Page 100 of Secondhand Smoke

Three.

The sound of the door splintering around the lock was like a gunshot. The hammer, with all of Mercy’s weight behind it, forced the entry in one dramatic moment, and then they were rushing into the house.

Above the awful pounding of blood in his ears, Aidan registered things: they were in a cramped living room full of outdated furniture and three of Ellison’s men, all of them struggling to get to their feet, expressions shocked.

“On the ground,” Michael said, voice flat and cold. When they didn’t comply, he grabbed the nearest roughly by the arm and dragged him to the carpet, pushed him down with a boot on his back. “I saidget down.”

The other two complied, putting their faces to the floor, hands behind their backs.

Mercy had gone straight through this room and into the next. “Come look at this!” he called.

Aidan looked at Michael.

“I got this. Go.”

He went.

Mercy was in the kitchen, and the room’s use was immediately obvious. Bricks of cocaine, boxes of small baggies, razors on the table, dusting of white powder.

“This is where they bag it,” Mercy said, without necessity.

“It’s not Fish’s,” Aidan said, running a gloved finger along the edge of a brick.

“They used our stash to bridge the gap until they could move their own shit in,” Mercy said with disgust. “Damn, look at the amount. Everybody in Knoxville’s gonna be hooked.”

“What are we doing with it?” Aidan asked.

“Taking it with us.”

They packed up every last fleck of powder into the empty cardboard boxes stacked beneath the table, and hauled it out to the van, Carter and Tango coming to lend a hand.

Mercy halted in the living room, glanced over at their captives. “Let’s bring one back with us,” he said, calmly, almost casually.

Aidan turned away as he heard the duct tape peeling loose.

~*~

“Got a shitload of coke, boss,” Candy said from the other end of the line.

“Good,” Ghost said. “Take it all back.”

“Yes, sir.”

He disconnected the call and slid his phone away, mounted the stairs to the Gannon & Gannon construction site trailer with Phillip coming along behind him.

Fox was already at the door and had the lock picked; he sent it swinging inward with a push of his fingertips and swept inside, gun and flashlight raised.

“Clear,” the Englishman said as Ghost crossed the threshold.

He clicked on his own light and swept the beam across the desk, file cabinets, break table.

“You think there’s anything on paper?” Phillip asked.

“Nah, it’ll all be in his email and on his hard drive,” Ghost said. He held his flashlight in his teeth as he crouched down to disconnect the modem.

Phillip picked up the flat screen monitor. “That makes our job easier, then.”

Fox was over dicking around in front of a shelf.

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