“We wanna talk about Hayes.” Jules nods to a spare chair beside her. “This is Special Agent Nick Banks, and he’s here to discuss Abel Hayes.”
“Okay…” Pulling out the chair beside Jules, I pray no one can see the way my heart slams against my chest. “I’ve got the Hayes file here. What did I miss?”
“We got a tip that Hayes has a job coming up,” the special agent, Nick Banks, speaks with confidence. “We’ve been liaising with Chief Turner on the Infernos case, but we got an anonymous tip late last night that there was a handover coming up.”
“A handover?”
“Cocaine,” he adds. Accepting the file I offer with shaking hands, he lays it out on the ten-person oak table and nods at the image of Abel that slides out.
I haven’t handed Kane’s file over yet; it sits in my purse and burns a hole in the leather.
“We got the tip and coordinates. The cargo’s already been moved from the ship, now they’re being loaded onto trucks. We know where they’re coming in from, and when I spoke to border patrol, they confirmed the exact shipping containers that hold our delivery.”
“Cocaine?” I swear, they must be able to smell my nerves. “The drug? If they knew what ship it was on, why didn’t border patrol stop them?”
“Because the shipment belongs to Hayes,” Alex says. “If we stop them three thousand miles away, Abel’s clean. They have to come here first.”
Alex’s sharp answers and sharper eyes dig into me. He’s not my big brother right now. He’s the chief, and I’m a minion.
Even Oz, the guy whoalwayshas a joke, watches on seriously with his long fingers steepled under his chin.
“So we have eyes on the containers,” Special Agent Banks confirms. “Threeshipping containers, to be exact.”
“Three?” My eyes flip back to the file. “How much is he bringing in?”
“Our tip suggested more than two tons.”
“Tons?” My heart simply stops in shock. “Tons?” I look to Jules. “As in, two of your truck’s worth?”
“Around five-thousand pounds,” Alex inserts. “That’s what we were told, anyway. So now we have to–”
“Wait.Whotold you? Who gave you the tip?”Does Kane know there’s a tipster? Will he be there for that shipment? Who the fuck is snitching from within Abel’s business?
“An anonymous caller,” Banks says. “We don’t know who they are, but we have to investigate it. We’ve been watching that club for a long time and I’m not passing up this opportunity to flatten them.”
“When?” My eyes flip around the room, to Jules, to Alex, to Oz, even though he’s yet to say a word. “When’s the container due in?”
“Saturday. Three in the morning under the cover of dark.”
“Saturday? Six days away?”
“Yes, ma’am. We think we’re ready. Teams are scrambling, and our men are trained and familiar with their roles. Positions and timing will be important, because if we mess this up, Hayes will spook and go underground; the trail will go cold and we’ll have wasted a whole year. Bishop is his second-in-charge, and you’ve been studying his file exclusively for half a year; we need you to give us what you have on him.”
“Rarely do men like Hayes carry out their own work,” Oz says. “In fact, he probably won’t even be at the drop. But Bishop will be there, Flynn will be there, and that’s his top two. If we take them, we disable Hayes’ chessboard.”
With shaking hands and a thrumming heart, I fist my cell under the table and pray I don’t blurt anything incriminating. “I’ve been studying Bishop. I haven’t looked at Flynn much.”
“Alright.” Banks nods. “You have the floor. What have you got on Bishop?”
“Um…”Crap. Fuck. Holy hell.“Well…”
Jules’ eyes narrow. “She’s been unwell this week.” Her eyes go to Banks. “Jess is my best. That’s why I gave her Bishop, but she’s been unwell.”
“You have my sympathies, Miss Lenaghan, but I have less than a week to get ready. Tell me what you know, then you can go home and zone out.”
“I don’t think Bishop is as high in the chain as we thought.” Clearing my throat, I look down to the file in my lap. “I’ve been watching. I’ve been to the club twice in the last week.”
“Jessica!” Just like that, Alex transforms back to brother and protector. “What the hell are you thinking? That place is dangerous! What if we raided while you were there? What if someone got it in their head they could touch you? The people that frequent that place take ‘no’ as a friendlysuggestion. Not a fucking command!”