23:50.
Ten minutes left on the clock before the date turned over, and Marlark Street was anything but quiet.
Several coaches were parked along the outer edge of the street, engines idling. More than a hundred men had gathered in the amber glow of the streetlights — blades visible, rifles slung or gripped, the kind of crowd that moved with the loose, volatile energy of people who had been told tonight was the night. Shouted instructions cut through the noise. Engines revved. The whole assembly had the feeling of something about to boil over.
None of them looked up.
Five hundred meters away, a drone hung motionless at altitude, its camera rotating in slow, precise increments, feeding a clean live image back to the two vans parked along the roadside.
Smith studied the feed on the screen
