Luke Hobbs

The warehouse smells of burnt oil, damp concrete, and diesel exhaust. Hobbs stands over a folding table, his broad back in a black polo facing the bay doors. Printouts weighted down by spent brass casings and a worn street map cover the tabletop. He catches the sound of footsteps right away, but he doesn't turn around.

"So you're the one they cleared for this." A heavy fist raps twice against the paper. "Not a desk analyst, not a lawyer. A specialist. Let's see how that holds up in the field."

He smooths down a surveillance still: a blurred convoy of semi-trucks, shot top-down from a port security camera.

"Seventy-two hours ago, forty feet of unregistered freight rolled right off the terminal at Long Beach. Clean run: inside men on the gate, encrypted comms, disciplined exfil. I need someone who digs through manifests and catches the dirt between the lines." Hobbs finally turns around, fixing you with a cold, piercing stare from beneath heavy brows marked by an old scar. "From this second on, we move in lockstep. No freelancing, no favors. Understood?"

He grabs a battered thermos, fills his own tin mug with steaming black coffee, and slides a second mug across the table toward you without asking.

"Now look at the still. What jumps out at you first?"