Criminals

XI. Speeding Is Believing-2

“BOOM.”

We shared a smile that became awkward, faces turning serious. As fun as making bombs and blowing stuff up may be, that “stuff” in this instance may very well be people, with ramifications that could ripple out to affect many others. These people likely wouldn't lose any sleep if we were blown to pieces, but still. I think we were both on the same page about getting carried away with the humor of it.

On top of contemplating the demise of disreputable marks, the situation with the kids and Blondie's parents was still sinking in.

“Okay. This just got real,” Patty murmured. She looked up at the cloudy, moonlit sky, took a breath. I glanced around, just now realizing that sometime during the bomb cook the fading sunlight had been replaced with the garage's floodlights. She elbowed me. “What kind of cargo? Don't make me douche it out of you.”

“That's disgusting.”

“I make no excuses.”

Grabbing several zip-ties out of the tool bag, I secured the coil inside the plane, being sure to position it in the center of the crossmember so as not to upset the plane's lateral balance. “Weed.”

“w**d?” Her eyes widened with her stance. She turned toward me, arms spread. Her fingers wiggled. She asked quietly, don't-screw-with-me, “You guys have w**d?”

I stopped my work, turned a speculative eye to her. “Yeah. You smoke?”

“On man. On man! Do I smoke???” She dropped her arms and threw her head back with a look of longing. “Ugh! I haven't been stoned in like a hundred years. Damn High Priestess of Gold's Gym in there made me swear to stay sober while I had the kids.” She shifted her head and glared at the house.

A horrific thought occurred to me. You're supposed to be sober around kids? I turned and glared at the house, picturing my girl in there gabbing away with the girl-beast about men and feelings and kids and bullshit. If we have a kid, does that mean I have to stay… sober?

“Surely not,” I said aloud, head shaking in dismissal.

“She did!” Patty argued. She took a breath, composed her curly hair, then glanced around furtively. She leaned close to me and said in a conspirator's whisper, “What do you say we burn one on the sly? One or two tokes and I'll be good.”

I fed the side of the wire with the cotter pin through the fuselage, into the engine compartment. “Blondie has it.”

“Nooo,” she whined. Her lip poked out. The giant woman looked crestfallen.

I laughed. “That's probably what Doctor Gorman will say when he smells high-grade reefer smoke coming from her room.”

With disinterest she muttered, “Yeah, probably.”

“Cheer up. We'll celebrate after the job. Trust me.” She met my eyes. I said, “You'll agree it was worth the wait once you've tried Blondie's Fairy Dust.”

“Well,” she perked up. “Since it has such a cool name…”

I turned, knelt, grabbed the garbage can of plastique, hefted it into the back of the truck. Then I retrieved a pair of latex gloves from the tool bag. Slipped them on. The explosive was thick and heavy, like clay. I packed it tightly around the rear and sides of the engine, shaping it so the detonation would blow into the thick aluminum casing, propelling the hundreds of plasmic shards toward the target. Effectively making a very large shrapnel grenade. It would obliterate anything within an eight yard radius.

Satisfied the distribution was even on both sides, I took up the wire and pressed the cotter pin deep into the explosive. Packed some over it tightly.

“Is that it?” Patty asked as I put the panels back on Demonfly.

“That's it.”

I pulled the gloves off, dropped them in a garbage bag. Began cleaning up our mess. The euphoric release I normally enjoy after crafting a job like this didn't quite hit me. In the past my skills were used to make money and the devices I built were used to defeat law enforcement. No one was seriously injured, and certainly not killed. The instrument of destruction we just put together was for a different purpose, one that could make me a hero or a mass murderer. Or both. The mixed feelings were a real b***h to choke down.

When the hell did you get feelings??? my subconscious asked once more. And once more I didn't have an answer.

With Patty's help the cleanup took seconds. We piled everything into one bag and set it in the back of the Ford. As we walked into the house she asked me, “You ever kill anyone before?”

Her delivery of the question, the tone and gravitas, hinted that she wasn't judging, almost as if she, herself, had killed before.

I closed the front door, turned with an intrigued look to answer her.

My jaw snapped shut at the sound of an inhuman roar of frustration.

* * *

“Find them!” Shocker yelled at her husband.

“Yes dear,” Ace said calmly, eyes bright with the reflection of the Big Black Wrecker's enormous screen. Hands busy over the thin clear keyboard.

Shocker stalked back and forth behind his chair, arms folded, then up in the air with clenched fists. Muscular wings sprouted from her back, retracting, tilted down. She bared her teeth, snorted a growl, found her ponytail and yanked hard on it. “When Nolan and Jasmine were kidn*pped, you found them with a f*****g Navy satellite. For Christ's sake! You must be able to find Carl and Tho!”

“Yes dear.”

I looked sharply at Patty. Jasmine too?

Her eyes moved from me to the floor, mouth tight. I left it alone.

Bobby looked up as Patty and I walked in, whites of his eyes overly bright in the den's shadowed corner. He sat in a plush recliner, making it look like a child's chair. We exchanged nods, then he resumed watching the geek and girl-beast, deep in thought.

