Get the people out first."
Harvey folded the coin back into his palm.
"The table on the right. The ledgers, hard drives, inventory sheets. Take those out first."
"Okay."
The black spider vaulted over the railing.
Webbing sealed the guns first, then the hands. A gunman's wrist was yanked up against a shelf, and his muzzle struck a metal box with a short clank.
Chen Mo landed and wrenched open the wire-mesh door.
The people inside did not move at once.
Moments ago, they had still been trading license plates, warehouses, and old routes for their lives. Now that the door was open, none of them dared step out first.
"Come out," Chen Mo said. "Being alive is a wonderful quality. Keep that wonderful quality, okay?"
The first driver crawled out.
The second was the accountant.
The Deputy Administrator of Warehouse 6 clutched the old keys that could no longer open its locks, his fingers trembling badly. As he passed Chen Mo, the keys struck the wire mesh with a string of jingles.
Harvey stuffed the ledger into a cash bag, then packed the hard drives, inventory sheets, and several payment sheets in with it.
Several words were written at the top of the payment sheet.
Witness disposal.
Police overtime.
Backup gunmen.
Tonight.
Chen Mo finished reading