Swing Shift: Book 2

by William D. Arand

  “Oh. Oh… I… see,” Janelle said. “Mm. Tell her yes. I might as well just… go all in. If I’m going to be disowned, better I get everything over with at the same time.”

  Gus closed his eyes and rested his free hand over his brow.

  In her mind, he could see her contemplating her options now that she’d decided not to kill him. Now that she simply couldn’t do it.

  Suicide was still a ready and clear option.

  Contracting to Melody didn’t seem so bad to her, either. She was moderately attracted to Melody. Heavily so towards Gus and Trish.

  She wasn’t that interested in Vanessa. Wasn’t her type.

  But she wasn’t against the idea of trying to make something work there.

  Fuck.

  “Whatever,” Gus said, letting his hand drop. He looked back at Janelle then. “Let’s talk about something else. Tell me all about your Elven world. Maybe we can figure out a way for me to intercede and tell them to fuck off.”

  Janelle smiled at him and shrugged.

  “Sure, why not?” she said.

  Then she proceeded to reveal the secrets of the Elves to him.

  ***

  It’d been a rather interesting evening for Gus.

  He’d spent almost the entire time just talking with Janelle. About Elves, the Elven nations, her, and everything that’d happened because of him.

  The Hunter.

  After his terrifying presence had been revealed to the Elven world, many things had changed. Entire organizations had been created simply to watch for him and be on the lookout.

  There had been a massive expectation for him to go on a rampage through the Elven nations. Decimate clans and families that’d been around since the dawn of time.

  And none of that had happened.

  In that interim, the royal family had reasserted itself and grown in power. They’d been the ones to put together the peace treaty with the Hunter.

  Gus couldn’t really remember much of all that, though he did remember signing a document. After that, a helicopter had come to whisk him away, along with Olsen, Mark, Old Glory, and the corpses of their comrades.

  Now the Royal Elves were moving to take more and more power wherever they could.

  Which ended with them deciding to have the Hunter removed. Despite all the agreements to the contrary, massive clans, nations, and groups were all working to ensure that the treaty was upheld so the Hunter would never come back.

  In the end, Gus’s team had agreed that taking advantage of that sounded like a great way to get Janelle into a position of power.

  Except he’d decided to leave all that plotting to people with more aptitude for it. Like Melody and Chloe.

  After that’d been agreed to, Janelle had promptly passed out on the couch next to Gus. They’d been watching some awful documentary about the world’s most talked about unsolved mystery.

  It was mostly awful because it didn’t offer anything new on any level.

  The Elven royal was pitched to one side against the couch, drool running down from the corner of her mouth as she snored.

  Must’ve been emotionally wiped out.

  I can’t imagine her day was easy. That any of this was easy.

  Especially if she considered suicide as the only viable way out.

  Gus’s phone vibrated in his pocket, except it wasn’t a text-incoming type of vibration. It was the repetitive vibration of a phone call.

  Pulling his phone out, Gus glanced at the screen and saw it was Mark.

  Good timing.

  Tapping the accept button, Gus pressed the phone up to his ear and slowly got up off the couch.

  “Hey,” Gus said, walking to the farthest corner of the room.

  “Hey, hey. Sorry I couldn’t make it today,” Mark said. “I was tied up.”

  “Uh huh. No worries,” Gus said. “Fin doesn’t seem that bad, and the congresswoman really was just there for photos.”

  “I take it everything went well then?” Mark asked.

  “Yep. That all went peachy keen,” Gus said. “Got other problems though.”

  “Let me guess. Janelle?” Mark asked.

  “Right on the first try. Any reason you knew it would be her?” Gus leaned up against the wall in the corner.

  “I watched your Fed profile get pinged a bunch of times, as well as your military profile. With that many people interested in you, it could really only be one group,” Mark said. “Especially since they were all overseas pings.”

  “Let me guess—Scotland, Isle of Man, and France,” Gus said with a chuckle. Those were all heavy-hitting Elven clans. Ones that’d been around for longer than anyone cared to admit or talk about.

  Those fighting in the Middle East and beyond were typically much younger, and warrior caste clans.

  All new information from Janelle.

  “Oh yeah. Whole lot of that,” Mark said. “So, I need to get a body dumped?”

