“What about the girls in the warehouse?” Q asked.
“I have a theory about that, too,” I said, sending a text to Deek and Anita.
ON IT said Deek.
WILL TRY said Anita, but I knew her “try” was better than most people’s “do.”
The rest of the team started coming down for breakfast. Luckily for them Amber and I were the only ones with a room downstairs so they didn’t have to listen to last night’s festivities. Bobby piled on enough breakfast for five people and joined us.
“What’s on the agenda for today?” he asked, digging into a small mountain of scrambled eggs.
“Travel,” I said. “You guys are going home.”
He frowned at that. “Job’s not done,” he pointed out.
“We can handle the rest of it.”
“Job’s...not...done,” he said, spacing the words out like he might talking to a child. “We’ll go home, when you go home.”
Dugger joined us at the table.
“I guess we could use the van tonight,” I said, figuring it was pointless arguing with Bobby and I sure as shit wasn’t going to drag him off the job.
“When the job’s done I’m not going back to the shop anyway,” Bobby informed us. “Teddy gave us all a month off, so I’m going fishing. Might even take this little shithead with me,” he said, giving Dugger a pop on the shoulder, not quite knocking him off his chair.
“Okay, but you guys are strictly background on this one,” I insisted.
“Whatever you need, boss man,” he said.
Amber made her way downstairs in khaki slacks and a green safari shirt. I forgot that in your 20’s you can stay up all night and still look good.
“Good morning,” she said brightly.
Q and I looked at each other. Amber talking in the morning was not something we were used to hearing.
“Did she smile?” Q asked.
“I think so,” I said guardedly.
“I can hear you,” she informed us from the buffet.
“That was definitely a smile,” Bobby agreed. “So what puts you in such a good mood this morning? Like I couldn’t guess,” he said winking at me.
“I feel like I got exceptionally good value for my man-whore dollar last night,” she said joining us at the table. “I always feel good when I spend money wisely.”
“I find her logic difficult to assail,” Bobby said, going back to his eggs.
I showed him the roll of bills.
“Shit, I should raise my prices,” he snuffed. “I would have done it for half that.”
“Oh, really?” V said from behind him. “So how much we talking about here?”
“Goddammit, quit sneaking up on me like that,’ he grumbled.
“Ha! You’re getting old,” she teased.
“That’s why I had to lower my prices,” Bobby joked as V headed for the buffet.
We spent the morning planning that night’s activities with the recent satellite shots showing clearly that we had no target yet.
“It’ll be there,” I assured them.
Anita joined us around lunchtime with a stack of folders.
“Did you get it?” I asked her.
“Most of it,” she confirmed.
“What did you think?”
“Interesting.”
I had Q and Amber join us in the conference room while V and Bobby went up to the roof so V could try out the Val.
“It was just like you thought,” Anita said to open things up.
“What’s going on?” Amber asked.
“The toxicology report from the girls at the warehouse,” I said, sliding the paper over to her.
“You’ll notice those are all--”
“Sedatives,” she said, looking over the list. “No trace of narcotics in their system?”
“None of them,” Anita confirmed.
“What about the chains and the bucket?” she asked.
“Think about what was going on,” I began. “Sergei was out of town for a week and the idiots we took down at the warehouse were left on their own. They have a load of girls off the boat who were promised work. No work, no food, no training, and the warehouse toilets aren’t designed to handle that kind of load and it backs up. The girls start to get restless, maybe threaten to leave and start talking to the cops. So the idiots got stupid and tranqed them and the cuffs were to keep them from running to the cops before Sergei got back and straightened shit out. Think about it. You handled the girls at the club. Did you see any needle tracks? Did any of them act like they were being rescued?”
“What about the bruises?”
“Did the dude at the warehouse look like he had any medical training?”
“The plumbing truck showed up the next day while we were inventorying the warehouse,” Anita said, passing me another set of photocopies.
I looked them over and passed them to Amber.
“What are these?”
“Journals.”
“He was paying them?”
“Just like the idiot said,” I pointed out. “Even when they were starting out Sergei would pay them 60% of what they brought in. That’s why that guy at the warehouse had no idea what you were talking about.”
“The threats?”
“He thought we were a rival gang,” I guessed. “You were dressed like one of the girls. Maybe he thought you were trying to cut yourself in.”
“They weren’t being held against their will?”
Anita shook her head. “As soon as they woke up half of them wanted to go back.”
