Page 53 of Surge

Caldwell, of course, sat on the couch—small enough to fit in the cramped living room—with his laptop and papers spread over the coffee table. He and Zim talked quietly over whatever was on the computer.

She took a step toward them to join that conversation.

Garrett returned. “Okay, so what do you have over there?” He took the other black leather armchair.

The straight-backed chair, the only thing in the room not either gentle green or soft yellow, was her option: upholstered with flowers. No wonder the men had taken the armchairs. Surge followed her over to it and sat on the floor beside her as though joining the convo. She stroked the thick hair around his neck. He sighed happily and downed.

Zim cleared his throat. “Caldwell hasn’t been able to find the one container I noticed in the container yard.”

“It’s not on me,” Caldwell objected. “Zim thinks he gave me three of the container ID numbers, so I quickly ran a search to identify the container. The last number is only partially readable. A three, a two, an eight, who knows? I’m still running searches, but it’s a long shot.”

Zim scowled, crossed one leg over the other. “Yeah, right, it’s on me. Like I should’ve worked for a different angle to see the whole number. Like I could have once those Sachaai saw us.”

“Let it go, Zim,” Garrett warned.

The petty officer didn’t take his eyes off Caldwell.

For crying out loud. What was with these men? “Nobody can find a container from a partial number,” Delaney said. “I mean, right? Add to that the fact it’s not crystal clear if Zim found the same containers Rashid and Tariq took to Hakim at the container yard. Or where the second one is.”

They all turned and stared at her like she was a purple elephant.

She sat back in her chair. Truth was what it was.

Garrett rubbed his chin as he appraised Zim and Caldwell. “She’s on point.”

Whoa. She hadn’t expected Garrett to back her up. She reached down to pet Surge, fast asleep, spread out like a bearskin rug.

“Besides,” he continued, “we needed to focus on finding the container with chem tubes. Plain and simple.”

Zim pursed his lips. “I need better footage of the container yard to find those containers, or even if we can find images or footage from last night to see if I can work angles to get the full number.”

“Caldwell, I saw cameras onsite. What’d you find?”

“Sadly,” Caldwell said, “they were fakes—designed as deterrents, but they weren’t live that I could tell. Not even in that office. All I found was a traffic cam a mile away showing the cab turning toward that street. Blurry. Useless.”

Garrett narrowed his eyes at Caldwell, his nose twitching like the man was a bad smell.

Caldwell and Garrett were both wound tighter than guitar strings about to snap. As a strained quiet stole into the room, Caldwell fidgeted with that piece of purple plastic while Garrett leaned back in his chair, hands laced behind his head, contemplating. Zim produced his smiley-face stress ball from his pocket and tossed it from hand to hand.

Delaney tilted her head. Maybe what she’d read as tension between Caldwell and Garrett was actually stress, since they’d lost the chems.

Garrett walked to the window to gaze out for a long moment, then finally turned around, making eye contact with each of them. “Sachaai wants to kill hundreds of thousands of Americans. Your mom, your cousin. Grandma, Grandpa.”

Delaney thought of Dad. Heath. A Breed Apart.

“We need to chase down that stash of chemicals.” He smacked his hands together. “Let’s work the problem.”

Before her eyes, they drew silent, intent. Hunters.

Elbow on the armrest, she tapped her chin.

Caldwell was still tossing that weird piece of plastic between his hands. Was it the same plastic he’d been messing with the other day? He pitched it into his ruck, sitting in the corner. “I haven’t finished digging into that shoe factory computer motherboard. I’ll get on that.” He took his computer off the coffee table.

Zim reached for his camera on the side table next to him. “I’m going to look back through the pics I took at the container yard, see if I missed anything.”

Garrett nodded.

Surge shifted onto his side and began snoring.

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