The briefing room, situated deep within the police headquarters, felt trapped in the damp chill of classified information. There was no natural light, only a solitary white fluorescent bulb flickering above the steel table.
John Dugan, twenty-six years old, sat bolt upright. He wore a simple grey shirt, but his eyes held the weary intensity of officers who spent their hours patrolling the city's darker corners. This was his first time being assigned to an operation of this magnitude: deep cover, not in bars or back alleys, but amongst the absolute elite.