17. Falcon
Falcon
Church lasts less than ten minutes before Condor ruins what was shaping up to be a decent morning.
Vulture started letting me back into the room three days ago, no ceremony about it, just a nod toward my old chair that I didn't take, because that chair isn't mine again yet.
I sit two down from it instead, close enough to hear everything, far enough that nobody has to pretend the patch in Vulture's desk drawer doesn't exist.
"We found Merrick," Condor says.
Every conversation around the table stops.
Vulture leans forward. "The company or the person?"
"Both." Condor turns his laptop so we can all see it, though half the table's too far away to read anything on the screen.
Harrier squints. "Make it bigger, maybe, for people who don't live inside a computer."
"You're six feet away." Condor rolls his eyes.
"And I still can't read it."
"That sounds like an eyesight problem."
"Just make it bigger," Vulture says, and Condor sighs like it costs him something and enlarges the document. A photograph fills the screen. Older man, late fifties, expensive suit, and silver at the temples. Looks like he belongs on a charity board, not tied to a trafficking network.
"Graham Merrick," Condor says. "Founder and majority owner of Merrick Logistics Consulting."
Sterling slides a folder across. "Publicly, he's a logistics consultant. Before that he ran regional transport operations for twenty years. Warehousing, freight, cross-border shipping."
Zip's mouth hardens. "A man who knows how to move people without anybody asking questions."
"Exactly," Sterling says.
Ice Pick wipes his fingers on a napkin. "What connects him to Kells directly?"
"Money," Condor says. "Kells's payments run through two consulting firms, both of them lead back to companies Merrick controls, through enough shell layers to make it hard to prove."
"But we know," Harrier says, all the humor gone out of his voice.
"We know enough to keep digging."
I lean in toward the map on Condor's screen. "Where is he now?"
Condor smiles, which is never a comfortable thing to see on him. "That's the interesting part." He pulls up a marker outside the city, an industrial stretch, warehouses and truck depots that go quiet after dark.
"Personal holding company bought it fourteen months ago," Sterling says. "Officially storage."
"Unofficially?"
"We've tracked four vehicles tied to known feeder companies there in the last forty-eight hours."
This is what we've been circling for days.
An actual location. My whole body wants to move on it right now, get men together, find Merrick, end this.
I'm already halfway through building the plan in my head before I catch myself and look around the table instead.
Nobody else is moving. They're all thinking, and I make myself do the same thing.
"My first thought was we should hit it," I say out loud.
Harrier raises a hand. "Mine too."
"Same," Ice Pick says.
"Why are we all admitting bad ideas today," Zip mutters.
"Growth," Rook says, solemn.
"Fuck off," I say, and a few of them laugh.
"Second thought?" Vulture asks.
"We don't know what's inside. If this is still active, there could be women in that building. We go in loud and we could put them in the middle of it."
Sterling nods. "That's my concern too."
Ice Pick folds his arms. "Or Merrick moves them the second he clocks us watching."
"Can we monitor without showing ourselves?" Vulture asks Condor.
"Already started." He pulls up traffic cameras, satellite images, a building layout that makes Harrier's eyebrows shoot up.
"How the fuck do you have a floor plan?" Harrier’s impressed.
"Planning application."
"That was legal?"
"Mostly," Condor says, and zooms in. There’s a main warehouse to the west, office block attached, loading access north and east, and cameras on both gates.
Zip points at a narrow strip behind the property. "What's that?"
"Drainage access. Maybe foot traffic."
"Drone?" Rook asks.
Condor shakes his head. "Too obvious if they're watching airspace."
"Watching airspace? Who the fuck are these people," Harrier says.
"The same people who jammed our cameras twice already."
Sterling taps the map. "We need confirmation of what's inside before anything else."
"Delivery vehicle?" Ice Pick suggests.
"Too much risk if we don't know their checks."
"Shift changes, then. Watch and learn the pattern," Zip says.
"Slow," I say.
"Safer, though." Zip is looking at me for another suggestion.
"You’re agreeing with slow now," Harrier says to me, and I tell him I can still shoot him, and he grins like that's the Falcon he was waiting for.
Vulture cuts back through it. "What about law enforcement?"
Nobody answers right away, because we've all got the same problem.
Suspicion, money trails, a location, and no proof anybody's being held against their will yet.
Not enough for a fast warrant, and if somebody inside the system's compromised, tipping the wrong person empties that warehouse before anybody arrives.
Sterling rubs his jaw. "I've got a contact in the trafficking unit I trust."
"Completely?" Vulture asks.
The hesitation answers it. "Then not yet," Vulture says.
