11. Tyler
After the guide boat pulled away, Indiana drove Rhino in front of a large decrepit vessel that was tethered to the old wharf and nudged our side to the weathered timber. I helped Old Smithy tie ropes as thick as my wrist around rusty bollards, securing us to the shore. Indiana turned off the engines, and the old boat shuddered beneath my feet.
Indiana exited the bridge and strolled toward me, scooping her long ponytail over her shoulder. She stood three feet away, with her hands on her hips and one boot up on a metal pipe.
Damn, she’s hot.
“Righty ho,” she said. “It’s been nice knowing ya, Kingsley. Now get off my boat.”
Mischief twinkled in her eye.
Heat rushed through my veins, and I hated that my damn body was reacting to her like this. “You can’t get rid of me that easily, Indiana. I still owe you a drink, remember?”
She waved her hand. “Forget it. You’re going to have your hands full with that mess.”
She nodded toward the bright lights where Chui’s yacht was being slowly transported along the wharf.
“Don’t you want to check out the wreck for yourself?” I asked, partially because I was surprised that she wasn’t interested, but also because I didn’t want her to leave. That surprised the hell out of me. Maybe my blue balls were messing with my mind.
Old Smithy strolled toward us, scratching the gray hairs on his chest. Considering the amount of alcohol I’d seen him drink, I was surprised he wasn’t passed out on the leather sofa again.
“Hell no. We just want to get out of here. Right, Dad?” Indiana lowered her leg and hooked her thumb into the side of her denim shorts.
“Yep. This place gives me the creeps.” He made a noise in his throat that seemed painful.
I offered to shake his hand. “It’s been nice meeting you, Mr. Smith.”
He scowled and squeezed my hand way too hard. “Watch your back out there, Kingsley. There’s some fucked up shit going on in this place.”
He nodded toward the rows of decrepit warehouses lined up along the wharf.
I followed his gaze. The old wharf had been abandoned about thirty years ago when the new wharf was built, and the twenty or so warehouses that had once been bustling with life were now dark and silent. It felt like a graveyard of broken dreams. I shivered as the weight of the darkness that hung over the place seemed to seep into my bones.
A lot of rotten stories had centered around this wharf. I hoped like hell that bringing Chui’s yacht here wouldn’t add to those nightmares.
Old Smithy grumbled about something and made his way back to the hut, probably to pass out for the night. Or maybe to drink some more. The man seemed as robust as an ox.
I turned to Indiana, and her expression softened.
“Dad’s right, Kingsley. Watch your back.”
I had the wife of one of Australia’s most notorious crime lords after me, so Indiana had no idea how true those words were.
I shrugged, trying to play it cool. “Always.”
She smiled, and genuine warmth crossed her face. “Well, when you want to make good on that offer of a drink, the Border Force guys always seem to know how to find me.” She turned to head away but called over her shoulder, “And don’t forget your fucking coffee machine. It’s ruining Rhino’s fung shway.”
I burst out laughing, certain she’d pronounced Feng Shui wrong on purpose.
And that just made sexy Captain Bossy Boots even more interesting.
A strange mix of regret and relief swirled through me as I fetched my things from Old Smithy’s cabin. He was fast asleep on the leather sofa when I returned to the hut, and as I packed my coffee machine into my duffle bag, Indiana made herself scarce.
Just before I stepped off Rhino onto the wharf, I paused to see if she was watching me.
She wasn’t. I hated how much that disappointed me.
Get your shit together, Kingsley. You have work to do.
The scent of salt and decay swirled around me as I strode along the gauntlet between the large decrepit boat tied to the wharf on my right and the creaking old warehouses on my left. In the distance, two cop cars were positioned across the wharf entrance, blocking unauthorized access. Their strobing blue lights flared over the crumbling buildings.
Following the line of watermarks made by the yacht’s transportation, I stepped into the old warehouse, and my breath hitched. The empty expanse echoed similar vibes to the place where the final showdown in my undercover operation went disastrously wrong.
