Page 30 of Undercover Savior

I was fascinated. “Go on.”

She reached into her computer bag, rummaged around in it, and extracted a notebook that looked as though it had gone through the wash and dry cycles of a laundry machine. I studiedher as she flipped through the pages, each of which were full of scribbled notes.

“Let’s start with medical supplies…”

According to her research—and well-placed sources, I suspected—Sullivan had noted manifests showing full containers of the aforementioned supplies. She turned her laptop so I could see the two documents she’d pulled up on the screen.

“The arrival weights are significantly different from those taken at departure. This is also true of shipments containing humanitarian aid in the way of food supplies. Those were off by as much as thirty percent. Not to mention ‘lost’ containers and suspicious detours. At first, I just thought they were selling both on the black market.”

“But then?”

“Temperature logs for sensitive medications were incomplete, inventory reports on the manifests don’t match, there’s so much missing documentation, and then this.” She replaced the images on the screen with others.

I studied what appeared as much to figure out what they meant as to determine where they’d come from. Sullivan had sources in very high places.

“I won’t divulge where I got this.”

I looked from the screen to her. “I would expect not. Based on this alone, Tower-Meridian experienced not just communications blackouts but managed to block satellite tracking. At least on this particular shipment.”

Sullivan shook her head. “All the manifests I’ve looked at are the same.”

Something else occurred to me. “Can you go back to the previous one?” When she did, I leaned in for a closer look. “This vessel’s home port is Tees.” Most larger shipping companies in the UK were registered in Felixstowe, the largest port, by far.

“I could do an extensive exposé on corruption out of Tees alone.”

I rested against the chair and looked at Sullivan rather than at her computer. “What’s your theory?”

“At first, I was convinced Weber’s primary business was trafficking in humans.”

“Now?”

“Weber’s patterns suggest sophisticated coordination between Tees and Felixstowe. They appear to be exploiting the chaos inherent from traveling between two such different ports. Not to mention, the manifests are signed off on at the smaller of the two and spot-checked at the larger. Which, without the blackouts and dead spots, removes all suspicion.”

There was something I was missing. “Your hypothesis is that they’re loading weapons in Tees, then traveling to Felixstowe to pick up the aid-related supplies.”

Sullivan shook her head.

“What, then?”

“There are no aid-related supplies.”

“Meaning it’s all designed as camouflage?” How in the bloody hell would that work? Even the most simplistic of manual checks would detect metal. “A single, well-timed raid would put them out of business and land Weber in prison for the rest of his life.” I rested my crossed arms on the table. Someone like Con could’ve pieced this together in a fraction of the time it had taken Sullivan. Which meant he had done. The question now was, when? In the last few hours, or had he known far longer? I rolled my shoulders, knowing that sometime very soon, I’d be forced to have one of the hardest conversations of my life with a man who’d been my friend for the entirety of it.

“Have you been to your room?” she asked.

“I was on my way when I noticed you in here.”

“Tag said mine wasn’t ready yet, but it should be by now.”

“Shall we go up together?” I asked as I watched her cram everything that sat on the table into her bag. “Perhaps a work area can be set up for the duration of our stay here.”

She hesitated. While she’d trusted me enough to share her theories with me, it wasn’t enough for her to leave her research unattended.

“We should talk,” I blurted right before one of Tag’s staff members walked past the library. “Privately.”

10

SULLIVAN

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