I look at the layout again. "We need eyes inside."
"How?" Vulture asks.
I think about Digger's account from the first warehouse, Kells asking questions about routes and deliveries, who came and went. "They're using legitimate businesses as cover."
Sterling nods. "Looks like it."
"So, somebody delivers to them," I say.
Condor's already typing. "Give me a minute." Two minutes later he turns the screen. "Cleaning contractor. Services the office section Wednesday and Friday evenings."
Today's Friday. "What time?"
"Six."
Vulture checks the clock. It's just past eight in the morning. "Ten hours."
Ice Pick leans forward. "You want to replace the cleaners?"
"No," Vulture says immediately, before that goes any further. "We don't know they're not part of it, and nobody's going in blind."
Rook nods. "You want us watching them instead."
"Exactly, nothing illegal that gets us burned," Vulture says to Condor.
"I understand operational security." Condor nods his head.
"That wasn't what I said."
"Close enough."
Vulture turns to Sterling. "You and Zip work the company. Find out if they know what they're cleaning." To Ice Pick, "Eyes on the warehouse from a distance. Rotate vehicles, no cuts." Then he looks at me, and for once, nobody has to say the words out loud for me to know what's coming.
"Falcon. You're with me."
"Doing what?"
"Staying here."
Harrier coughs into his fist, badly disguised as a laugh. I glare at him.
"If this is another attempt to pull officers off the compound, we're not giving them what they want," Vulture says.
He's right, and I hate it a little anyway, which probably means it's exactly where I need to be.
Church breaks and the room fills with movement, Ice and Rook heading out to watch a possible trafficking warehouse, Sterling and Zip digging into the cleaning company, Condor disappearing into whatever screen he lives in. I'm staying, which is harder than any of it.
My phone buzzes. Cara.
Cara:
Emily's decided on the transition house. Sarah's going with her to help her settle in. We're moving this afternoon if security's happy.
I read it twice, not because it's complicated, because she told me. Directly.
Falcon:
That's good. I'll check the plan with Zip.
I delete it before I send it. Zip's busy with Merrick's cleaning company, and she didn't ask me to check anything.
Falcon:
Glad she found somewhere she feels comfortable.
Cara:
Me too. She wants yellow curtains.
I smile.
Falcon:
Of course she does.
Cara:
I blame you for encouraging her.
Falcon:
Pretty sure that was you.
Cara:
I was trying to keep her conscious. I didn't realize I'd be decorating around it.
I laugh, and Vulture looks over from the other end of the table.
"Something funny?" he asks.
"No."
"Is that Cara?"
"Do you want to keep all your teeth?" Why does everyone think they can interfere in whatever is happening between me and Cara?
"Definitely Cara," he says, grinning, and I turn my phone facedown, and another message comes through anyway.
Cara:
Are you busy?
That question's different than the rest of it.
Falcon:
Church just finished. We found a possible Merrick location. I'm staying at the compound while others check it.
Cara:
You're staying?
Falcon:
Yes.
Cara:
Okay. Thank you for telling me.
Not thank you for staying. Thank you for telling her. That distinction means more to me than it probably should.
Falcon:
I'll update you when we know anything that affects your security.
She sends back a single heart, and I stare at it like an idiot until Vulture leans across the table.
"Is that a heart?"
I turn the phone facedown again. "President or not, I will bury you."
"Definitely a heart," he says, laughing.
I get up. "I'm leaving."
"You're supposed to stay at the compound."
"I'm going to the kitchen."
"Still counts."
"Fuck off."
Harrier's behind the bar when I get there, and he puts a plate in front of me before I've asked for anything.
"Not hungry," I say.
"You slept four hours." What is it with people wanting to know how many hours I slept?
"Yesterday."
"How many last night?"
I don't answer, and he points at the plate, and I sit, because arguing with Harrier before food is never worth the effort.
Digger wanders in a few minutes later. The cut across his forehead looks better than it did yesterday. He’s still ugly, though.
He drops into the seat beside me with a cup of coffee.
“You going on the Merrick thing?” he asks.
“No.”
Digger glances at me. “Why not?”
“My job is here.”
“Does that piss you off?”
“Yes,” I admit.
“Okay.”
I turn toward him. “That’s all you’ve got?”
“Knox says being pissed off doesn’t automatically mean something is wrong.”
“When did Knox become your therapist?”
“He hasn’t,” Digger says.
“Does he know that?”
“No.” He takes a drink of his coffee. “Probably for the best.”
I snort and turn back toward the room.
“You’re different,” he says.
“Everybody keeps saying that.”