Page 34 of The Devil's Conflict

“Any news on if Crypt has deciphered anything in that stuff Cryos’s got, or the new stuff that we found in the wall?” Stone asks.

“I checked with him earlier,” Shadow answers. “He said he managed to figure out small bits and pieces, but nothing that makes sense. He said that whatever cipher Dagger set up, it’s not anything he’s worked with before.”

“Then Dagger probably didn’t come up with it.” King scoffs. “I mean, the man could barely understand how to cook with basic instructions on a box. So he had help getting it coded that way.”

“You think he had one of Dmitri’s men help?” I ask.

“Would make sense.” King shrugs.

“Or he’s using one that Bull used,” Bullet suggests. “Bull was real careful about shit, and one of our old VPs, though he didn’t last too long before he ate his own gun, was big into riddles and shit like that. He was one of those old doomsday quacks, and he was big on not wanting government to figure out anything. So it could be possible that he had him create something for him.”

“Maybe he did and then Bull killed him to make sure that no one but him would know how to decipher it,” I suggest.

Bullet says nothing, thinking that over, before nodding slowly. “Could be. He was found in one of the buildings he liked to hang out in, and the gun was found in his hand, so we all just assumed it got to be too much for him. He was big into drugs and had PTSD from his time in Vietnam. Bull and the new VP who came after him, Sprocket, found him. At the time, we didn’t have any clue what Bull was up to, so none of us questioned it.”

“But that means that all the shit that anyone who dealt with that in the military wouldn’t be able to figure it out,” Titan reasons grimly. “I mean, if he was as paranoid as you say, then that means that he would have made sure it wouldn’t be something someone who worked for the government would be able to figure out, right?”

“But this was back in the eighties and shit, so things are much more sophisticated than they were then,” Twigs points out. “I mean, my uncle has been in the Army for as long as I can remember, and the technology and terms they use have grown and changed over that time. So it could be that this will be easier to solve instead, right?”

“Crypt hasn’t figured it out and this is the kind of thing he used to do,” Viper points out.

“Not exactly,” Shadow corrects. “He did it on computers, not handwritten. Sure, it’s digitized, but he’s used to codes and programs to do most of the work. This is low tech and also trying to figure out someone’s brain child of a cipher.”

The room is quiet for a moment. “Well, we do have another option,” Cryos suggests hesitantly, and I frown when I see him looking at me. What the hell? I don’t do this shit. But then I go still when he clicks some buttons and Thea’s military ID comes on screen.

“No,” I snarl, furious that Cryos would even suggest such a thing.

“Cryos, we’re not involving women in club business anymore,” Bullet reminds him sternly. “Not to mention, she’s our employee and that’s going to make things messy.” He glances over at me. “And after earlier, I don’t think she’s going to be too keen on helping us from the state of Sniper’s face.”

“Look, I get that,” Cryos rushes out. “But Sniper asked me to look into her after she started at the security business. It’s the standard one that we always do, but I also looked into her military records. And one of the big things that she used to do was decoding military messages and work on ciphers for her unit. Her team was one of the more skilled at the time for these kinds of things, per her commendations, and she was the one that got the majority of the hard work done. She’s fucking smart, and she didn’t always do it with a computer. She did pen and paper with messages that would be intercepted from the bad guys. And as much as I appreciate how hard Crypt is working, he also is dealing with a head injury, and pushing him to try to work on this is only going to slow his recovery.”

I don’t like it. Not one bit, but I know he’s right at the same time. But it’s not only that we don’t want to involve her, I need to talk to her first. Because after that bombshell she dropped in my office earlier, there is no way in hell I’m going to leave her alone now.

“Fuck,” Shadow groans. “How the hell do we keep having women drop in our lap that either know shit that can help us, or are physically able to? Izzy told us about where to find the garage and the operation they were running, Syn has her dogs that found the drugs, and now we have Thea, who could help us find them and figure out whatever their routes are, and where the stash houses are. Not to mention Sage starting all this with her camera skills, Quinn getting taken, and Eden alerting us to Vlad bribing the judge.”

“We can’t seem to un-involve them, can we?” Stone sighs. “And I don’t fucking like it. Especially not now.”

Bullet is quiet and I look at him expectantly, waiting for him to quell this. But he doesn’t. Instead, he looks at me. “How much do you not want her to be involved?” he finally asks me.

“You can’t be thinking about doing this,” I snap, incredulous. “She has no ties to us but her brother and job. Other than having a smart mouth and a bit of a temper, she mostly follows the rules, and she will probably want to go right to the cops.”

Bullet stares at me a moment. “You’re sure of that?” he asks.

I don’t reply immediately, clenching my jaw and fighting not to grind my teeth. Fuck, would she? What do I really know about her? Like she keeps saying, she’s not an officer anymore, she moved up to a damn high rank in the Forces all on her own. “Fuck,” I hiss, scrubbing a hand over my face and then flinching at the pain that sparks. “No, I’m not sure, but she’s pissed enough at us that?—”

“At you,” Bullet interjects pointedly.

“Fine, at me then. She’s pissed enough that she might just to spite me.”

“Could we make it an order as part of her job?” Twigs asks.

“She already tried to quit once, and if we try to order her around, she’s going to jump ship for sure,” Viper replies with a shake of his head.

“Can I just point something out?” King asks calmly. “We’ve been in here over an hour now, and that means that she’s been out there with the women for longer than that. And considering that one of those women is Mom, who would gladly throw all of us under the bus if she wanted, we might be surprised what she’s willing to do now. Mom has a way of getting to the heart of things, and maybe she’s calmed her down enough to talk to us and consider the option to help if we want to involve her.”

“Cryos, do you have someone else that can help us decode this?” Bullet asks.

Cryos shakes his head. “I have one person, and they said they were going to try and work on it in their spare time. But I haven’t heard from them since, so that means that they haven’t looked or haven’t figured it out. Could I find someone? Sure, but that would mean involving another outside person, and that could be a person that will sell us down the river to get in Vlad’s good graces for a bigger paycheck.”

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