“I’ll start looking into your old team, family members, associates, and so on. I’ll be looking at those of Brother’s Keeper anyway,” Liam said. “It can’t hurt to rule out any personal vendettas and revenge from any foreign countries you pissed off. There’s no telling how far a real enemy will go. We deal with psychopaths, narcissists, and sociopaths, and those bastards are patient and relentless.”
Declan rolled his eyes with a snort. “Right. Enemies acquired when you were traveling the world as a mechanic.”
Dace just glared. He knew his brothers were very aware of what he had really done during that time. In fact, he’d run a few missions with a couple of them back then. But unsanctioned and off record meant he wasn’t at liberty to discuss that time in his life…ever. None of them were. It put too many people at risk and might have been what landed Ivy on the operating room table in critical condition.
C.T. nodded in understanding and chose to redirect the conversation. “I’m going to hit the crime scene again, see if they found anything else. I’ll keep you in the loop.”
“I’m staying here,” Dace said.
C.T. intervened. “She’s in surgery, and you won’t be able to see her until several hours after that. I have guys on her. You’ll be more help to her at Watermark looking for answers.”
“I may have our first lead,” Wylie said, rejoining the group. “That was Eva. We need to get back to Watermark now. I think we’ve been made.”
“Care to elaborate?” Declan asked.
“Cartel.”
CHAPTER 3
“We aren’t sure why Oregon, why the coast, or what they’re doing here,” Eva Valdez said. “I know everything going on in the major cells, hell, even the small rogue cells, and I know nothing about this.”
Eva stood at the head of the conference table at Watermark Tower – home of Brother’s Keeper Security and home to the O’Reillys – delivering the intel her team had collected. Her father, now dead, had been a longtime cartel leader the O’Reillys were commissioned to take down and hand over to the government. Only, he met his demise when Eva, his own daughter, took matters into her own hands under their noses and turned on him. Now, she worked undercover for the brothers, slowly infiltrating and bringing down her father’s former empire and anyone brave enough to challenge or assume his legacy. She was also the one who had Wylie’s attention, even if he denied any attraction.
“There were two parties – assumed buyer and seller,” Eva went on, pointing at the image flashing on the screen they all had their gaze fixed on. “Can’t tell what’s in those crates, but we may be looking at arms dealing. It’s the most logical, but unless we can get nail it down and get a better look somehow…it could be anything from weapons to drugs. Hell, it could be cash that needs cleaning before it goes into circulation.”
“The black SUVs…” Dace noted, staring at the surveillance video running on the large screen at the head of the room. “Do we know who’s in them?”
“We do not. Plates are concealed, and no clear shots for facial recognition either, but they don’t appear to be cartel at this point – no real evidence, yet. They don’t look like cartel.”
“Nah,” Liam said. “Too official. White dudes in suits. Doesn’t mean they aren’t working for or with one of the cartel families.”
“My thoughts exactly.” Eva nodded to Liam in agreement. “Our team lost them somewhere in the coast range on the way back to the city.”
“There are only so many ways through that mountain range. How the hell did they lose them? It’s a convoy of black SUVs, for Christ’s sake,” Dace chided.
“That’s where the rest of the mystery kicks in. The only thing along that route is BLM and Forest Service roads – maybe a handful of private drives and some reservation land,” Eva replied. “Best guess? They split up.”
“Did your team put the drones up to look for activity?”
Liam chimed in while tapping away at his keyboard, bringing up multiple dead video feeds on the large screen for all to see. “And therein lies the mystery, Brother. The drones didn’t pick anything up, not even our rigs.”
“Signal jammers,” Dace said, running his hands down his face.
“Had to be. That means—”
Dace interrupted once more with an angered tone while shaking his head in disappointment. “That means we aren’t dealing with petty shit here.”
“It’s not easy to go total stealth. The technology is out there, but I developed most, if not all, of it and can’t crack this. For all we know, the technology was sold or stolen and then modified, making it harder to trace. But the quality of jammer needed to keep us off their tail? Not cheap or easy to get and takes a hell of a lot of smarts to operate. Our mark could be anyone at this point,” Liam said. “My guess is government – foreign or domestic?”
“Let’s circle back to the cartel…who do they feed and feed off Stateside? Let’s hash out their friends and foes.”
Eva let out a low, slow whistle. “With the pressure we’ve added, I have to agree with Liam that it could be anyone. The organized cells are crumbling and seeking allies anywhere and everywhere because they still don’t know who’s infiltrating and dismantling them piece by piece. They have no idea it’s us.”
“Jesus.”
“Amen.” Eva winked. “So, we have intel showing a buyer and a seller. I can’t identify either side, but it looks big, and deep-pocketed, no matter who these people are. Though we can’t nail down either side of the deal we watched, we were able to identify a couple of randoms in the mix as old cartel muscle, probably working on their own…”
“Contract work?” Dace asked.
“Perhaps. Not sure they were on the buyer’s or the seller’s side, though. We should consider the possibility we could be dealing with a small or new rogue cell here too…lobos or a lone wolf, if you will. It wouldn’t be the first time we saw someone try to take advantage of the pressure felt by the big families. It’s the only thing that adds up at the moment.”
“And that’s more dangerous than your typical garden-variety organized cell…” Dace said with sarcasm. “They take risks, make messes, and don’t give two shits about the casualties along the way.”
“There’s nothing typical regarding these fools,” Eva said, her accent heavy on fools. “Even if we have a lone wolf trying to get in the game using some middlemen, we need to be careful. They contract out the big stuff and never do it themselves out of fear of it being traced back to them. They don’t have the resources and connections to get out of trouble, so they send in others and hide like snakes in the grass. This is far too close to home for me. I don’t like it.”
“Agree,” C.T. chimed in. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear anything about this. Those assholes get anywhere near my city, and I expect a heads-up.”
Declan nodded. “Heads-up and a hand getting them out of here, brother.”
Eva continued with her final piece of intel. “They were exchanging unmarked wood crates; some appeared metal. Not sure what was in them; it was too windy at the jetty where they met, so we couldn’t get a drone up over the coastline and do a scan – just had good old-fashioned binoculars from a nearby sand dune. But I’m willing to wager we watched an illegal arms deal go down, which is usually funded by—”