I tried to shrug off the ill-timed memory, but the walls seemed to groan as if dishing a warning.
I strode toward the group of people standing back from the yacht as two men in Hi-Viz jackets removed it from the towing vehicle. Among the group stood Aria, Captain Watts, Officer Lacey, and Ryder, Whisper, and Jeff from Border Force.
The warehouse’s vast interior was shrouded in shadows, and cobwebs draped from the rafters like tattered windchimes. But the walls were solid, and other than the two giant front doors the yacht had been driven through, the only other exit was a single door at the back. A row of broken window louvers sat high up near the roof, and the wind whistled through them like trouble ghosts.
I had enough experience with them to know.
At least the yacht was now hidden from helicopters and with the minimal access points, we could stop other bastards from getting in here.
The yacht, still cradled on the giant boat carrier slings, dominated the center of the massive concrete expanse. Powerful floodlights beamed onto the dripping wreck.
“Hey, guys,” I said as I approached.
Aria, Watts, and Ryder all turned to me.
Watts nodded. “Well done, getting this here.”
“Thanks, but I barely did anything. Indiana and her dad should take all the credit.”
Ryder shook my hand. “Welcome back.”
“Thanks.” His grip was firm, but nothing like Old Smithy’s had been.
“Where are they?” Aria asked.
“Indiana didn’t want to hang around.”
Ryder huffed. “That sounds like her.”
Whisper winked at me. “She give you a hard time?”
“Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
“Yeah, she acts tough,” Whisper said, “but really, she’s like a pit bull, all tough on the outside, but she’s a big softy when you get to know her.”
Jeff simply nodded; his expression unreadable.
Two men who had been working on the connection between the tractor and the boat trailer stepped back, and the tractor rolled forward, free from the yacht.
As Ryder strode to the men, two figures marched through the entrance. Maya led the way with another man I didn’t know beside her. Maya seemed to bound across the concrete, and the man with her had a weird gait, too. It was only as he got closer that I realized he had a prosthetic leg.
That must be Cole Tanner.
I’d heard his leg was amputated nearly a year after he’d suffered a brutal bullet wound while on a military mission with Aria.
“Hey, Tyler,” Maya said as she approached. “I’m so glad you didn’t run into any trouble. With Levi busy at the hospital, we would have been no help.”
“Has Billie had the baby yet?” I asked.
Maya and Aria looked at each other, shaking their heads.
“Don’t worry, he’ll call us.” Maya playfully punched her own hand. “He better. Or he’ll be hearing from me.”
The tractor finally drove out of the warehouse with the additional two men riding on the sides. As silence settled over the old building, Ryder returned to us.
Aria smacked her hands together. “Now that we’re all here, I want to get this going ASAP. You all know each other, right?”
I shook my head and offered my hand to the man with the prosthetic leg. “I’m Tyler Kingsley.”
He met my grip. “Cole Tanner. I’m with Aria.”
“We call him Cobra.” Maya smacked the back of her hand to his chest. “And it’s not because of the size of his you-know-what.”
“Maya.” Cobra rolled his eyes, but the corner of his mouth lifted in a half-smile.
Everyone but Ryder and Watts laughed. It was a good icebreaker.
I chuckled. “Thanks for letting me know.”
“Cobra’s my cyber expert,” Aria said. “If we find any computer equipment on this heap, Cobra’s the man to crack it.”
He raised his hands. “Hang on. That depends on what state it’s in. There’s not much chance anything survived being underwater all this time.”
He swept a pack off his back and unzipped it.
“Well, whatever is on there, somebody tried to kill us to get to it,” Whisper said.
“Precisely,” Aria said. “So, if they think there’s a possibility that it’s still viable, then we need to hope it is, too.”
Cobra pulled flashlights out of his pack, and as he handed them out, we all checked they worked.
“What exactly are we looking for?” Lacey tucked her short blonde hair behind her ear, and the tiny gold moon-shaped stud in her ear twinkled in the stark lights.
“No idea,” Aria said. “We know of two secret compartments that Chui had built into this yacht, so there may be more. I want every inch of that thing searched.”