“There was blood on the bat,” she pointed out. Anita passed over another lab report. I slid it over to Amber without looking at it.
“Rattus norvegicus,” Amber read.
“Rat blood,” I translated. “Brown rat.”
“Shit,” Amber said, flipping through the reports.
“Look, Sergei is still a dirtbag pimp, but he wasn’t drugging any of his girls. By all accounts they were pretty well paid. You can’t run a service for high end clients with druggies, you should know that.”
“I almost killed that guy,” she said, the situation starting to sink in.
“That’s why we don’t beat prisoners and we don’t get involved in that shit,” I pointed out. “Looks can be deceiving.”
“It made good TV, though,” Q pointed out.
“That it did,” I agreed. “You looked great, by the way,” I said to Anita.
“I’m pretty popular at work today,” she smiled. “Even though it’s bullshit.”
“It’s quality bullshit,” I corrected. “Never underestimate the value. As far as the world knows you and Nick broke up a white slavery ring.”
“Fuck me,” Amber swore, the reality finally overwhelming her. “I’m stupid.”
“That’s why I didn’t want to have this conversation in front of the rest of the team,” I said gently.
“Fu-u-ck,” she said, sinking back in her chair.
This was the tough part of our working relationship; getting her head around the job without undermining her confidence. What made Amber useful was that wild, freewheeling style and her fearlessness. Amber with a crushed spirit would end up being an exec at one of our corporations, not a key player in ops.
“You’re just finding out the job is harder than you thought,” I said to her.
“We’ve all been there,” Q added.
“What do I do?” she asked. I really didn’t like the humble Amber and really hoped she bounced back.
“Your job,” I said. “Do your job. Be part of the team. Stay focused on the mission.” In her current mindset I might as well have talking about puppies and kitties. Her brain was busy processing the fact she almost murdered a prisoner who was just trying to do his job in an uncertain situation.
“We have some business to discuss with Anita,” I said.
“Okay,” she said and pushed through the door without looking back.
“Will she be okay?” Anita asked.
&nb
sp; “I hope so,” I said heavily. “That was as much for your benefit as hers.”
“I got that,” Anita said directly.
“It’ll be less of a transition for you,” I pointed out.
“I have my own shit to deal with,” she admitted. “Just like everyone else.”
“Speaking of shit to deal with…” Q handed me her money bundle and I set it on the table. “This is your share of the club recovery.”
“How much is in there?”
“Around thirty thousand,” Q answered.
“Oh, my,” she said. “I’m a little uncomfortable taking that.”
“Everybody gets a share,” I explained. “But if you don’t want it…”
She put her hand on the bundle. “I said ‘uncomfortable’ not ‘unwilling’,” she pointed out.
I’d seen the conflict before. If you hand people a bankbook with numbers it’s just electronic blips in a bank somewhere, totally abstract. But hand them a wad of cash and it kicks off all kinds of emotional responses.
After a minute she slid the package over to her side of the table and put it in her bag. “The service is offering me my old job back,” she informed us.
“I did mention that was a possibility,” I reminded her.
“My lease is up the end of next month,” she informed us. “I’m not renewing it.”
“Excellent,” Q said.
“Be sure and tell Deek,” I suggested. “You’ll be gone the first few months anyway, just pack a bag and the logistics people will come and get your stuff. We’ll be gone so we won’t see you before you leave, but you can always text either one of us.”
“When will I see you again?”
“A year,” I said. “Maybe two.”
“Two years?”
“Well, I hope it’s not that long,” I said as warmly as I could manage. “Once you start getting our infrastructure down south set up, we’ll send people down to start getting the hang of working down there. Q and I might even come down.”
“I could go for that,” he agreed.
“Seems like a long time,” she mulled.
“All this,” I said gesturing around the warehouse, “we built up over a span of years. You’ll be starting from ground zero.”
“We can hook you up with a couple of V’s orphans, but you’ll basically be on your own.”
“V’s what?”
“She’ll explain it to you. Some local kids she works with.”
“Deek can help a lot,” Q informed her.
“We’ve learned a few things but we’ll need help translating that to the local environment.”
“I’m nervous,” she admitted. I really liked Anita’s honesty. She wasn’t afraid to admit when she was out of her depth.
‘You’ll be fine,” I assured her.
“We have that one loose end to tie up here,” she reminded me.
“Tomorrow,” I suggested. “The escort service,” I explained for Q.
“Oh, right.”
“This is going to get back to Rafe, right?” she asked.
