Page 71 of Empire (Cartel)

I dialled John’s number. He answered after two rings. ‘Yeah?’

‘It’s Ana,’ I said. ‘There’s FBI sitting outside my apartment.’

‘Shit,’ John muttered. ‘Watching you?’

‘I don’t think they’re watching Mrs Mayflower downstairs,’ I said, referring to my geriatric neighbour who was both legally blind and almost deaf.

‘What’s your feeling?’ John asked.

‘My feeling is bad,’ I said, looking around the apartment nervously. Was this place bugged like the hotel room had been? Shit, I hadn’t even considered that possibility. ‘Wait a minute.’ I switched on the small radio that sat on my kitchen windowsill. Placebo blasted out of the tiny speakers, and I turned that fucker up as loud as it would go without drawing suspicion. Then, I stepped out onto the balcony and closed the glass door behind me. If the balcony was bugged, I was shit out of luck, but I felt like it was the safest option.

‘Okay,’ I continued. ‘Dornan says the Sunday meeting’s been moved to tomorrow at noon. I say we leave right after. Any longer and the FBI will make it impossible. Any sooner and they’ll notice we’re gone before we even make it through downtown LA traffic.’

‘Yeah. My thoughts exactly.’

Something else occurred to me. It was useless to leave if we didn’t have a means to fund our escape.

‘Did you find it?’ I asked.

He knew what I meant byit.‘All of it,’ he said, and it sounded like he was smiling.

‘Good,’ I said, sagging back against the balcony wall as relief flooded my limbs. ‘That’s really good.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

LINDSAY

‘Morgan,’ Lindsay barked across the packed briefing room.

Lindsay’s colleague and fellow FBI officer, Peter Morgan, stood up at the desk he was occupying and made his way to the front of the room. Standing next to Lindsay, he addressed the twenty-odd federal agents who were assembled, ready to jump into action as soon as they were given the command.

Another officer handed out clipboards with photos and vital information while Morgan elaborated. ‘There’s a shipment of young girls coming from Mexico,’ he said, his expression grave. ‘There are babies, people. We have to take these bastards down before we end up with a shipping container full of dead Mexican children.’

The room was deathly quiet. Mentioning children and trafficking tended to have that effect.

Their raid had been scheduled for Sunday, but intel suggested that the Gypsy Brothers members and their overlord, Emilio Ross, had brought the meeting forward to Friday – and today was Friday. Lindsay had scrambled to grab as manybodies as he could to help pull off such a raid, and so long as the LAPD sent over a couple of officers for manpower if things got ugly, they’d be fine. He could have waited until the following Sunday, but something in his gut told Lindsay not to give Mariana Rodriguez a week to rethink her agreement to testify, or for Emilio Ross to be tipped off by someone inside the Bureau and hightail it to Colombia.

Morgan finished his briefing and Lindsay took charge once again, detailing floor plans of the Gypsy Brothers clubhouse and the surrounding areas. No exit left uncovered. No stone left unturned. No member of the Ross family left uncuffed.

And then, after he’d finished talking, it was just a matter of waiting the morning out. This was always the hardest part. Sitting on your hands and waiting for the bad guys to be in the right place at the right time, when all you wanted to do was go in, guns blazing, and drag them out of whatever hole they were currently hiding in.

‘This’ll be good,’ Morgan remarked after the briefing had ended.

Lindsay smiled. ‘Like shooting fish in a barrel.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

DORNAN

It was 11:43. Church was due to start in seventeen minutes, and Viper wanted to talk?

‘It’d better be fucking urgent,’ Dornan muttered, showing Viper into the office where his father was already sitting, flicking through the newspaper. He didn’t even look up to acknowledge Viper’s presence.

‘It can’t wait,’ Viper said, and something about his expression made Dornan baulk.

‘Shit, did somebody die?’

‘Yeah,’ Viper said. ‘Somebody did die. We’ll get to that.’

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