She nodded toward the yacht which was still dripping onto the bare concrete. “Captain Watts and Ryder have brought a pile of equipment with them.” Aria nodded at Ryder to elaborate.
He pointed at a couple of crates a few feet away. “Yes, help yourself to anything in there. I tried to think of everything, but it was such short notice.”
“Should have brought Viper’s C4?” Maya joked.
“Hell no. Viper already did enough damage,” Aria said. “So, we have nine of us here. Blade and Viper are coming later. But for now, we’ll break into teams of three.”
She pointed at me. “Kingsley, you’re with Whisper and Maya. Watts, you have Cobra and Jeff, and that leaves Lacey and Ryder with me.”
Knowing how brilliant Aria was, I’m sure it was a tactical move that each threesome had a person from the Police, Border Force, and Alpha Tactical Ops.
“Let’s get to work,” Aria said, clapping her hands. “Time is not our ally.”
As we all marched toward the tools, Aria said, “Kingsley, your team can start searching in Chui’s stateroom at the rear.”
I grabbed an ax from the selection of tools.
“Watts, your team is on Chui’s office, situated on the second level in the middle of the yacht. The rest of us will search the bridge.”
“Hasn’t this yacht already been searched a few times?” Lacey asked.
“Yes, by several insurance assessors, and a few crime scene investigators, and by Jeff, Whisper, and I,” Aria said. “But those searches were all done while the yacht was submerged, so we could have missed something.”
“We have no idea what we’re searching for, so it could be as small as a USB,” Aria said. “One of the secret rooms was so well concealed, I missed it last time I was in there. So, check every wall, cupboard, under carpet. Rip the place apart.”
“Sounds like fun,” Whisper said, waving a ball-peen hammer.
After selecting our chosen ‘weapons’, we took turns climbing the ladders that the transportation crew had rolled into position against the sides of the yacht. Pungent scents of salt and decay assaulted my nostrils as I stepped aboard the algae-covered deck.
“Maya, you show everyone around down there,” Aria said. “My guys, follow me.”
She indicated for her team to follow her up a set of curved stairs.
The remaining six of us followed Maya in a line along the main passage with wood paneled walls that were bloated with moisture and covered in slime from months beneath the waves.
With the beams of our flashlights leading the way, we crossed a large entertainment area with decaying remnants of luxury that had been ravaged by the harsh ocean.
Cobra whistled. “It doesn’t look anything like it did last time I was here.”
“It looks better if you ask me.” Maya giggled.
The water had been an indiscriminate destroyer, leaving behind only fragments of the lavish life Chui had led aboard his floating palace. Soggy velvet cushions, discolored wall hangings, and fixtures dangled precariously from their mounts.
We entered another passage.
“Captain Watts,” Maya said, “this is Chui’s office. All yours.”
“Thanks.” Watts strode into the room, and Cobra and Jeff followed.
“And you guys follow me.” Maya led Whisper and me farther along the passageway.
As we passed each room, I shone my light inside. Each cabin looked more disheveled than the previous one. Mattresses were sliced open, wallpaper stripped, and drawers yanked out. My gut told me the destruction was created by more than just nature. Someone had searched for something while the yacht was submerged.
Maya turned into a massive stateroom, and the grandeur of the bedroom was evident despite the layers of grime and mold that covered everything. A massive bed dominated one side of the room, and the mattress had been torn apart. What was left of it and the sodden linen was green with algae.
“Jesus,” Whisper said. “Viper’s explosion looks much worse this time.”
I blinked at her. “When were you on this boat?”
“Aria and I scuba dived down to this yacht a few months ago.”
Maya clicked her fingers. “That’s right. And you were there when Aria nearly died, right?”
Whisper released a nervous chuckle. “Yeah. She scared the crap out of me. I thought for sure she was dead.”
“She got lucky, that’s for sure,” Maya said.
I followed her around the massive bed, stepping over a pile of chalky residue that I assumed was once part of the ceiling that was clumped around the floor. It was so widespread I wondered if it had fallen in the explosion.
