Chapter 13
“Body selling?” Drew stared at Trill incredulously from her seat in Trill’s office in the Recon Room. “Are you shitting me? What in the actual fuck?”
“Not kidding, cuz.” Trill leaned back in her chair, her face grim.
“Apparently, dead bodies are a huge commodity for what are called ‘body brokers.’ I cannot fucking believe everything I’ve found out in the last day or two.
The body trade is a virtually unregulated industry in the United States, Drew, but it’s a damned enormous and lucrative one.
“Don’t get me wrong, though. They’ve been sniffing around but, overall, I don’t really believe Reflex is heavily involved in body or organ trafficking.
From what I’ve learned about the industry, the Reflex guys don’t have the setup, they don’t have the know-how, and they sure don’t have the contacts.
Embezzlement and money laundering is their game.
But that’s not to say Clay Langston or Rob Kilgore didn’t poke around when they saw an opportunity—like when, oh, I don’t know, Sandy Wheeler was sick and maybe dying of breast cancer—and explored the possibility of trafficking her remains for profit upon her death. ”
Drew’s green-hazel eyes were almost black.
“Fuck my life. These bastards need to be wiped off the face of this earth because that’s downright gruesome.
What kind of sick motherfucker steals a dead body to make money when the family is grieving?
Jesus, Blake is going to freak right the hell out over what even the thought of that will do to Brooke. ”
“Yeah, she is. The good news is that Sandy is cancer-free and regaining her health every day, so she isn’t as much of a concern at the moment.
And, from all indications, Reflex isn’t in the body brokering business.
They were exploring a one-off opportunity, which no longer exists, even if it did trigger our gut instincts for a while. ”
Leaning forward, Drew rested her forearms on her hard, muscled thighs.
“I’ll grab Dara—and probably Ari—and the three of us will decide how we want to proceed in Purgatory then.
Other than keeping a close eye out in case this body trafficking thing bubbles up—which it doesn’t sound like it will, quite frankly, based on everything you just said—it appears Reflex has nothing concrete going on outside of their embezzlement and money laundering game. ”
Trill touched the comm in her ear. “Meeting in ten, everyone. That means Kel and Piper, too. Drew and I have a Reflex update for you, which you’re not exactly going to love, but you need to know about.
We’re in the Recon Room and heading to the Bunker now.
” A chorus of voices confirmed they would see them there.
“Do I have to kill someone?” Blake’s voice as it came over the comm was unusually forbidding.
Drew and Trill rose, then moved from Trill’s office through the small conference room, heading for the door of the Recon Room.
“You are most definitely going to want to, cuz,” Drew told her, touching her own earpiece as she and Trill started walking rapidly toward the Bunker.
“But you need to hang on to your shit for now because your woman is going to need you. We’ll explain everything in a minute. ”
Trill touched her comm again. “Let’s just say the more we learn about the scum of the world, the more it never ceases to amaze us. I’d tell you to make book on this one, Blake, but I don’t know how you’d even calculate the odds since this bullshit is not to be believed.”
She stopped next to the door of the Bunker as Drew entered the access pin code into the keypad set into the door frame.
“All I know is that these motherfuckers won’t see the light of day for a very long time, if we have anything to say about it,” she said as the door opened and they went in.
“It’s about time Reflex Rebranding was sent into hell where it belongs. ”
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“I really need to stop saying ‘There is no fucking way’ every time we run into a new situation with the morons of the universe. All they do is say, ‘Hold my beer.’ Goddamn.” Jaime raked a hand through her thick black hair, just as incredulous as Drew had been earlier.
“Right?” rumbled Bryn, crossing her ankles where she was leaning against a wall in the Bunker as she folded her muscled arms over her chest. “A decade in this business and there are still times something comes out of left field and knocks us for a fucking loop.”
Her hands laced behind her head, Teagan said, “I agree with Trill and Drew, though. From all appearances, Reflex isn’t truly involved in the body brokering business.
Although,” she gave a clearly pissed-off Blake a pointed look, “you need to settle your ass down, cuz. It sucks that even the distant possibility is going to upset Brooke like it will—and she doesn’t deserve that—but there’s no doubt little sis will grasp that in the next breath. She’s going to be okay.”
