Chapter 48

48

I watched some more with the drone. It was chilling that the entire department was there. There was no way they were all corrupt, no way they would all agree to come after a fricking whistleblower for the college.

The chief was no doubt the corrupt scumbag who was feeding the rank and file some super amounts of horseshit.

I also didn't see any real people. Which was weird to me. There would definitely be people from the surrounding houses trying to figure out what was going on, right?

Had they evacuated everyone? I thought. And why no news vans?

This was bad. Had they cleared out the village and told the local cops that we were what? Terrorists or something? They hit the lights and went into the bar with tactical guys on the bullshit evac story looking for us and something went wrong. Big Joe ran and they killed him.

That was no regular SWAT team, I thought. That was a team of professional hired killers.

It sounded crazy that all this would happen at the behest of a college president. But then again this was no regular college. The billionaire Stone was deeply involved in this after all. And what had Colleen said about the college's endowment? Thirty-four billion? That was larger than the GDP of many countries. Countries had armies, right? Why not a college?

This isn't a college town , I realized. This is a banana republic with its very own dictator.

I shook my head as I thought of Jodi.

And now, lucky me, I have the dictator's wife , I realized.

I stared at the post office and thought about that, about what I would do if I were in their shoes and mixed up with the suspicious death of a young girl with billions of dollars on the line.

The mercs would be back, I decided. And sooner rather than later as bullshit stories tended to start to stink the longer they stuck around. Especially in the bright light of day.

The town tilted as I banked the drone left and rotated it, looking around for a parking spot. It had to be high up.

To the right was a steeple of the church. Maybe there. Nah, it was too far.

Then I saw it to the left.

"No-brainer," I said as I piloted the drone at the 5G tower that was atop the building where I was staying.

It took me a little maneuvering to land it on the highest movie poster–sized array, but I managed it two minutes later.

After I was done, I smiled. Now with my trusty drone looking down at the post office lot from about fifteen stories up, I could see everything.

As I watched, the BearCat came back. Four guys in SWAT FBI gear got out of it and quickly headed toward the post office.

The varsity squad , I thought.

They were met by another SWAT guy who was very tall, and the athletic panther-like way he moved was oddly familiar.

"Holy shit," I whispered.

It was one of the four men in Olivia's video! The slimmer of the two bodyguards. Had to be.

I nodded. It was all making sense now. Stone had sent his goons to stop Jodi from squealing, and the college security guy and the chief of police were running cover, leaving the mercenaries free to run roughshod.

Staring at all the real cops standing around, I was suddenly pissed.

Not one of them could put it together? How fishy this all was? What the hell was wrong with people today? Even the cops didn't ask questions? No, I'll just go along to get my pension. It was as if everyone's brain—or was it their balls—had been surgically removed.

I watched the bodyguard stand there with his hit team.

No telling what they would do if I gave them the chance.

Which I wasn't going to.

Because whatever they did next, we would know it immediately thanks to the drone.

And there was something else in my bag of tricks, I thought. Something they weren't going to see coming by a country mile.