Page 225 of Bossy Hero

“Nice little threat at the end,” Klein murmurs.

I spring into action, darting to the easel in the corner and thrusting the used pages over the back. “Before I start barking out orders, tell me what you’ve done so far.”

Tomer’s ready with his update. Exactly like I knew he’d be. “Klein pulled the names of everyone who works at the Tampa port or has access.”

I scratch that on the page in shorthand. “Good. I want that cross-checked with every other list we have. With any luck, we can figure out who works at the port that’s in bed with Lenkov. That’ll tell us where to focus surveillance. I also want to know who at the port the mayor used to put this in motion.”

“Already in progress,” Klein answers.

“Excellent. What else, T?”

“I’m reviewing the vessel schedule for Tampa. We need to know what ships are in port already, which are coming in over the next few days, and how much available space they have for containers.”

I scrawl more notes across the page, nodding along as he explains.

“Boss, to cut to the chase... we’re essentially repeating the prep we did for the Port of Miami, aiming to identify all the ships, terminals, and berths that might be available to Lenkov. We’re going as fast as possible, but this is a metric shit ton of info to pore through.”

“I’ll help. Tell me what you need,” Lettie offers.

Fighting an inappropriately timed sprawling smile, I settle for winking at her. “Once we’re done listing out steps, we’ll divide and conquer. Lionheart, Sawyer, Jonesy, and the rest of the team will be in soon. Hell, I’ll put Val to work if I need to.” I glance at the clock. “Lettie, why don’t you get Shep and his brood up here now? Lionheart and Sue too. Let’s not wait.”

“You got it, Boss Dad.” She dashes out of the lair.

I look from Klein to Mia and Tomer, waving my hand in a circular motion. “All right, what else have you started?”

Mia provides her status. “I pulled the cargo ship routes for Tampa to compare them against the list we anticipated as our most probable targets for Miami. If we can narrow down where they’re headed, we’ll have a better shot at stopping them. We have a ton of space to cover in Miami as it is. Adding multiple locations in Tampa is gonna be a challenge.”

My shoulders become vises, applying steadily increasing pressure. “Yeah, yeah. I get it. We’re fucked in terms of our people-to-targets ratio. We need more undercover law enforcement we can trust. But you already know how I feel about that.”

I raise my hands like I’m directing a chorus. In unison, they drearily recite my new mantra.“The more people who know, the more likely it’ll get back to Lenkov.”

“Very good.” My head lowers into a partial bow. “Moving on.”

They list five more tasks while I struggle to write fast enough to keep pace with them.

“I also want you to pull cruise and passenger ships.” I stop writing and set my sights on Mia. “Check the passenger manifests like we did for Miami. There’s still a chance they’ll attempt to use cruise ships in favor of smuggling via cargo.”

She nods. “Will do.”

I drag the marker over the page, adding other random notes before I forget them.

We need to work fast. This prep took weeks for Miami. This bomb couldnothave come at a worse time.

Scratch that. Pretend I didn’t jinx it.

Learning Lenkov is diverting half his shit to Tampa could have come tomorrow or the day after, which would be way fucking worse.

I huff out a deep breath from my lungs and scan the page. “Is that all you have so far?”

Tomer interjects, his tone braided with a barely discernible thread of apprehension. “Before we continue, you need to hear the rest of the surveillance we got on Katia.”

I freeze the marker an inch from the page and crane my neck around to shoot wide eyes at him. “There’s more?”

He nods, licking his lips nervously. “I finally found a way to access the camera and microphone on her cell phone.”

Last I heard, he couldn’t do more on her cell other than monitor her location and tap her calls due to anti-malware tech on the device. And she barely uses the damn thing for phone calls. Reminds me of my daughter in that way.

Andonlyin that way.

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