Three days after Shane left, the East Coast United office was so quiet you could hear the ticking of the wall clock.
The stack of documents Shane had arranged for delivery still dominated the center of the desk, casting long shadows in the afternoon sun.
Several heavy bound volumes lay in disarray; the edges of Company Structure were already frayed. The flyleaf of Port Management Regulations bore the faint imprint of a coffee cup.
Volker pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes gritty as if sand had been thrown in them. Three days in the office, yet they still struggled with the basics of company operations.
Mikhail was sketching on paper, pencil scraping lightly against the page.
Vik, meanwhile, was flipping irritably through Customs Procedures, overwhelmed by the dense technical jargon.
"This is harder than storming Warsaw City Hall," Mikhail muttered, slamming his pencil on the desk, breaking it in two. "At least then we knew where the enemy was."
Vik rubbed his reddened eyes. "Volker, I'd rather face another night raid at Komarów than look at these damned numbers."
Volker didn't respond. He reopened Company Structure, tracing the unfamiliar terms with his fingers. "Equity structure… balance sheet… cash flow forecast…" The words were a foreign language, their code indecipherable without the right key.
The afternoon sun filtered through the blinds, painting the room in mottled light and shadow. They hunched over the desk, just as they had once studied battle maps in the trenches, calloused fingers tracing line after line through dense regulations.
Ashtrays overflowed with cigarette butts; gray ash covered open pages of Union Bylaws like a dusting of snow.
Volker drew a thick line over a phrase: Longshoreman minimum hourly wage $0.35. All three men looked up, faces etched with frustration. These business clauses were far harder to decipher than enemy positions in wartime.
Through the night fog, the office lights were the lone stubborn glow on the pier, keeping vigil until dawn. Occasionally, a passing patrol officer would glance at the figures hunched over their desks.
By the fourth evening, damp fog, thick with diesel, had permeated the office.
Volker pushed aside a copper ashtray. Page 37 of the Customs Tariff Compilation lay covered in red pencil marks, resembling a student's repeatedly corrected arithmetic draft.
"Damn FOB and CIF terms…" Mikhail slammed his fist on the oak table. Coffee had spilled across Port Safety Management Regulations, its dark surface recalling the bloodstains from the dock brawl two weeks prior.
Vik's pen exploded, splattering dark blue ink across the customs sheet. "I've calculated it three times, and we're still two hundred seventy-three dollars short!" His blond hair was disheveled like wheat after a storm.
Outside, the midnight freighter's whistle sounded. Volker walked to the iron-barred window. Beyond the blinds, the company's newly leased steam crane rested on the dock, silent and hulking like a slumbering beast.
He recalled the old company commander from his army days, exhaling mist in the trenches outside Warsaw: "Even the strongest fortress must begin with digging the first foxhole."
"Mikhail, fetch the Standard Freight Contract Template." He rolled up a sleeve, revealing a through-and-through forearm scar. "Vik, brew a pot of black coffee. We'll do this the Vilno Infantry Regiment way."
At daybreak, the three men were still at the desk. Mikhail had broken the customs declaration into seven tactical movements. Vik had reorganized the cargo manifests using an armory-style marking system. Volker had backed up every document twice, like overlapping fields of fire along the Vistula River.
As the early shift workers' footsteps echoed across the misty pier, three freshly annotated documents lay neatly arranged:
• Port Operations Manual (Infantry Tactics Edition)
• Freight Cost Accounting (Ammunition Allocation Method)
• Customs Clearance Guide (Field Reconnaissance Essentials)
Volker laughed as he cut the last page. Outside, new recruits lined up on the dock, once soldiers now manifest clerks, stamps and ledgers replacing rifles.
The office door opened. Shane entered, accompanied by an Irish woman with rosy cheeks.
"This is Ms. Linda Duke," he introduced. "She'll handle reception and shorthand starting today."
Their eyes swept the room: papers in disarray, sandwich wrappers, a half-eaten kielbasa, rye crumbs scattered like shrapnel, cigarette smoke curling in the sunlight.
Linda's hands moved quickly, sleeves rolled up, efficiently clearing the office in just three hours. Four days of chaos reduced to neat order.
Shane settled at his desk, his pen scratching across the page, pausing to annotate with precision. The three men watched as forms that had tormented them for days were methodically decoded.
"Depreciation should be calculated like this," Shane instructed, ink forming perfect dots. "Give movable assets 33% accelerated depreciation over three years. Book profit may look low at first, but the tax shield is maximized and cash flow optimized."
Vik slapped his forehead. His battlefield-calculated mind finally grasped the intricacies of business arithmetic.
"So losses on statements become bullets received in advance," he said.
Shane smiled, flicking ink back into the inkwell. "For warehouse leasing, consult Supervisor Hawke. He knows which dock sections will be reclaimed, which can still be leased for ten years. True land depreciation isn't on the books—it's in policy."
As dusk fell, Shane donned his felt fedora, glancing at the three men with dark circles under their eyes. He tapped his temple lightly. "Thinking is completing work with the least effort. You've proven this these past days."
Once the door closed, the brothers looked at the neat filing cabinets. Sunlight reflected off the gilded labels, a symbol of order restored.
By dawn a week later, the pier lay shrouded in iron-gray mist. Rusted cranes creaked, burlap sacks sank into the water with only a few bubbles rising to the surface.
Vik picked at a dark red scab with his dagger, letting it drop into the river. "Better than the last two," he said, tilting his head. "At least he made it through round one."
Mikhail and two old comrades stood downwind, cigarette embers flickering in the gloom. "Send the kid's head back in a whiskey crate?" one suggested.
Jay, the former reconnaissance sniper, nudged an empty wooden box with his boot. "From the Canada shipment? Fits perfectly."
Olki said nothing, rubbing his stubble slowly.
Volker knelt and pulled a brass pocket watch from the corpse's inner pocket. He popped it open, revealing a yellowed photo of a little girl, its edges blurred from handling.
"Let him go back," Volker said. He tossed the watch at the sole survivor's feet. "Tell your boss—East Coast only does business." His leather shoes pressed into the bloodied ground. "No protection fees. No exceptions."
Back in the morning warehouse, Shane's footsteps echoed on the concrete. He removed his hat, dew condensing on the brim and dampening his slightly curly hair. "Quite lively last night?"
Volker's lips curved. "A few rat tricks. The goods cleared customs. Everything's normal."
Shane tapped a crack in the floor. "Next time, use bleach. We are licensed, legitimate businessmen, gentlemen."
Later, Vik slammed the table, coffee sloshing. "Look at this! German Zeiss lenses taxed at 45% as precision optics—they should be 15% as medical auxiliary devices!"
Mikhail nearly toppled his chair. "It's Eric from customs. That bastard's mocking us again."
Volker smiled for the first time in weeks. He took the crumpled document. "Resubmit tomorrow. Adjust stevedore shifts for customs' lunch break."
Sunlight streamed through the blinds, illuminating the Customs Tariff Manual. Their handwriting had become neat, precise. From guns to ledgers, the three brothers had learned to outwit officials.
Shane reviewed the reorganized files and nodded. "Better than I expected."
Volker straightened. "We still have much to learn, but we've found our way."
"Customs is handled," Mikhail added. "Port management no longer interferes."
Vik grinned. "Those troublemakers steer clear when they see our flag."
Shane closed the file. "Remember, legitimate business doesn't mean naïveté. The dock always has currents beneath the surface. You've done well."
The trials of the past weeks had stripped recklessness from their eyes, replacing it with composure. East Coast United Freight and Storage Company had firmly anchored itself at the port.