Chapter 27
TWENTY-SEVEN
SNIPER
How did we not know?
We don’t bother to hide the fact that we’re walking back up to the cabin, but we do jam the cameras to buy us more time. The door is locked, but I just boot the door in, not bothering with subtle this time. When we walk inside, I immediately know someone has been here this morning. Most of the items are still there, but a few boxes have been moved closer to the kitchen pantry.
I already know that’s deliberate, and when I glance over at Bullet, I see that he’s of the same mind too. We don’t even glance at the other boxes as we start to move back to the corner that the guys saw Vlad’s man hide out in. “What do you think?” I ask Bullet as we stare at the space. “Behind the wall, under the furniture, or under the floor?”
“Who the fuck knows,” Bullet grumbles. “But if this is one of the cabins that Bull used, then who knows how he set this shit up.”
“It’s definitely old enough to possibly have been,” I agree as I move to the wall, tapping my knuckles along and listening for hollow sounds. But nothing echoes back to me. I hear Bullet moving behind me but I’m focused on the wall. Slowly, and with care, I run my hand over the wall, trying to feel any kind of bumps, or even just something that feels odd under my hand, but again, it’s smooth with nothing obvious.
Bullet grunts as I hear furniture scraping along the floor. “No fucking way that guy was moving this last night without someone noticing,” he declares once he’s moved the sofa completely. “This is one of those old ones with a pullout bed in it too, and the frame is metal, so if they were going to hide something under it, it’s not something they would want to access a lot.” But still, he gets down on one knee and inspects the floor, running his hands over it like I’m doing.
Eventually we give up, nothing showing up, before we move to the far corner of the room to inspect the floor and wall there. We spend a good amount of time trying to find anything, but nothing. Not even a nail or board is out of place. Which alone is odd. “This place has been renovated recently,” I tell Bullet after I look at the floor and walls again as it clicks into place. “This place is old, and they didn’t have the same technology that we have now to make sure things are straight and level. And these floors and walls, they are perfectly square.”
“If Dmitri was using it, it would make sense that he would want to make sure it was updated so that nothing could be given away. But he kept it looking like it’s the original cabin, and only a trained eye would realize it’s newer construction. The cabinets and other things still look original though, so maybe they put it all back up when they were done fixing shit,” Bullet muses. “King or Stone would know instantly.”
I nod in agreement. “The only other option we have right now is to start tearing it apart. But knowing Vlad, he wouldn’t want to chance someone getting access, so it’s possible that he also booby-trapped it.”
Bullet scowls but nods slowly, and I can see his mind turning. He glances around the room again until he finally looks back at me. “We don’t have a lot of time to waste, and this is our best shot at figuring it out. Stone or King weren’t going to the job site today, so I say we put the call out for them to come and give us a hand.”
I nod. “I’ll call them.”
It doesn’t take long before Stone and King arrive, both hard-faced, but clearly ready to get to work considering the tools they pull out of their saddlebags. “I thought about bringing Loki or Ebony to see if one of them spotted anything, but that would have meant bringing Syn, and if this place is booby-trapped, I don’t want her near here,” Stone tells us as he walks inside. “And she also said that if there are any kinds of drugs in here, he’ll be alerting everywhere, so that’s not going to help.”
“Maybe Syn is right that we should get our own dogs and have them trained,” King suggests lightly. “I mean, Mom’s already trying to convince everyone she needs one.”
“Your mother is not getting one of those damn things,” Bullet huffs. “She’d be having it chase my ass all over the fucking place, and I don’t have the time or patience for that at my age. Not to mention, her ass would be permanently bruised for all the punishments I’d be dolling out.”
Stone and King scowl at him, clearly disgusted, while I just grin. These boys really haven’t wised up to the fact that if their father can taunt them with their mother and his wild sexual flavors, he will at any opportunity.
“Where do we want to start?” Stone asks, changing the subject.
“Floor and walls are what we need to look at in this corner,” Bullet answers. “So we need to get to work before Vlad sends his men this way.”
Bullet moves with Stone to the wall, and I move with King to the corner where he gets to work on pulling up the trim and then starting to pry up the floorboards. I toss the boards aside, and none of us talk as we work. Nothing is showing up for most of it, until suddenly King stills when he pulls up the next board that’s about a quarter of the way into the room. I look over his shoulder and feel my stomach clench in anticipation when I see the hidden hinge on the board next to the one taken up.
“Got something,” I tell Stone and Bullet, who both stop and turn our way, clearly having not found anything themselves.