“Yup,” I assured her. “The next couple days and then we’re outta here.”
“Just like that.”
“We’re not big on hanging around for the group hug,” I explained. “Do the job, move on.”
She sighed audibly. “I’m going to grab a beer before I go.”
“By all means,” I said, somewhat surprised at that.
Q waited until she closed the door behind her. “That was odd.”
“She wants to talk to Amber. She feels bad about what happened at the warehouse.”
“Interesting.”
“Something in her personnel file that Deek found.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” he added quickly.
“Good, because I wasn’t going to,” I confessed. “It’s in the past.”
“A past that Deek is going to wipe out,” he pointed out.
“He’ll never wipe that one out,” I countered. “He may erase it from her digital life but she’ll carry it around as long as she lives.”
“Now you made me curious,” Q complained. “I was all set to leave it alone.”
“Let her tell you,” I suggested. “She may want to talk about it sometime.”
“I like the beer idea,” Q observed.
“It’s lunchtime somewhere,” I agreed.
Chapter 27
As I expected, Amber and Anita were off in deep conversation and they both had beers. After several minutes Anita gave Amber a hug and headed out. Amber went to our room. When she came back she was a little more her old self.
“Don’t you want to know what we talked about?” she asked.
“That’s entirely between you and her,” I replied. “She likes you, though. I think you two will get along great.”
“So do I,” she agreed.
If only Amber and V could get along as well but V just wasn’t going to budge and that collision was still coming.
Right then Bobby and V came pounding down the stairs from the roof.
“I love this gun!” V announced, holding the Val up. “I’m keeping it. Unless someone here thinks they’re man enough to take it from me.”
“I’ll take that bet,” Bobby roared and chased V back up the stairs toward the offices.
“Oh, my god,” Amber began, “they’re going to have sex.”
“Looks like it,” I confirmed. That’s the problem with being the boss, you couldn’t discourage people from doing the things you yourself were doing.
“Yeah but with a gun?” Amber marveled.
“V knows what she’s doing,” I said. “With the gun anyway.”
“I’m not touching that thing,” Amber insisted. “Ever.”
“That’s probably wise,” I agreed. “I don’t think V’s going to part with it anyway.”
We spent the rest of the day going over the plan and I sent texts to Deek and Fred about gear we’d need. We all caught some rack time, except for Bobby and V. Shortly after sundown Deek advised us that our target had arrived.
“Won’t there be people on board?” Amber asked, still groggy from her nap.
“They’ve been out to sea for a week,” I pointed out. “The crew is anxious to go home. They’ll save the maintenance work until tomorrow. Two, three people tops. If we get lucky, just the night watch. Pierson doesn’t have any reason for security paranoia.”
“At least not yet,” Mateo pointed out.
We scouted locations for the van and truck. V would have a direct line of fire from some industrial warehouses to the east and we could boost her up there with the van bucket like before. The gear arrived a short time later in three big boxes, Deek had it delivered by an armored car.
Two of the boxes contained nitrox open-system rebreathers. Q set them up on a table and Amber started checking the gas levels and other systems. It was interesting to watch her fly through the checks and adjustments. Q hadn’t worn a rebreather in a while and she had to help him check his. In the other box were wetsuits, fins, gloves, hoods and boots. Also inside was a long, flat metal box that contained four self-stick demolition charges and a wireless detonator. In another long, flat box was a short tranq rifle and four stubby projectiles that worked using compressed air to spray the tranquilizer into the target. It would work through any type of clothing and reduced the need for a long, penetrating needle that could damage a vital organ.
Q and Amber went to their rooms to change into their wetsuits and it was entirely obvious that Deek still wasn’t entirely over making Amber’s clothes a little too tight. The wetsuit left painfully little to the imagination.
“I don’t think I’d look quite that good in one,” Bobby remarked.
“Me, either,” I agreed.
Tonight would be one of the more physically demanding challenges anyone on the team had to face in quite a while. I was certain about Q but Amber hadn’t been through anything this arduous since training. Jesse drove the panel truck with Q and Amber, the rest
of us went in the van. The warehouses were largely abandoned and Bobby snipped the lock with bolt cutters, careful to replace the chain and the remains of the lock so it still looked secure. We ran the bucket up to deposit V on the roof and she had to lay flat and make a careful passage of the roof which had rotted spots.
The Blue Tango Salvage: Book 2 in the Recovery and Marine Salvage, Inc. Series Page 30
