Chapter 15

Fifteen

Body disposal in winter was not my favorite thing. Add being in the U.S. to that and I was even less of a fan. Still, we all knew people. We just had to take the time to get to them. Locke bitched for about half the drive until we were in Boulder and finally heading out of the mountains. Then he had a signal and didn’t say a word.

Periodically, I’d glanced back to see him squinting at his laptop screen and typing. He must have been using his cell for signal. It was an actual dump, but we had a contact who would take care of the rest of the cleanup. They also had a very nice incinerator. It took a lot of heat to destroy a body completely.

A lot.

True to his word, Locke just got out of the way and let us hustle the bodies out.

Dick.

Once we were done, though, he identified the numbers. “Bank account,” he said. “Part of the wiring info for MD Professional Resources.”

MD. “That’s a Mad Dog outfit.” They had a few of them MD Outsourcing was another one. Bland, neutral names with boring profiles that masked their actual work. “They’re shady as fuck, have zero morals, and they’re basically thugs for hire. Calling them private military contractors is a joke.”

“You sound like you’ve worked for them,” Remington said, studying me.

“I did for about five minutes. Then I found out the type of jobs they take. I blew their bullshit op and got the fuck out of there.”

“So,” Locke said. “I’m going to guess they aren’t your biggest fans.”

“Nope.” They’d been part of the warning Patch gave me about that job offer. It was a trap, likely done by an MD subsidiary.

If those mother fuckers laid a finger on her, I was going to end every single one of them. There was an MD not far from here in Denver.

“Question,” Remington said, seemingly unperturbed by the icy breeze blowing around us. We could get in my truck and drive, but he made no moves in that direction. Locke had his laptop tucked under his arm. “What would they accomplish in taking Patch?”

I rubbed my hands together before I dragged my gloves out of my pocket. The last thing I needed was frostbite. “No fucking clue. She’s my operator. She funnels most of the jobs through to me, vets them when I ask for it.”

She was the quiet and the reason in the middle of a storm. She kept me sane when missions went sideways. More than once…

“She’s saved my life. So I don’t really give a fuck why they took her. I just need to know who so I can get her back.”

“We,” Locke corrected me. “That number could mean anything. But it is a lead.”

“Then we explore the lead and see how far it takes us.”

“Great, everyone in the truck, I know where we can pick us up a couple of MD’s contractors.”

Locke made it to the front passenger seat before Remington. “No more dead bodies back there, so you can ride in the back.”

The man barely seemed to notice. Once we were all in, I glanced back at Remington. “They good here? Or will we need to come back to cleanup?”

I would prefer to not do a mop-up. I’d had to do them in the past when someone doing a job decided to get greedy.

“They’re well paid, and they like their work. We’ll be fine,” Remington said. “The next closest body removal specialist is two states away. At least as far as one I would trust, so I would very much like to leave the Garner brothers where they are.”

“Right-o, mate,” I said, firing up the engine.

“Don’t call me mate,” Remington said. “How far is it to our destination?”

“Probably an hour,” I told him. “Sleep if you can, I’ll give you a heads up five minutes out.”

Remington didn’t say another word but when I glanced back, his eyes were closed. Locke had his laptop open and I caught flickering from the corner of my eye. He was doing some kind of search.

“So, we’re just going to roll up to this place—MD Outfitters—and what, knock on the door and see if anyone is home?”

“I have a plan.”

“You going to share it?” Locke asked.

“Nope,” I told him. “Better to be in the moment.”

“Uh huh.” The skepticism was powerful on those two syllables. “Not sure that works for me.”

“Well, since I don’t either, I don’t care.” I could have given him more, but I didn’t have it yet. While I had a plan, it wasn’t fully fleshed out and had a lot of potential for going sideways. So, I focused on what I had with me, weapons, tools, and people.

Remington would be useful.

Locke should probably stay with the truck.

We were going to have to bag, tag, and work our way up the ladder. I doubted the grunts would know anything. “Tell me if they have any managers or area supervisors listed on their website?”

“You want me to help after that?” Locke didn’t quite scoff, but since he was typing, I let it go. “I have four names.”

“Excellent, our plan is to get to those four. Find out where they are and any other information they might have online.”

“Right, that’s more likely to be in their employee files but I’ll look.” He didn’t sound confident. That was fine.

“Good thing we’re on our way there then.”

“Yeah, good thing.” Again, with the doubt.

“You don’t like to work on instinct, do you?” I had a hunch, but Locke didn’t strike me as a go with his gut kind of guy.

“Not really, I like the specs and time to plan.”

“I can drop you off if you want out.” Not that he sounded like he wanted out, no matter how many doubts he expressed.

“Shut up and drive,” he told me.

Yeah, I had his number.

Needed to figure out Remington’s.

The new daydawned on our way to MD Outfitters. It was gray, cloudy, and smelled of rain. But the forecast didn’t call for it. Fine by me. For now, I focused on the building where MD Outfitters was housed.

“A half-dozen cameras,” Locke said, “just focused on the lot and the front of the building. The glass is tinted to mirror so they can see out, we can’t see in. Double-bars on those delivery doors. That’s just what we can see.”

I took a swallow of the coffee I’d picked up. The greasy, fried breakfast sandwich and hash browns went a long way toward quieting my stomach’s complaints.

“It’s early and there’s what, forty cars in that lot?” Locke shook his head. “This is a bad idea to just walk in, especially if they are all armed contractors.”