“When I was with Aria on her second dive down here, that’s when we found the second secret room. Someone had beaten us down here, and they had blasted their way into another section. I’ll show you.” Whisper took the lead, shining her flashlight ahead of her.
Wet carpet squelched beneath our shoes as we passed through what had once been Chui’s massive walk-in closet. Viper’s detonation had demolished a large section of one wall, and the center set of drawers had a massive chunk taken out of it. On the opposite wall, the shelving sagged so much it was a wonder it remained connected to the sides, and I was surprised to see so many clothes still attached to hangers.
The clothes that were dislodged in the explosion or the yacht’s collision with the bottom of the ocean were reduced to mushy piles on the sodden carpet. A black leather boot was on its side, and a curved chunk was missing at the ankle.
Is that a shark bite?
Unlucky fish had been caught in pockets of the wardrobe and some of the fabric when the yacht was salvaged, adding to the other pungent odors in the room.
“Poor little things.” Whisper nudged a large dead eel with her toe. “It had no way to get out.”
I shone my light on the giant blast zone in the floor. “Except for that.”
“Well, it probably got disorientated.” She snarled at me.
In the center of the wardrobe was what was left of a set of drawers, and the shattered glass that may have been on top of the cabinet sparkled like treacherous diamonds on the floor.
“This is where they cut the wall to get Chui’s body out.” Whisper used her flashlight to show us a large rectangle that had been carved into the wall, and we followed her into the secret room.
Three computer monitors lay on the floor, covered in the same chalk-like residue that I assumed were the remains of the ceiling that had dislodged and fallen down. Along one wall, a custom-built desk had seven monitors still attached to the wall above it. All were covered in slime, and three were cracked.
“I assume that desk has been thoroughly searched?” I shone my light on the open drawers that had miraculously remained intact.
“Yes,” Maya said. “Apparently, Aria found some USBs in there, but they were all useless. She also found a journal, but the ink was ruined, and the pages had turned to mush by the time anyone examined it.”
“Here’s where someone exploded their way into another room.” Whisper shone her light on a large, jagged hole in the back wall. “Aria hadn’t seen this room the first time she searched the wreck.”
Ducking my head, I followed Whisper and Aria through the hole to the next secret room.
Maya shook her head. “If anything had been in here, it was stolen.”
A set of timber shelves was still attached to the wall, but there was nothing else to indicate what had been displayed on them. The wall behind the shelves was swollen and warped, and the marine ply had some delamination and patches of green mold and algae over it. I rapped my knuckles on the wall, and it sounded hollow.
“Let’s start in here,” I said. “We’ll do a quick search first, then if we don’t find anything, we start again, doing a more thorough search. You two start on that wall. I’ll do this one.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Whisper raised the hammer and pounded the wall so hard, the heavy ball on the end went right through the wall. “Whoops.”
We attacked the walls like reckless bank robbers. Splinters flew as my blade destroyed the shelving in a matter of minutes. Behind me, Maya and Whisper’s rhythmic thuds were like choreographed drumming.
“It’s like looking for treasure.” Whisper’s eyes lit up.
“Or a skeleton in Chui’s closet.” Maya’s laughter echoed in the hollow room.
Between Whisper and Maya’s aggressive hammering and my ax chopping, our quick search revealed nothing. We moved back into the first secret room.
“This is where Chui’s body was found.” Whisper aimed her light beam on a stain high up the wall. “That’s his blood. He had a bullet wound in his hip. Apparently, it was self-inflicted.”
My jaw dropped. “He tried to kill himself?”
“Nope.” Maya’s face lit up in a brilliant smile. “According to the forensics, they believe he tried to shoot the lock off the door, but it ricocheted back and hit his hip.”
“Huh. From what I’ve heard about him, he deserved to die in pain,” I said.
“You’ve got that right. Drowning would be a truly rotten way to die.” Maya’s magnificent smile lit up her eyes, and I was fascinated by how blue they were.
