1x2 Narc... -

“No,” Marcus said, spitting blood from a cut lip. “Officer awake.”

The meet was at a derelict fish-packing plant on the south pier. Salt wind clawed through broken windows. Marcus sat alone on a rusted barrel, waiting. In his left jacket pocket: a burner phone with a live line to his handler. In his right: a bag of uncut fentanyl—two kilos, enough to put a neighborhood in the ground.

Carlos drew a pistol. “You want to keep working with us, 1x2? You prove you’re one of us. One bullet. Two sides of the same coin.” 1x2 Narc...

He pulled his service weapon from the right.

“What other matter?”

He pulled his hand from the left pocket—empty.

Detective Marcus Cole was a one-man equation the department didn’t like to solve. They called him “1x2”—one narcotics officer with two faces. By day, he was the golden boy of the DEA’s field office, clean-shaven, sharp-jawed, with a binder full of successful busts. By night, he sat across from the very men he was supposed to destroy, sipping whiskey from a glass they’d poured. “No,” Marcus said, spitting blood from a cut lip

“I’m wearing what keeps me alive,” Marcus said.