The shipment number changed everything.
For the first time since arriving at the coastal terminal, they had something real.
Not a rumor.
Not a damaged report.
Not a missing page.
A number.
A trail.
A place to start.
The next morning, none of them talked much.
The security office looked worse than ever.
Boxes covered the floor.
Files sat stacked across tables.
Half-open folders filled every empty chair.
Julian sat behind his laptop while Mateo worked through another pile of records.
Alexander stood near the wall map.
Elena stared at the shipment number written across her notebook.
The digits looked ordinary.
Yet thirty years of secrecy seemed connected to them.
Julian finally broke the silence.
"I found something."
Everyone looked up.
He turned the laptop around.
An old government database filled the screen.
Most of it had been archived years ago.
Many sections no longer worked.
But one reference remained active.
The shipment number.
Mateo moved closer.
