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It could very well be a rodent, particularly if what the device detected was faint. “See if you can track any movement.”
“Gone entirely, now.”
“Shall we abort?” asked Puck, another of the team.
My gut told me to stand our ground. Something was off here.
“The drivers are exiting the cabs,” Puck reported.
“Cayman, get as close as you can without being detected.”
“Roger that.”
It was difficult to hear what the two men were saying even though Cayman kept his comm live, but it sounded as though they were conversing in a foreign language. Maybe Bulgarian.
I nearly gasped when one of the drivers uttered a word I could understand.Murtvi—dead.
Cayman coughed. “My God, the stench.”
“Can you determine if either of the drivers is armed?” I asked Puck.
“Affirmative. Both.”
“Cayman, we’re moving out on my count of three. I want them takenalive.”
“Copy that.” His voice was tight, as if he was trying not to gag.
While we apprehended the drivers without incident, what we discovered after doing so was as horrifying as my gut had feared. On the floor of each container lay the bodies of deceased victims.
* * *
“There werea total of one hundred and twenty-four people between the two containers. Men and women. Some were children,” I said after finishing my recounting of the tragedy.
Ares studied me long enough I was beginning to feel uncomfortable. I’d done my best to keep my report fact-based, without conveying emotion. Had I let on how much seeing all those people I’d failed to rescue—failed to save—affected me?
“Your brief mentioned the intel you received came from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. How were they alerted?”
“Via an official at their Container Control Programme office. While the CCP’s role at the Port of Antwerp-Bruges in Belgium is to inspect incoming shipments for drug smuggling, the manifests of the outgoing containers raised a red flag, particularly given the time of departure and the destination port. However, the information crossed the director’s desk after the ship had left the docks.”
“What about the bobtails? Were you able to determine where the tractors originated from?” he asked.
“Both are registered in Northern Ireland but owned by a Bulgarian national.”
Ares was no longer looking at me. Instead, his gaze appeared to be focused on the office’s blank wall. “Too soon to know where the victims were from,” he said more to himself than to me.
“The Bulgarian connection—”
“May not be related.”
Ihatedpeople finishing my sentences. I hadn’t even hesitated.
“I’d like to see the docks at Purfleet as well as the industrial complex where they stopped.”
“There doesn’t appear to be any connection. The majority of units are vacant.”
“Have you—”
“Yes.”