“Hopefully, his final moments were pure hell.” Whisper’s eyes were as black as molasses, dramatically different from Maya’s.
After our quick, yet destructive scan of the four walls in the second secret room, we moved back to the wardrobe area as we swept our flashlights across the water ravaged remnants.
“You guys start on that wall.” I aimed my light at the hanging wardrobe. “I’ll work on these.”
I tapped my ax handle on the broken glass on top of the centered set of drawers.
As I attacked the sides of the drawers with my ax, Maya and Whisper took turns removing the soggy suit coats from the hangers and fishing through the pockets.
“Why does anyone need so many suits?” Whisper asked as she dumped an electric blue suitcoat on the floor and reached for another.
“He probably never wore half of them,” I said, recalling the one time I secretly searched Albert Bolton’s wardrobe. He had enough suits to stock a men’s clothing store, yet I’d never seen him wear anything other than a plain white business shirt with expensive cufflinks that he changed every day. If he hadn’t died in that warehouse shootout at the end of my mission, he would have hated the orange suit he would have been forced to wear in prison. I hated that he died a quick death. That man was evil, and he should have suffered ten lifetimes in maximum security.
“The rich bastard had no taste.” Maya scowled at a grey suit coat with red trim and cast it aside.
The wardrobe was bigger than the trailer home I lived in and my minimal, yet stylish, collection of clothing was housed in a cupboard that was smaller than Chui’s shoe rack. After being forced to wear clothes to suit my undercover job, I vowed to myself that when I did buy clothes, they would be something I truly wanted. It was a great plan, except I didn’t have much time for shopping, and I rarely found clothes worthy of buying.
As I drove my ax into the slab of timber on the side of the drawers, my thoughts slammed to Nikki Bolton. She’d had a massive wardrobe like this, and she was constantly shopping for more clothes or shoes or handbags. She could buy anything she wanted, yet none of them made her happy. She’d told me once that all she wanted was a quiet holiday on the beach where she could read a book and soak up the sunshine, and everyone would leave her alone.
I wondered if that’s where she was now, on a secluded tropical island, enjoying the quiet life that she longed for. Or was she honing her target practice, ready for our next encounter?
Clamping my jaw, I drove my ax into the giant slab of timber on the side of the drawers, and a massive chunk peeled away. I gripped the piece, and as I pulled it, my jaw dropped. “Hey, check this out.”
Behind the drawers was a secret compartment.
Whisper and Maya flanked me as I drove my hand into the rectangular gap.
“What’s in there?” Whisper asked.
I shook my head. “I can’t feel anything. Help me pull this apart.”
Chunks of timber flew everywhere as we attacked the center console with our tools, pulling away bits and tossing them away.
When all the drawers were removed, a mechanical system was exposed at the back.
“It’s one of those fancy concealed compartments,” I said. “There must have been some kind of trigger that raised this section to the top.”
Albert Bolton had a secret compartment like this in his massive office desk. Inside his, he’d concealed a Sig Sauer P365 handgun. I’d seen him surprise a man with that weapon once. The man Albert murdered had no idea the gun had magically appeared in Albert’s hand until the split second it was aimed in his face before Bolton pulled the trigger.
That was the first time I saw Bolton murder someone, and I had somehow kept my cool despite my fear of being killed next. After I’d helped Bolton’s psycho brother remove all evidence of that ruthless murder, I had gone to my room over their massive car garage and vomited so hard I cracked a rib.
“This has to be it.” Whisper grinned as she bashed a rusty steel bracket away with her hammer.
The metal twanged as it buckled, and the timber sheet it was attached to splintered in two. Working together, we grabbed the pine sheet, and as we pulled it away, a lunch box-sized, ruggedized case thudded to the floor.
I reached for it.
“Don’t touch it,” Maya said.
I jerked back.
Maya shook her head. “Knowing that bastard Chui, it could be booby-trapped.”