King moves to the board beside the one with the hinge, feeling along, carefully, checking the edges of each piece and tracing it. “Damn, they did a damn good job at hiding this,” King mutters to himself. Stone crouches down and starts doing the same thing farther out.
It takes another couple of minutes before Stone finally find the hidden latch. “Fucking hell, whoever they had working on this shit needs to come and work for us,” Stone declares as he carefully lifts a tiny little latch that is tucked between two of the floorboards that are barely farther apart than any of the others. It’s the only reason that Stone found it.
There is the softest of clicks as the door detaches from the floor. None of us say anything as I back away, bringing my gun out from the small of my back, ready just in case whatever is under this door is about to come at us. Bullet and King do the same, and Stone nods quickly before he throws the door open and sits back and away.
I stare down at the dark hole. It’s too dark to see, and King quickly pulls out a flashlight and shines it down. I see nothing but dirt floor, a few larger rocks that look pretty damn clean, and nothing else. But I also note that there are no stairs, which means whoever goes in has to be strong enough to climb back out, or there is a second way out.
“I’ll go first,” I say softly. “Stone, cover me.” Stone nods, getting up and pulling his own gun out. I grab the light from King, put it over the top of my gun, and then jump down into the hole, my entire body on alert. The moment my feet touch the ground, I’m moving to shine the light into every corner and crevice. I see boxes and crates, but thankfully no people. Stone drops down with me, doing the same as me, and both of us move forward, neither of us speaking as I check cautiously around the boxes and crates to make sure no one is hiding to ambush us.
Stone calls out to King and Bullet, and I manage to find a small light just to the side of the hole entrance. The bulb is low, casting shadows, but it’s enough for us to see that this is obviously an extra stash space. King drops down, Bullet staying up top as lookout. Though I’m also sure that his old ass doesn’t want to handle trying to get back out of here.
“Wanna bet that these are more drugs and guns?” King says as he moves to the closest box and rips it open. “Yep,” he announces as he holds up a couple of baggies of white powder and another bag full of pills. “It’s a good old pharmacy of meds in here.”
“Maybe they bulk stash,” Stone suggests as he opens a crate. “Looks like they’re stashing weapons too.” He reaches in and pulls out a semi-automatic rifle. “Serials are gone, so they’re untraceable.” He puts it back and then looks back at me.
I look around the room, trying to figure out what the hell about this room is bothering me. There’s something off about it. Mainly, why did they hide it? I get having extra storage, but they didn’t bother hiding the stuff upstairs. Why? What’s the difference between the two?
I look around the floor again, taking in the footprints on the floor that would match the shoes or boots of whoever Vlad had here. I follow them around the room, seeing them move to the boxes and crates before moving back toward the hole. Which means they’ve probably been lifting things out. But still, I can’t shake the fact that we’re missing something.
My phone rings and I pull it out of my pocket to see Cryos’s name. I put it to my ear as I absently look around, still trying to pinpoint what’s wrong with it. “We found their hidden stash,” I tell him.
“It’s a decoy,” Cryos blurts out. “The whole cabin, it’s a decoy. We figured it out. Well, no, actually, Thea figured it out, but, yeah?—”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I demand, my brain snapping back to what he’s saying. “And what the fuck do you mean Thea figured it out?” Both Stone and King turn back to me at that.
“We can talk about that later,” Cryos says briskly. “All we need to focus on right now is the fact that Thea figured out the two journals aren’t the same like Silver said. One is a decoy, but since I don’t have the originals in front of me, she can’t tell which one is. But the coordinates and locations are so close together that it shows there is a second place close by somewhere that is probably the actual stash house they use. Or maybe the one you’re in is the real one, and the other one is the decoy, but either way, I think she figured out how they’re getting everything past us.”
I want to be pissed because I have a feeling that Cryos left something out for Thea to find and review, but at the same time if he hadn’t, we might be running around in circles. So that’s a problem for another time. “So there’s another place close to us they are also using?” I repeat, trying to understand.
“That’s what Thea says.” Cryos acknowledges. “Just a second.” There’s a shuffling, and then Thea’s voice is filling the phone.
“I know you’re probably mad, but you can be pissed at me later,” she tells me briskly.
“Your ass is going to be sore for a month, baby girl, but yes, we’ll deal with that later,” I assure her. “Explain to me what you figured out please.” I put her on speakerphone and move close to the hole so Bullet can also hear. Bullet stands above me, a frown on his face.