  “No,” Gus said. “She’s sleeping right now.”

  “Holy… Gus… did you… bang her?” Mark asked, sounding excited and surprised. “Did you go out and hump a royal till she passed out?”

  “What?! No,” Gus said, shaking his head. “We talked about everything till she passed out.”

  “Oh my god, you’re so stupid,” Mark said, sighing. “If I was you… if only I was you… so deep… so deep in a harem. My Contractor would be begging me to stop. Telling me a Blue contract isn’t supposed to have forty-two women in it.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not you,” Gus said. “But I do need you.”

  “Oh baby. I love it when you talk dirty to me,” Mark said. “Say it some more, Gussy.”

  “You’re such an idiot, Durh. No, this is simpler. Need you to start working on how we hire Janelle into the Fed. She’s going to go against orders, her family, clan, caste, whatever you want to call it. Going to need a safe place to drop her once she cuts ties.”

  “That it? Hmph. Simple,” Mark said. “My budget is so massive, I make generals want to bend over and grab their ankles just for the tip.

  “You have no idea how much of that is simply due to what you and your department keep putting out.”

  “Let me guess,” Gus said, knowing it was true before he even asked, “someone is going to sell all the drugs I found after making sure they’re safe, and the Fed gets a cut.”

  “Yep. Going to sell it overseas though,” Mark admitted immediately. “Drop it in a foreign market and let them deal with the repercussions. Not our problem.”

  Gus sighed at that. He knew it was the way of the world and that this was a fairly normal thing, especially with hostile nations, but it still didn’t quite feel right.

  “I’ll get a contract drawn up,” Mark said. “Fin’ll sign. I’ve got her on the hook. She’s hungry for Gussy work. We can just hand it over to her when she’s ready to cut and run.”

  “Yeah, right,” Gus said. “Anyways. Going to crash. See you when I get back in town. We’re leaving tomorrow.”

  “Yep. Be sure you call Melody first before you hit the sack. She’ll want to know,” Mark said.

  Yeah. She does need to know.

  I just… really… don’t want to talk to her because she’ll bring up adding contracts. Her Red contract must be blazing.

  Looking at his phone, Gus realized he’d missed a message from Melody.

  When he flicked it open, he regretted looking.

  It was a nude selfie of Melody, staring very hungrily into the camera in her phone. The Red contract looked like a smoldering brand between her eyes.

  There was a message attached to the photo.

  Can I come play with you two now?

  I’m hungry.

  Chapter 25 - Sing for Me

  “It doesn’t… really add up,” Melody said, standing in front of a cork board. Given her ability to analyze a situation and sum it up, everyone had decided she’d be best at handling the overview meeting. “But it’s obvious it’s all connected.”

  �
�I mean, if it added up, we wouldn’t have the case, right?” Hailey asked.

  “Knock it off,” Chloe grumbled, turning to look at the younger woman.

  Hailey turned to Chloe with her brows drawn down.

  Sighing, Gus looked around the room.

  Everyone was here.

  Hailey, Chloe, Indali, Janelle, Trish, Vanessa, Melody, and Gus.

  They’d finally gotten back to Saint Anthony and settled back into their own department. The problem was they were now officially on the case as a whole. That covered the bombing, the game, the assassination plot, the SA debacle, the drug ring, and Janelle’s kidnapping.

  The “week off” was ignored by everyone.

  The door at the back of the room clicked open.

  “Uh… I have one Agent Serafina?” asked the receptionist.

  With Indali more or less working as an agent, Trish had hired a replacement for her to tend the front desk. It was a young man trying to pay his way through college.

  “Oh? Send her in,” Melody said, smiling.

  Serafina…?

  Why do I—oh! Oh, the creature of knowledge.

  Wow, that… happened much faster than I expected.

  Walking into the room was the PID officer Gus remembered.

  Except her black hair hung loose around her face, and she was wearing clothes that matched Melody and Vanessa’s. Flattering and very professional.

  “Good morning,” said the spirit, her glowing eyes moving from person to person. Her face was a flat mask of absolutely nothing.

  “Agent Xelnas, you made it,” Melody said, smiling at the other woman.