We all leaned over the box. It was made of toughened black plastic, yet the front corner near one of the two locks had buckled inward. These toughened Pelican cases were designed to withstand impact, so I assumed it was mangled in the explosion. A hole the size of a die had punched through the top. I shone my torch into the jagged gap, and it reflected off what looked like a screen.
“It could be a computer.”
“I’ll get the others.” Whisper sprinted for the door. “Hey! We found something,” she yelled as she raced up the hallway.
“If it was booby-trapped, don’t you think it would have detonated in the explosion?” I asked.
Maya scrunched her nose. “You never know.”
I nudged the case with my shoe, moving it away from the drawer debris. Cobra bounded into the room first, followed closely by Watts and Jeff.
“What’ve you got?” Captain Watts asked.
I pointed at the box. “A tough case. We found it inside a concealed compartment in the set of drawers that were here.”
Aria ran into the room.
“That must be what they were looking for,” Lacey said.
Jeff smacked his hands together. “So open it up. What’re you waiting for?”
“I thought we should check if it was rigged first,” Maya said.
“I think if it was, it would have gone off by now,” Aria said. Leaning over the box, she shone her light into the hole. “Let’s get it out of here first.”
She reached for the case.
“Let me take it,” I said. “Just in case.”
When everyone stepped back, a sense of unease washed through me, yet this was hardly a blip compared to the lethal situations I’d been in before.
Carrying the case, I led the teams through the yacht to the ladders at the front. Hooking my arm around the case, I climbed down, and I was like the Pied Piper leading everyone across the bare concrete to the tools.
Ryder and Watts opened a folding table.
I put the case down and stepped back. “What now?”
Whisper stepped forward. “If it was gonna blow up, it would have done it already.”
She flipped open the clips on the case.
I held my breath.
“See,” Whisper said, backing away.
We all leaned in.
Inside the soggy padding was a tiny, ruggedized computer that looked like an oversized cell phone. The screen was shattered, and all the keys on the right-hand side had been blown off. The toggle at the top of those dislodged keys was missing the knob from the end.
“What is it?” Lacey asked nobody in particular.
“What do you think, Cobra? Think you can figure out what’s on that thing?” Aria asked.
“I’ll give it a red-hot crack.” He fished into his backpack and pulled out another computer and a pile of cables.
Aria clapped his back. “Good. You do that. The rest of us will?—”
“I hope you guys are hungry,” a woman’s voice called behind us.
I turned toward the entrance. Blade walked toward us carrying what looked like a very heavy icebox, and beside him was a gorgeous-looking woman with wavy dark hair who was carrying a large tray. Striding in behind them was Viper. Every time I saw that man, his shoulders seemed to get bigger.
“Yes!” Maya cheered. “I’m starving.”
“Hey, Zena, your timing is perfect,” Aria said.
“Did you find something?” Blade asked as he put the ice box down.
Aria indicated to the damaged computer. “Seems so.”
Cobra had already connected the two computers together with a cable, and I was shocked to see the one we’d found had a green indicator light on.
“What’s on it?” Viper hovered next to Cobra’s shoulder.
“I don’t know yet.” Cobra scowled up at him. “Give me some room.”
“Where did you find it?” Blade asked.
As I filled them in on our discovery of the secret compartments, Zena peeled back aluminum foil from her tray, releasing delicious aromas. My stomach growled.
“I made you guys a pile of sliders,” Zena said as she handed her tray around. “Those are pulled pork and coleslaw, and there’s crumbed chicken with my own spicy mayo.”
“Yum.” I reached for a mini chicken burger. “I’m Tyler, by the way.”
She grinned at me. “I’m Zena, Blade’s fiancée. Nice to meet you.”
Blade handed out drinks from the ice box. As we ate the sliders, all of us watched Cobra.
The monitor on his computer filled with lines of green typing.
“Yes!” Cobra rubbed his hands together. “That’s promising.”
“What is it?” Viper barked.
Cobra glared at us over his shoulder. “Just give me a minute, will you? I’ve managed to find some data, but I have no idea what it is yet.”
“Maybe it will lead us to his money,” Captain Watts said.