“The code is an old bastardized version of an old code, but with a few different twists thrown in to make it someone’s personal code. Still, it’s close enough to ones I’ve dealt with on missions. But whoever made the other copy, they were damn good at making sure that some of the things they wrote were simple mistakes, or slightly different that an untrained eye wouldn’t even notice. When you compare, the numbers only shift enough to move the pin on the map a degree or two. At least on this page. I’m not sure if that’s the same for the rest, but I’d imagine they follow the same pattern. Someone went to a lot of trouble to throw people off the scent if they ever found a journal,” she warns. “And that also makes me think that whichever is the true location, it’s heavily guarded.”
“Son of a fucking bitch,” Bullet hisses furiously. “That would explain why we had such a hard time figuring out where Bull would go when he and his minion would hide. And why we have always been fighting to keep our streets clean. Who the fuck knows how long this has been going on.”
“I would say since Dagger moved here and Prospected,” King replies grimly. “And once he got everything figured out, and made his plans, he sold the information to Dmitri and the other secret buyer.”
“You only decoded one page?” I ask Thea.
“Yes. But now that I know the cipher, I can probably do the rest without too much trouble.”
“We’ll talk about it when we get back,” Bullet decrees. “Thea, is there anything that would tell you which one is the decoy without looking at the original sheets now?”
She’s quiet for a moment as she ponders. “I would say the one you are standing in is the decoy,” she finally replies. “Cryos showed me an aerial view of where you’re at now, and while it’s hidden, it’s not in the thickest, or deepest part of the forest. Comparing the one you’re in and the other coordinates, the other is deeper into the trees. If you’re going to hide, that’s the one you want. If anyone looks around there, they see the cabin and figure that’s it. And he showed me basically the same thing on the other side. The cabin on the other side of town, one dot is closer to civilization than the other but only by two degrees or so.”
“We need to let the other guys know,” Stone decrees grimly.
“If they’re approaching a decoy house, then it probably won’t be as heavily guarded but there will be some just to keep people away. If they approach the correct spot, they need to watch themselves,” Thea warns. “I saw it too often that if they know you might be coming, they’ll put the majority of the rest of the guards on that one and then ambush you when you get too close since they have larger numbers.”
“Fuck,” Bullet curses. He moves away from the hole and I know he’s probably checking outside. King instantly heads to the hole, jumps up, and hauls himself out. Guess all those workouts are coming in handy.
I look around the room again. Stone takes the phone from my hand and asks Thea a couple more questions, trying to understand how this might work. I leave them to it as I look at the room again. Just like upstairs, everything looks smooth, cool, and simple. But there has to be more. Has to be something else.
I put my hand on the wall of the dirt, realizing that it’s reinforced with concrete. Makes sense that they would want it to just look like a cold room or storage spot but need it to be secure enough that it won’t collapse on itself and destroy their stash or expose it to wandering eyes. But then I clue in to something Thea is saying to Stone and go still.
“The other thing I saw a lot with these kinds of setups is that there is either a tunnel that connects the two of them, or there is a back, hidden entrance. And maybe that is something mentioned in these journals, but I can’t tell you. Or, maybe not if they didn’t want to risk anyone finding the link between them,” she explains.
I whip back around, looking at the wall in front of me, and then the floor. Could there be a hidden door or tunnel down here? Everything inside me is telling me it’s a damn good possibility, but there’s no clear evidence of one. I step back and stare at the room again, my mind spinning as my former training kicks in.
Are the walls different anywhere? Is there even a slight impression or jut out that I can’t see? Does the floor trajectory change in any of the spots?
Nothing stands out as I continue to look but the shadows from the low light aren’t helping. I turn and grab the flashlight I set aside on one of the boxes again, flicking it on and moving it along the walls and floors again.
“Oh, and one thing I always found was that if there is a hidden door or tunnel, you’re going to find it in the worst spot, but it will be surprisingly clean or have fake webs and the like. Something to make you think that they couldn’t have gone that way or it would have looked too clean, too disturbed,” Thea adds. “Or they put it as close to the main door as possible so that you’re looking forward, not backward.”
I spin around, as does Stone, and I point the light to the wall right below the opening. And that’s when I see it. The very small, very slight, change in the wall, and the footprints that are hidden in the darkness where the light and shadows can’t reach from the light, disappearing as if into the wall. “Baby girl, I’m going to lighten that punishment,” I call out as I make my way over, with Stone right behind me.
