Page 93 of Burn

“Yeah, El Mal Lugar is far busier than yesterday,” Voodoo warned. “Like, I think they brought in a whole crew.”

It took me a few minutes to bring up their location. I’d spent most of the day before hacking into the local security systems while we did our scans. Voodoo and Lunchbox had also attached splitters to their landlines which got me in behind the firewalls.

If anyone found the equipment, they could boot me out. But I’d already built a backdoor, so I didn’t need that to be in. The CCTV coverage in this region was in no way thick or useful. So good for exfiltration, terrible for getting on site.

“I’m in, let’s have a look.”

The interior cameras showed the workforce present had more than doubled.

“Fuck,” I swore. “They’re swapping their operations here—today.” That was going to fuck up all our plans. I could picture Bones' expression right now. “They’ve got a full crew in there cleaning the tables, and sweeping out the main body of the warehouse. I’d imagine they are going to bring the trucks in to do the cutting here, then box it to send it back out.”

They processed somewhere between ten and twenty million dollars in cocaine weekly in these factories. That was part of the reason we’d been brought in to remove them. Cartels were always jockeying for control and power. Cut off one head, another would rise up to take its place.

Remove the bones of their operations though? It could force them down a chute of the client’s choosing and give us alternateways of shutting them down. Right now, the only job we had was to destroy these factories.

“How soon do you think they’ll have the drugs on site?” Bones asked, I could almost hear the wheels turning in his head.

“No clue. It could be five minutes or five hours, depending on when they got started.” I checked the other factories. Both empty and unmanned.

The day before, they’d had a full complement and crew…

“Are we a go or do we scrub?” Lunchbox asked. Goblin glanced up from where he was sprawled, his tail thumping. Grace was back.

“Alphabet?” Bones prodded me.

“We’ve got two empty factories and a third now with a new staff. I’m guessing they are on the way to you.”

“Or maybe they saw you guys were looking and are giving you something else to look at.” The soft words from behind me might have made me jump if I hadn’t seen Goblin’s reaction.

“Maybe,” I answered her.

“Tell her to take a walk,” Bones said without any preamble and for now, I ignored him. He wasn’t here and she couldn’t hear him and they weren’t shooting anything yet.

“We’ve got movement,” Voodoo intervened. “Looks like a half-dozen vehicles about a mile out. If that’s more security, we’re fucked for real.”

More security. I leaned forward and studied the screens. There were definitely women in the cleaning crew. They didn’t look like soldiers or mercenaries. They also didn’t look like they were under duress. They were laughing and teasing each other as they moved.

“Anyone get close enough to hear what they are saying?”

“They are bitching about some guy on the telenovela they are all watching. Saying he’s unreal.” Lunchbox’s tone never varied from easy. “Nothing special, why?”

“Something is off,” I said, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“Are they putting on a show?” Gracie asked and I cut a glance to the side to look at her. Our earlier conversation. Did the nudity actually sell? If it made you associate the vehicle or the product with why the woman was naked?

“What would be the point of this show?” To get us to pull the plug. “Guys, I’d advise withdrawing sooner rather than later. We can blow the other two locations, put some delayed timers here. We can blow it remotely when they are done.”

“If we do that, we give them time to keep the product on the move.” Bones didn’t like either option.

“There’s no good answer.” If we’d moved the day before, we could have blown the factory with the product in itafterthe workers went home. “If we blow it while they are there, we’re going to kill innocents. If we don’t, we risk letting the drugs go and that makes all of this a moot point.”

“Unacceptable,” Bones muttered but I didn’t think he was talking to me. The man hated when our options got slashed.

“These trucks are about to be on top of us,” Voodoo warned.

“Hold,” Bones said. “Hold position, stay low. Alphabet, get me IDs on the incoming. Going dark.”

That shut them all off, they’d be able to hear me if I sent but they weren’t transmitting. For now that would have to work. I checked my watch and then worked to switch my camera views.

---