“Or a list of his assets.” Aria’s eyes lit up, a hint of a smile on her face.
“Maybe we’ll find some info on Angelsong Orphanage,” I added.
Whisper clicked her fingers. “That’s right. I heard you guys went out there. Did you find anything?”
I swept my gaze to Aria and Captain Watts, wondering if they would reveal the details to these people.
Watts groaned. “Yeah. Unfortunately. The body count was at fourteen last time I checked.”
I gasped. “Fourteen!”
“Yeah. All juveniles. I have a rotten feeling there’s going to be more.”
A phone rang, and the four of us fished into our pockets.
“It’s Levi,” Maya squealed, showing us the screen on her phone. She swiped to answer and put the call on speaker. “Levi! We’re all here. Is your baby okay?”
“Yes,” Levi said, choking on his word. “We have a baby boy.”
Maya squealed so loud it was a wonder the other computer screen didn’t crack.
Everyone cheered.
“Is Billie okay?” Zena asked.
“Yes, she’s amazing,” Levi said. “You should see our boy. He’s beautiful. He has Billie’s eyes and my blond hair.”
“Do you have a name for him yet?” Aria asked.
There was a pause on the line.
“Hi, everyone.”
“Billie!” Maya cheered. “Congratulations. Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Just a bit tired.”
“Do you have a name for your bubby yet?” Maya asked again.
“Yes, our boy’s name is Jackson Silva Foster.”
Some of the guys turned to Blade, and I frowned.
“You named him after me?” Blade asked.
“Yes,” Billie said. “I would have died in Antarctica if it wasn’t for you and your team.”
“Aw, you should see Blade.” Maya clapped Blade on his back. “Nick Silva has gone all mushy.”
Zena curled her hand around Blade’s elbow and beamed up at him like a lovestruck teenager.
As Maya and Aria asked Billie more questions about the baby, I swept my gaze over these men and women. They were a close team, and I had the feeling that something very significant had bonded them.
I longed for that. Being an undercover cop for three years had strained most of the relationships I’d had with my colleagues prior to taking the job. Cutting off communication to go deep undercover also strained the friendship I had with my best buddy. He’d gone through some serious crap while I was AWOL, and I hadn’t been there for him.
These men and women would all be there for each other.
Hopefully, I could prove to these guys that I was someone they would want to keep around.
“Hey, guys?” Cobra clicked his fingers.
We all gathered around him.
“I think this was his Drug Inventory Management System or DIMS. Blood Angel had one of—” He cut himself off and glanced at Aria.
She gave the slightest of headshakes.
Cobra cleared his throat and pointed at the green writing on his computer. “This device combines hardware and software components to provide comprehensive tracking and management of drug assets.”
“Fuck yeah. Now we’re talking.” Viper smacked his hands together.
Cobra raised his hand. “Don’t get too excited. This DIMS has advanced encryption techniques and security protocols. It’s going to take some work to crack this one.”
Everyone’s shoulders sagged.
“I worked in the drug squad in Sydney for a few years before being transferred here,” Lacey said. “Maybe I can help decipher some of the info.”
Huh. Lacey looked way too young and innocent to be involved in heavy crime like that. Then again, that may be exactly why she was transferred to Rosebud. This town’s drug syndicate would rival the Sydney networks, for sure. Or maybe they worked together.
“That’s good to know,” Cobra said. “With a bit of luck, this thing will reveal many aspects of Chui’s transactions, such as tracking his drug assets, including purchases, sales, transfers, and deliveries. The transactions would be logged into this system, along with relevant details such as dates, times, quantities, and parties involved. This allowed Chui to monitor the flow of his drugs, plus any other activities he was involved in.”
“Like the people trafficking?” I asked.
“Yes, that shipping container would be on here for sure.”
“No wonder those bastards were willing to kill us to get hold of it,” Ryder said.
“Yeah, and now it’s in our hands.” Viper folded his arms, making his enormous biceps even bigger.
Oh, fuck!
“Then we’ve just painted massive targets on our backs,” I said.