“Broki.” Riley was sitting on Kelly’s desk next to her wife.
“Brooke is intelligent, just like the rest of the APS femmes are. Like Teag said, she’ll get it the minute she works it out in her head.
What you need to worry about is that Italian temper exploding if she thinks for even a second that Reflex would have considered the possibility of trafficking Sandy’s remains, as remote as it was. She’ll slaughter them.”
“Jesus,” Casey muttered. “It will take Kelly, Piper, and Sabine to hold her down.”
“And that’s a problem, why?” Blake shot back.
Kelly glowered, her arm propped up on Riley’s thigh, glancing across the Bunker at an equally-pissed Piper, who was leaning against Kenn.
“Seriously, Riles? The fuck we won’t help our homegirl either beat the shit out of those dicks or use them for target practice. You know Sabine will be all in, too.”
The corners of Drew’s mouth tilted up. “Good to know, Red. However, since we’ve determined impending femme slaughter is not necessary at the moment, we can move on.” She gave Blake her own pointed look until the Utopia head had calmed, with Kelly and Piper settling down as well.
Continuing, Drew said, “I’ll have Dara and Ari do some scouting in Purgatory, put their ears to the ground, and see what bubbles up.” Abruptly, her mood darkened a bit. “Now, though, I need to give you an introduction to my new friend Cyb3rmoon.”
“Cyb3rmoon? Who or what the fuck is a Cyb3rmoon?” inquired Bryn, her dark brows drawing together, with the rest of the team looking just as mystified.
Drew rapidly brought everyone up to speed on her recent encounter with the mystery woman in Purgatory.
“She’s been hanging around for the last year or so, giving the impression she’s nothing more than a bad boy chaser who’s had her sights set on Rob Kilgore,” the counterintelligence team lead said when she was done with her update.
“There are more than a few women like her around, so I haven’t paid too much attention, outside of keeping an eye on her like I do everyone else.
“The last thing I was expecting was for Cyb3rmoon to approach me and drop what we can assume was meant as some type of a code word the way she did. I mean, ‘reflexive’? She wanted to make damn sure I knew Reflex was on her radar. Which begs the question: Who the fuck is she? She doesn’t feel like someone on the wrong side of the fence, but she sure as hell didn’t give me the impression she was local law enforcement either. ”
Trill was thinking. “Is she U.S. intelligence then? CIA? A DoD agency like the NSA? However, that leads me to ask why a pissant bunch of players like Reflex would draw the attention of the U.S. intelligence community? And which government agency, specifically? There are what? Over a dozen organizations that make up intelligence?”
“Eighteen,” said Kelly, frowning.
“And the CIA is a foreign intelligence agency prohibited from conducting domestic surveillance or operations within the United States, correct?”
Kelly, a former CIA covert agent, snorted and rolled her eyes.
“Technically, the CIA cannot operate domestically...unless, of course, they are explicitly authorized to do so in cooperation with other agencies—such as the FBI—when foreign nationals in the U.S. pose a threat. That and a few bucks will buy you a cup of coffee, though. A lot of line-crossing goes on in secret behind the scenes.”
Aggravated and raking her hands through her light auburn hair, Blake gritted, “Interesting as that is, what in the motherfuck does it have to do with my woman being anywhere near those dicks? Frankly, I don’t give a hairy rat’s ass what Reflex is involved in outside of the embezzlement and money laundering scams in Tampa Bay.
We need to make sure Brooke is safe above all else. ”
“Truthfully, the situation with Cyb3rmoon probably doesn’t have a thing to do with the current scams Reflex are running in the area, Blake.
” Drew was honest. “If the four partners are involved in something way bigger, however, and Cyb3rmoon is scouting for information, her approaching me like she did makes sense. Especially if she and whoever she’s working for want to find out what APS knows about Reflex.
“The Shadow isn’t unknown to her, I guarantee you, and it’s never been a secret that APS and my alter ego have had more than a few dealings with each other over the years.
We’ve never hidden that association. Plus, Kel is former CIA, but it’s also common knowledge she’s part of the APS management team now.
That’s yet another link. Little moonchild is going to learn fast, however, that Armstrong Protection Services is not an organization the intelligence community can lead around by their dick. ”