The huge computer was on a wide desk of dark, ancient looking cedar. The monitor was at least twenty-four inches, its black frame sporting connect ports and digital meters only he would know how to use. Behind the monitor were two hard drive towers that looked like they belonged on the set of Alien vs. Predator. Black and sharp and wicked in design, they hummed with power, beak-shaped heat vents resonating the high-pitched flow of the water cooling system. Green, red and yellow lights flared and blinked with meaning.

The geek built that thing… What did they call him? A supervillian.

That's one bad a*s rig!

Goosebumps excited my skin as I considered the computer's capabilities. We could steal a billion dollars and take over a few countries with that thing. I sighed wistfully and shook my head.

Or, we could help a lot of people.

“Both,” I muttered.

“Both what?” Patty said next to me. She watched the Shocker with worry.

I glanced at her. “I want my cake and to eat it too.”

She looked at the computer. At Shocker and Ace. “I doubt anyone will bake you a cake any time soon.”

I sighed, “Yeah.”

“Razor.”

I turned and nearly blanched from the intense stare that Shocker directed at me. “Yes?”

She put fists on hips and narrowed her eyes. “Do whatever it is you have to do to get your mind in gear. Snort a line, cut a flip on your bike. Sniff Blondie's underwear. Whatever. Just get your a*s in gear.”

My first thought was to respond in anger and check her. No one talks to me like that. I do s**t on my time. Which made my acceptance of it baffling. I shook my head, emulated her demanding posture and said with contempt, “One line. Pfff.” I lifted my chin derisively snobbishly. “I'd need more than one pitiful line. Get real.”

Her nostrils flared. Patty giggled.

I gave a broad, disarming grin that said, Chill dammit. Turned to speak to Ace. “Alright. Let's hear what you've got so far.”

Ace spoke without taking his eyes off the screen, fingers constantly typing. “I'm synchronizing my bots. With this network I'll have enough bandwidth and processing juice to access government satellites and databases. We'll be able to tap into the same systems the feds use to track major criminals and terrorists. Though we'll have a lot more,” he glanced at his wife, “horsepower. Shouldn't take much longer.” He looked at a meter that counted percentages. “We'll get a better look at those facilities.”

He indicated companies listed on the screen. Assets, property and staff were detailed under specific headings. I said, “We need to narrow it down.”

Ace looked at me, glanced at the others. “I studied the movements of Anh Long's moles in the Tiger Society. Most of their activities appeared to be involved in legit business. But some of it was definitely illegal.” He touched the Wrecker's screen, running a finger over several facility's names, highlighting them. “I found three businesses that are seriously deep in the criminal sewage.”

“What kind of crime?” Patty inquired.

“Drugs and p**********n, for starters.”

“Oh, mmm.” Patty waved that off.

“Uh,” Ace said. “Counterfeiting. One was raided for employing children in a sweat shop. I figure if these places already sponsor such business…”

“They might be used for slaves,” Bobby rumbled angrily from his dark corner.

We turned as one to look at the ebony muscle mountain. He stared at the Wrecker, menace pulsing from his wide jaw. Disturbed. Shocker walked over next to him. Put a hand on his shoulder and sighed a feminine reassurance. The whites of his eyes rolled up to look at her. His sigh sounded like a distant lion's roar.

I hit Ace's shoulder, pointed at the computer. “Most likely place. Which is it?”

He squirmed at the request. He obviously wanted to go into great detail about how he analyzed, equated and extrapolated the data to arrive at a result of the most likely possibility, bluh, bluh. Blondie did that too. At times I didn't have the patience for it. I rolled a finger.

He frowned, You suck, then said, “This lab.” He tapped the screen twice. All the highlighted names disappeared except one: Immunity Visions.

“Why?”

“The security staff. Half of them are ex-Army.” He typed. The page that popped up showed detailed lists of security tech, from cameras and electronic locks to motion sensors and constantina wire fences. “It's a legit company on paper.” He said “legit” with a slight roll of his eyes. “Some obscure charity funds it. I'll run through their financials and find out more, but have enough on them now to know that they are definitely a large component in a bad circuit. HIV research doesn't require so much security.” He squinted at the screen. “It's serious enough for a modest level. But not all this.”

I said, “Can you compromise their system, open some doors for us?”

One side of his mouth raised slowly, one eye narrowing. He gave a cocky wag of his head, wiggled his fingers and said, “To outcompete is to outcompute.” He glanced around. “Of course, I'd need to be on-site. And that's the problem.”

I scratched my ear, frowning. “I can put you there.”

“If you knew where it is.” He indicated the list of companies. “Addresses are listed for all of them except Immunity Visions. I searched for employee records, shipping records. Tried tracing them on the 'Net a dozen ways. Nothing turned up. No clue to the lab's location. And according to GPS records, none of Anh Long's guys have been to any lab. All their movements were accounted for. All evidence of the location has been erased, and quite thoroughly, if what I've discovered so far is any indication.”

“Vietech,” I grumbled. “That dude needs to find a new job.”

“Or maybe just a new boss,” Bobby said, reminding us of Anh Long's plan.

I nodded. It was entirely possible Vietech did everything for Diep out of fear. And he would be valuable to whoever took over the Tiger Society. “Maybe. We'll see what Blondie thinks.” We'll see if we can stop her from beating his a*s…