I can almost sense that she’s rolling her eyes before she replies tensely, “Just be careful, because if they thought you might stumble on it, they might have rigged it to blow you to pieces.”
“Good thing we have all kinds of weapons down here to choose from just in case,” Stone remarks with a dark grin.
“Sniper?” Thea calls.
“Yes, Athena?” I reply absently as I get to work on trying to find the mechanism to open it.
“If you die after you convinced me to give your geriatric, but hot, ass a chance, I’m going to be very pissed at you,” she warns.
I can’t help but grin despite the old comment. “Then it’s a good thing I’m damn good at what I do, isn’t it?” I toss back. “You’re going to be stuck with me a long damn time, baby girl.” That’s when I feel it. The small hole in the wall, just big enough to get a finger in, and a small button inside. “Found it.” I turn to Stone. “Tell your father and brother I’m going in.”
“You’re not going in alone,” Stone argues.
“Are you trained to deal with people in small, tight spaces, in the complete dark?” I ask him calmly.
“No, but I know that I’m not leaving your ass with no back-up in case there are hidden doors or some weird shit in there and get your ass killed,” he snaps.
“I can always come and help,” Thea offers. “I was trained for this sort of thing.”
“No,” both Stone and I bark at her. Though I glare at him for daring to speak to my girl that way. He just holds my stare, unyielding.
I hear her mutter something about men being idiots and something about us only caring because we have dicks we want to swing around. My lips twitch at that, but I don’t answer. Instead, she sighs and says, “Fine.” Then I hear her moving.
“I’ve talked to the other team,” Cryos says, but there is a grimness to his tone. “Seems they went to the decoy house and they set off triggers that sent it up in flames. They all got out, but Sting got burned. Whip got burned and hit hard on the ground that he might have busted a rib. They’re making their way back now to see Medic.”
“Fuck,” Stone hisses. He hands me the phone. “I’ll talk to Dad.” Then he’s gone, pulling himself up out of the hole as well.
“And our men?” I ask Cryos.
“Shadow and Hulk got them out. But at the same time, the place went up in flames, so they had to get out of there before the cops showed up, and there were definitely sirens coming. I don’t think whoever set up realized just how much attention that was going to cause. They’re going to have cops and the fire department all over the place. So if there was any hidden stash in there, it’s going to be found.”
“And if it isn’t, they’ll move it from the actual storage spot as quickly as they can,” I agree. “And that means they might be heading this way. We need to get into that tunnel fast.”
“Need me to run any comms?”
“Didn’t bring mine with me,” I tell him. “Didn’t figure it would be this involved. But be on standby just in case we need a quick exit.”
“On it. Be careful.” Then he’s gone.
King drops down, Bullet right behind him. “Stone is going to keep guard upstairs,” King explains. “Dad’s going with you because he’ll know if anything was Bull’s design or whatever, and I’ll be here to help you or Stone if needed.”
I nod. I’m not keen on Bullet being with me, more because I work better alone in this kind of situation, but telling my President won’t go over well. So instead, I move back to one of the crates, pull out one of the larger guns, and the corresponding ammunition, and get ready. “I’m moving fast,” I warn Bullet.
Bullet gives me a hard glare as he grabs a gun for himself and also gets the ammunition ready to go. “Don’t worry about me keeping up,” he grunts. “Just make sure neither of us have to deal with pissed off women because we get shot.”
I nod. I look at King. “Something goes wrong, don’t come in guns blazing. Call for back-up and if we call for you, come in slowly and be ready.” He nods, face tight and determined.
Bullet and I stand to the left of the door as I click the button.
It opens with the smallest of clicks, that I never would have heard if I wasn’t listening so closely. The door itself is as large as the wall, and I push it open, pressing back tight to the wall as we wait. There is no explosion or any other sound. I carefully move forward, pointing the flashlight down to check and make sure there are no trip wires. Seeing none, I reach down on the floor, find a larger rock, and toss it through the door.
I hear it hit the floor, but there is no other sound. No one moves, and I hold my breath as we wait. Finally, when nothing else happens, I nod at Bullet and we make our way in. I move fast, gun up and ready, flashlight above it as I continuously move and sweep my eyes over the tunnel. It’s dark, and nothing to guide anyone like reflective tape. The ground is hard and concrete, but I feel a draft as I move forward, meaning that there is a definite end to this.
