Page 56 of Never Enough

“I don’t blow up people, no matter how much they might piss me off with their stupidity.”

“So, if it’s not your work, Haskell suggested it might be a copycat from the Salieris.” Waters swung his chair in an arc to survey all of his people before turning back to those on the screen. “People, this name is coming up way too many times of late, and no one is sharing. I want an explanation of who, or what, the Salieri are and why they are coming after my people.”

The men and the woman on the screen sat quietly for a moment, soaking up the pronoun “my.” It was not going unnoticed that he was extending this description to Haskell.

Finally, Medusa spoke up. “The Salieri,” she began, “can be traced back as far as the Crusades, but it’s likely they go back far longer than that. They are the original organized crime family.”

“Never heard of them,” TB interrupted. “I’ve been scurrying around on the dark web longer than Midas, and there’sbeen no whispers of that name crossing my path. I’m pretty sure I would have at least heard of these players if they existed.”

“You probably have run across them. In fact,you’veprobably worked for them at one time or another. Possibly many times. They use individual players mid-level on the chain to hire out a lot of grunt work, including targeted hits, which is why no one ever hears about them as a whole. But they haven’t gotten to be who they are and as powerful as they are by letting their name slip through the cracks. While Flame’s kidnapper worked for the organization, he should never have known about them yet. He was far too low on the totem pole.”

The people on the screen all shared looks again.

“People,” Waters broke in, “weighty looks make for great drama in movies. However, in real life, we have two women who were targeted today in a very public place. We recently interrupted a very sophisticated prototype of a distribution center for human trafficking; two of my team members found a huge increase in technology for that trafficking scheme, and my woman’s brother is somehow smack-dab in the eye of this clusterfuck. Will someone please read us in?”

Haskell watched Medusa closely, noticing she didn’t respond like the others. As long as she had known the woman, she more than lived up to her name. All of her—from her hair ends flipping up like forked snake tongues, the lightly shaded sunglasses over her eyes, and the stone-faced expression—she more than fit her name.

Therefore, it was surprising to her when Medusa chose to volunteer information. “What Gendry knew, or thought he knew, is immaterial since he’s now shark chum.” She directed those words to Waters. “The brother? We’ll deal with him eventually. He knows to be patient, and the cavalry will arrive.”

It took a moment for the last statement to sink in. It wasSteel who spoke. “Does that mean that Ka-Bar works with you?”

Loki responded, “On occasion, our paths do cross. He was vetting a source for us in Egypt.”

“Zahra.” The light bulb answer came from Waters.

“Yes,” Loki confirmed. “She had information we wanted, and given their past history, we sent Ka-Bar in to handle the asset. He managed to get her talking about her family’s involvement with our target, and during that time, they clearly reestablished their relationship.”

“You’ve known all along where he was? You’ve let us waste all this time and resources looking for him? His sister has been worried sick, which, in turn, upsets me.”

Loki admitted, “Obviously, we knew who he was with, but we’ve always been a few steps behind on the where. The sighting we gave you a few months back was the last we had until the photographs from Haskell, and when we received those, we were under strict orders not to share that information yet. Since he was our contractor, the hope was we could handle it on our end. We broke protocol when we ran out of options looking for Haskell, so when we called you, we used it as a bargaining chip, yes. All of our asses are going to be on the line for going against orders. While I appreciate your concern for Kai Serrano, that is not our problem. Our endgame is not yours.”

Haskell piped in, “Everybody needs to calm down. Before Ka-Bar disappeared, he told me that the Kaders were using an abandoned Mzingwane mine as a means to fund their new pipeline. Originally, they were manipulating the illegal surface miners to surrender their finds for extremely low returns. However, with their new discovery in the mine itself, they’ve since expanded to extorting the miners to abandon their individual tunnels at the surface level and work in the abandonedtunnels. No method of coercion is off the table—threats of arrest, torture of the miners, their families, you name it.”

“All things we suspected,” Steel said.

Gilgamesh added, “We’ve recently identified their source on the police force who warns them when a raid is coming. They bug out until the police leave, then start back up again. Getting in front of them and their work has been near impossible.” He gestured to Haskell. “Go ahead and show them what you found, Haskell.”

Haskell reached into her pocket and extracted a small packet of wax paper. She laid it on the table and opened it to reveal two dozen pebbles in various sizes. “I found these running in three separate veins that were within three feet of each other.”

Cerberus explained, “Those stones are the key to a disaster of epic proportions. If they’re allowed to continue mining for those stones, they’ll be nearly impossible to stop financially. And not only that, but they’re doing irreparable damage, raping the ecosystem there with their operations.”

“Fuel pollution?” Steel asked.

“For starters. They’re contaminating the water table. Illegal mining operations are not concerned about operating within safety standards regarding the chemicals and techniques they use. So not only is the land dying due to poisoned water but so are the cattle and people who draw water from that table, whether it’s for everyday living or crops. The effects are far-reaching down the line, and who knows how much damage has been done once those contaminated waters hit the Limpopo and eventually the Indian Ocean. You can guarantee the Kaders aren’t big proponents of reclamation.”

Nemo was sifting through the pebbles with the tip of a pen. “Some of these are diamonds, but I don’t recognize these stones. What are they?” he asked Haskell.

“Tanzanite, mostly. The largest one is taaffeite.”

His head shot up. “Shut the fuck up!”

She shook her head. “I know, but that’s what they are.”

“I’ve never even heard of taaffeite. Why is that such a big deal?” Demon asked.

“Taaffeite is one of the rarest natural gems created on Earth. Even more rare than tanzanite, which is only found in Tanzania, hence its name,” TB offered.

Nemo added, “Taaffeite is also found in Tanzania and Sri Lanka only, at least as far as we knew.”

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