A plate of bacon and eggs sat steaming on the counter beside Thorn as he lowered himself into a chair along his elevated bar and began to eat. In front of him was his laptop, the screen already open, a video conference window poised and ready to play. In quick succession he took in three large bites of eggs, handed a slice of bacon to Abby, and dialed Ingram’s number.
He was still chewing as the image of Ingram came up in front of him, his former coach wearing a dress shirt without a tie, looking fresh.
“Sorry I’m late,” Thorn said. “Debrief took longer than expected.”
He made no effort to hide the grouse, or the exhaustion, in his voice.
“Aw, hell,” Ingram said. “Good first night I take it?”
Thorn snorted, his head rocking back a bit. “Depends on your definition of good.”
“Meaning?”
Thorn had spent the entire ride home trying to determine how to best package the events of the night. In all that time he had arrived at the unenviable conclusion that there wasn’t one, nearly everything that had transpired being bad.
“Meaning on night one, my coworker was killed, along with the better part of a hundred Cuban refugees that were stowed away inside a storage container.”
He decided to stop there, knowing Ingram would have scads of questions, choosing to let him ask whatever he wanted instead of trying to summarize it all at once.
For a moment Ingram stared back at him, a look on his face that displayed he wasn’t quite sure if Thorn was telling him the truth or not. “That’s a hell of a first night’s debrief.”
“It was a hell of a first night,” Thorn said.
On the floor beside him Abby let out a low whine, a strong hint that she was finished with her first piece of bacon and ready for more. The same thought passed through Thorn as the aroma of the food wafted up at him, just inches from his fingertips.
“Were you able to find out anything?” Ingram asked.
Thorn leaned forward and rested his elbows on the edge of the counter, looking into the camera. “Whoever’s behind this has done their homework. They knew our round schedule and knew which container to go for. If it hadn’t been for the crane turning on, we may not have even known they were there.”
“Crane?” Ingram asked. “Meaning they hooked up a container and dropped it in the harbor?”
“Yeah,” Thorn said, bobbing his head up and down, a scowl on his features. “A hundred people screaming inside and they tossed it in the water like it was a bath toy.”
“Damn,” Ingram said, looking up at the ceiling as he thought out loud. “That’s cold. Sounds almost personal.”
The same thought had occurred to Thorn less than an hour before, though he refrained from saying as much.
Ingram pursed his lips and thought another moment in silence. “What else?”
“After it went down, I waited until the refugees cleared out and called Sam King.”
Ingram flipped open a manila folder on his desk, rifling through sheets of paper until finding what he was looking for and reading from it. ”Sam King, looks to be Turner’s go to guy on the docks.”
“Two o’clock in the morning and he was there twenty minutes after I called.”
“He shake you down any?” Ingram asked.
“No, but he had no reason to,” Thorn said. “The scene confirmed everything I told him. After that, he made a few calls, brought in a crew to clean things up.”
“Any idea who he called?”
“Naw,” Thorn said, shaking his head. “I heard him mention the Cubans, but I didn’t get a name.”
“Nothing we didn’t already know there.”
Thorn nodded, but said nothing.
“So what’s the next move?” Ingram asked.
“I’m on again at eight,” Thorn said, a sigh rolling out with the information.
Ingram raised his eyebrows and said, “You really think they’ll come back tonight?”
“Tonight? Not a chance, but it’ll give me time to figure out if those cameras actually saw anything and, if so, get a copy of the tapes.”
Ingram wrote a note down, scribbling on the pad in front of him. “You don’t sound convinced.”
“I’m not. There wasn’t a light on a single one and the few that had wires running from them weren’t attached to anything.”
”Anything else?” Ingram asked, finishing his notation and looking up expectantly.
“I’m going to need some things from you.”
“Name it.”
From this point on, Thorn was going purely on speculation. He had nothing more than a couple of conversations with Ingram in terms of knowing what his new employer had for capabilities, but it was time to start testing the boundaries.
“I need a few fiber optic cameras,” Thorn opened. ”Something small, inconspicuous.”
If there was any surprise from Ingram at the request, he didn’t let it show. “Okay.”
“Also,” Thorn said, watching close for any reaction from his boss. He was just a few days into the job and knew he might already be pushing his luck. “We know these guys are targeting two things, and I don’t feel good using people as bait.”
“You’re going to need some cars,” Ingram said, connecting the dots, jumping straight to the conclusion.
“Just enough to fill one container. A few muscle cars, a foreign job or two with flashy paint, I’m sure we’ve got a database somewhere of what’s hot right now.”
“We do,” Ingram confirmed. “How are you going to leak the word that they’re coming in? I can put them on a boat, but that doesn’t mean anybody will know about it.”
“Already working on it.”
Ingram finished jotting down the request. “When do you need this stuff?”
“Maybe tomorrow on both?”
Raising his wrist, Ingram pushed back the sleeve on his shirt, checking the time. “Should be doable.”
“Alright,” Thorn said, bringing his hands together in front of him, a slight clap sounding out. “That should do it.”
“Good work on your first day,” Ingram said, already moving about on the other side of the camera, heading off to fill the requests he’d just been given. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Thanks, Coach. Later,” Thorn said, slamming the laptop shut. He paused a moment, his hands still flat on top of it, before shifting his attention to the meal fast growing cold beside him.
“What do you say, Abby,” he said, turning to look down at the floor, his dog still in the same spot, staring hopefully up at him. “We finish eating and then hit the hay?”
Chapter Twenty-One
Liberation Day - A Thorn Byrd Novel Page 22