We go for a good three to four minutes before I see the dim glow of light start to come into view. I slow down, holding up my hand for Bullet to stop. He does, but I can feel the tension coming off him in waves. I carefully inch forward, my flashlight still sweeping along the floor in case an additional trip wire or trap is at this end. Nothing stands out, so I wave Bullet forward as we reach the door with light seeping through underneath the bottom of the door. I find the doorknob, and twist it open, before we both step out of the exit of the tunnel.
“Jesus Christ,” Bullet mutters to himself, cursing as we both stop and stare.
I have the same feeling as well as anger and horror. We stare at the cabin in front of us, realizing just what we’re looking at. The cabin is hidden in the thick trees, and you wouldn’t know it was there from above, and when I look around, I realize that nothing is cleared but a tiny little trail. It’s not overly big, but the door faces the exit I’m standing just outside of. And when I look up, I realize that they’ve built this tunnel into a large, natural hillside and they’ve camouflaged the outside of the door so that you’d never know it was there looking at it.
The worst part?
I look at a marker that marks the end of our land. The one the cabin borders on. How the fuck did we not know it was here?
“Call Stone and King to get them out here,” Bullet orders me, as he steps forward. “We’re searching this place.”
“They might have it rigged,” I warn him, even as I pull out my phone.
Bullet shakes his head. “They won’t want to risk blowing up whatever they’re hiding in here. But I’m not wasting time and once we figure out what this place is being used for, we’re going to be the ones burning it to the ground.” I nod, understanding.
Once Stone and King make their way through the tunnel, they curse when they realize where we’re standing. “That slimy motherfucker,” King hisses. “This reeks of Dagger giving a huge fuck you to us. He made it so if the cops ever found this place, we’d be fucked.” Stone’s face is hard as he takes it in, not saying a word.
“We’re checking it out,” Bullet tells them, walking up the steps. I glance at Stone and King briefly before I climb after him. Bullet steps aside to allow me to enter first. I kick down the door, gun up and ready just in case. The inside of the cabin is silent, and nothing happens as I make my way inside. I sweep it, and I realize that the cabin is small, much like the other one, but it’s also full of crates, boxes, and a wall covered in maps.
“Clear,” I say after I check the bathroom and pantry. There seems to be no other hidden spaces, but I wouldn’t put it past Dagger or Dmitri to put something in that Vlad is now using. We’ll sus it out.
Bullet, King, and Stone make their way inside and we look at everything that is scattered around. “All of this right in our own fucking backyard,” Stone mutters furiously. “If I didn’t want Vlad dead before now, I fucking do now.”
“Search the place and see what else you can find,” Bullet orders as he starts grabbing boxes and opening them, dumping everything onto the ground.
Over the next hour, we go through everything, and with every box and crate, the pile in the middle of the room gets bigger and bigger. When we finally finish, I’m estimating we’re looking at millions of dollars in merchandise. “This can’t be all of it,” King muses, staring at it and then the rest of the room. “We need to get to work on finding the rest.”
I’m in perfect agreement. We work a bit more, pulling the walls, and ripping up the floor, until we finally stumble onto a hidden door in the pantry. I make quick work of opening the door and climb down the dark steps. And just like upstairs, it’s full of more crates and boxes full of drugs, but in the back corner is bags of cash. The room is almost stacked to the roof, with only a small path to be able to reach each section of the room.
“Let’s get all of it upstairs and outside,” Bullet says with grim determination. “We’re going to make a statement.”
It’s another hour getting everything out, including the stacks of cash. Once it’s all outside, Bullet moves around the cabin until he comes back with a couple jugs of gas he found under the deck of the cabin. Then he dumps both on top of the pile.
When he’s finished, he looks at all of us. “We all know that they have eyes on us now and I’m making my stand. As much as I want to burn the fucking building to the ground, with the way they have it structured, it might burn down the forest and we can’t risk that kind of attention. So we’re going to make sure that they see all of this burn and lose out on any profits they would have made.”
“And if they come after us?” Stone asks curiously.
Bullet’s eyes go hard and cold as he stares back at us when he pulls out his lighter. “Then we’re going to meet them head on. I’m done playing. This? This put us all in danger. Put our women and our children in danger on top of what they’ve already been through. This would have had the women arrested, your children taken from you, and everything we built gone. And now, we’re going to get rid of them for good.”
He flicks open the lighter in his hand, sparks it, and tosses it on the pile. As we watch it burn, I feel the same determination inside me. We’ve been fighting this fight for too long, and we finally have the break we need. Now, there’s no stopping us.