“Got a better idea?” I asked. “I’ve taken down bigger places with less. You can stay out here, Remington can be eyes in the sky…”

“Really?” The absolute disdain in Remington’s British accent would amuse me save for the way he looked at me like I was stupid. “Where do you propose I set up? It’s flat for at least four miles around us and there’s no good lines of sight to the interior.”

“Fine, you can cover my ass the old-fashioned way by going inside with me. I’ll run point. I prefer being the first one through the door.”

“Hmm, more likely to get your head blown off.” Not that Remington sounded like he objected.

“It’s gonna be fun,” I told him. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and she’s in there.”

“We’re not that lucky,” Locke said.

“Man, you have got to learn to look on the brighter side of life.” I patted his shoulder. The plan was pretty basic, but like I’d told them—I’d done more with less. Besides, after hours of waiting and looking, I was more than ready to crack a few heads open.

Ten minutes later, I drove us to another spot where we had some coverage. Then we’d approach from the open land rather than the road. They had fewer cameras back there. Fewer didn’t mean none.

Once we were parked, I got out with Remington to check the weapons we wanted. Locke followed, then started off toward the trees.

“Where are you going?”

“Hitting the head,” he told me over his shoulder. “Want to watch?”

“Don’t take too long,” I said and he raised a middle finger back at me.

As he disappeared into the trees, I kept one eye on that direction. Remington stripped down a Sig Sauer then put it back together.

“You’re not taking it on a date,” I told him and he ignored me. Not that I blamed him. I wouldn’t walk into a fight with a weapon I hadn’t checked unless I was in the middle of one already.

Still… five minutes turned into ten and Locke wasn’t back.

“Where the fuck is he?”

“Maybe he needed to evacuate his bowels,” Remington said. “We’ll need to move sooner rather than la?—”

At his breaking off, I pivoted to see Locke strolling back toward us with a bag over his shoulder.

“He didn’t leave with a bag, did he?” I really hoped Patch wasn’t fond of Locke. I might end up killing him.

“No.” Remington managed to make that single syllable sound like an indictment.

“You wanna explain where you went?” I asked when Locke was in earshot.

“You had a plan,” he told me, setting the bag down in the back where we’d been going through weapons. Then he flipped it open to reveal hard drives. “I had a better plan. Patch gave me a couple of programs for cracking drives on my last job. If these guys took her, she’d be in their files.”

“So,” Remington said slowly. “You took all their files.”

“Yep and this…” He held up a keycard with a smirk. It had a red stripe on it. “Level One security should also help us get past some of the encryptions.”

“You were gone for ten minutes.”

“Technically fifteen,” Remington said. “Accuracy is preferable. You didn’t start counting until it annoyed you that he wasn’t back.”

“Work smarter,” Locke said. “Not harder.”

Lips pursed, I eyed the hard drives, then Locke and finally looked back at the building. The drives were nowhere near as satisfying as kicking in doors and cracking skulls. At the same time, they might net us a target sooner.

“How long?” I asked.

“A few hours,” Locke said. “We need a place for me to get everything set up and plugged in. But I have what I need.”

“I have something similar that Patch provided,” Remington admitted. Ice licked every single syllable. “We will need to retrieve it if necessary, but if you have yours—then I say we do it your way for now.”

I agreed with that caveat, particularly because I wanted to get eyes on Patch yesterday. “Fine, let’s go. There’s a couple of hotels back near the interstate.”

An hour later, we were split between two rooms with the adjoining door wide open. Locke worked with plugging the hard drives into a case, then plugging something else into them.

We got more food, and coffee, then waited. Locke was methodical, he loaded and searched each drive individually. The encryption programs took time and it was tedious to watch the screen as it ticked past.

Remington took a shower. When he was done, I took one. Locke waved it off. He’d shower when he was finished. It wasn’t until he was on the seventh drive that he found the address for her house.

“Fallon Brady,” Locke murmured.

“What?”

“Her name, it’s listed as Fallon Brady. I didn’t know Patch’s real name.”

Nor had I and based on Remington’s tight expression, neither had he.

“It’s a directive to acquire her alive, with no fanfare. Black bag job, very quiet.”

“Alive is good,” Remington said. “And bad.”

‘Cause it meant they wanted something from her.

“Where did they take her?” I asked.

“I’m hunting,” Locke said and the screen flickered and changed. I fought the urge to pace. “This bit of encryption is harder and it’s different—the programs are working.” It took another ten excruciating minutes.

Then we had an address.

“It’s a few hours away,” I said, checking the GPS. “We need to get there and scout.”

“We also need medical supplies,” Locke said. “Weapons, gear, and probably stuff to break in and break out. The address doesn’t exist on Google Earth. I don’t even want to know what you have to do to get yourself scrubbed.”

“Shower,” I told him. “We’re leaving in fifteen.”

“Good job,” Remington said to him as Locke went into the bathroom.

He was right. “Yeah,” I said. “Good job.”

Locke gave us each a look then shook his head. It had been a good job. We had a location.

“We do this together,” Remington said. “Once we have her secure and these people burned down, we can deal with everything else.”

“Including who from that outfit was sent to get her,” I said.

He merely nodded. There wasn’t much else to say. Locke was done with his shower and in fresh clothes in under ten minutes. We headed back to the truck with our gear. The hard drives were still with us. They might be useful later.

Hang on, Patch.

We’re coming.

I had every intention of bringing hell with us.