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On the other hand, their boss wanted to cut a deal before he’d talk. If I hadn’t assured Gunner the first thing we’d do was get information about Luisa Reeve out of him, the only thing I would’ve offered was not to shoot out his second kneecap after I’d already done the first. While I wasn’t an interrogator, Varilla knew exactly who I was and that I’d taken down men far higher up than him in the big Texas bust.
“Let’s talk about your girlfriend,” I sneered, pulling my chair close enough that he could see every red line in the bloodshot whites of my eyes.
“Not until I have a deal.”
“Have you met my friend Kodiak? He wrestles grizzly bears.” I said, motioning for him to step closer.
“You got that wrong, boss. I don’t wrestle ’em. I just bash ’em over the head with this.” He smacked the floor beside Varilla with a baseball bat. “Sometimes not the head, though,” he added, jabbing it into Varilla’s kidney.
“The bitch is alive, and that’s all you’re gonna get out of me until I get a deal.”
“No deal untilweget proof of life.”
When his eyes scrunched, it told me all I needed to know. He couldn’t provide it.
“She’s on a ship leaving from Altamira, heading to the UK,” he shouted right before Kodiak pulled the bat about to hit him in the kneecap.
“What ship?”
“I don’t know.”
I nodded at Kodiak, who raised it again.
“MV…”
“Motor Vessel, what else?”
“Tan something.”
“Tanzania?” I prompted.
He shook his head. “Tanzinople.”
My eyes met Cayman’s, and he pulled out his cell. “He’s all yours,” I told Kodiak before standing to leave. “I’m gonna find out whether the fucker is lying or not.”
When I walked out of the warehouse, Gunner went in. Just seeing him approach would have me confessing every bad thing I’d done as far back as I could remember.
Cayman and Razor were standing right outside the door, both on their cell phones.
I checked the time, knowing without doing so that it was too early to call Shere—not Shere, Nem. And even if it hadn’t been, what would I say? “Hey, babe, just checkin’ in?” Yavaros was my investigation, not hers.
“Tanzinople left the dock in Altamira three days ago,” said Cayman. “According to the manifest, it’s headed for Felixstowe. That’s right outside London. It also appears there are as many as ten containers being transported from the same holding company. And again, according to the manifests, each has a different final destination.”
Razor nodded and ended his call. “The plane will be here at fifteen hundred tomorrow.”
“What about Varilla?” I asked.
“Monk and Onyx will be on the plane when it arrives, but they will not be traveling to the UK with us tomorrow,” said Razor. “They’ll make sure the asshole remains asuncomfortable as possible when they escort him to jail in the US.”
That we were returning to London tomorrow seemed like a plausible enough reason to call Nem. I checked the time again, hating that it was still too early.
17
NEMESIS
Josif Jacov reiterated the same story he’d previously told. His cousin had been a driver for MBM Enterprises for five months and called him at the last minute to say the man he worked for needed another driver because the one scheduled for the job had passed away suddenly.
As I watched, something occurred to me. While both agents wore comms and I could comment or give them instructions if necessary, I pulled out my mobile and sent a text to Atticus instead. Before I set my mobile down, I saw I’d missed a call from Ares earlier and made a mental note to ring him back when Josif’s interrogation concluded.