  “Yes,” Serafina said simply. Walking over, she took a seat at the table with Gus and folded her hands into one another in front of her. Then she looked at Melody and waited.

  Melody tilted her head to one side, watching Serafina.

  “Well, everyone, this is Serafina Xelnas. Recently of the PID from the deep, frozen north. She helped Gus and Janelle with their escape from the prison,” Melody said.

  “Yes,” Serafina said, looking around the room. “Agents Flores, Ash, Jaya, Acero, Hellström.”

  Acero? Oh, Hailey.

  Everyone politely nodded back to Serafina. She was a very odd bird, Gus figured. This was probably as sociable as she would ever manage to be.

  He took it as a compliment.

  “Thanks for coming, Serafina. Or Agent Xelnas, if you prefer,” Gus said with a grin. Turning in his chair, he held out a hand to her. “I appreciate your help back there. Not sure where we would have ended up without you.”

  “Given your record, military or private, I’m sure you would have managed,” Serafina said, shaking his hand and giving him her wide-eyed glowing stare.

  “Hm. Glad I didn’t have to find out.” Gus turned back to Melody.

  “Likewise,” Melody said, taking the cue from Gus. “So, as you can see, we’ve got what appears to be a cross-borders organization that’s working to reveal the Para world to the world at large.

  “From the assistant warden and the prison…”

  Melody paused to touch the marker, along with several notes listing files associated with that piece.

  “To the military and the fact that they were able to vanish over three hundred people from databases thought to be untouchable,” Melody said, drawing a finger along a red line of yarn from one point to another. “It’s pretty obvious we’re dealing with a group of someones that have been at this game longer than we’ve even thought of their existence.”

  “Could this be tied to the Invasion Event?” Chloe asked. “I mean, if we’re talking about people who seem to vanish, that’s the only group that springs to mind for me.”

  “I… no, I don’t think so,” Melody said, shaking her head. “I briefly considered it, but I couldn’t find anything that would have tied it together. None of that fits at all.

  “I mean… let’s call it for what it is. The city was completely paralyzed. The nation was, in fact. They didn’t just knock down local broadcasts, they put down everything and everyone.”

  Gus hadn’t known that part, but it didn’t surprise him. That single event had changed the world.

  “If they wanted to force the Para world on the rest of the world, they could have done it without a concern,” Melody said.

  “Yes,” Serafina said. “From everything that I’ve read since getting Fed clearance, the organization that instigated the Invasion Event had only one goal in mind. Locking down the city, and nothing else. Beyond that, nothing was discovered. There were reported kills of individuals, but no bodies of the invading soldiers were recovered. No shell casings or weaponry found either.”

  “Back to the problem,” Melody said. “From everything we can piece together, their goal remains the same. Although some of it doesn’t really line up or make sense.”

  “The drug running might have just been for money,” Hailey said. She looked annoyed, as she always did when it came to Melody, but she seemed to be trying to help. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard about shadowy groups slingin’ for cash.”

  “To be fair,” Gus said before anyone could respond. “I know for a fact that our own government has done that.”

  “True,” Melody said. “I’ve actually had the misfortune of running up against a few cartels that had that kind of support. It can become… quite a problem if they know who you are after that.”

  “So the drugs could have been money generation,” Vanessa said. “Add to that the prison and the recruitment from there, and you can see where they hired their pushers.”

  “Does that fit back in with the coven then?” Chloe asked, leaning back in her chair. “Maybe they were trying to get Dunyasha killed so they could take it over and use it as a drug haven for the city. I mean… the SA was pretty deep in entertainment. Maybe they targeted similar organizations in every state?

  “The SA became pretty non-violent by the end and were really pushing the drugs. The Fed didn’t really bother them that much, since people weren’t showing up dead.”

  That’s… true. It’s possible.

  “Maybe,” Gus said. “Maybe. Then this all becomes a massive money-making operation. But to what end? That’s… a lot of money to be funneling somewhere. A lot of money.

  “Best we could tell before this and even now, they’re very small, very close knit, and very secretive.”

  Everyone looked confused for several seconds as they considered that.

  “What was the value of the drugs?” Serafina asked, looking around.

  “Close to half a billion when it was all counted up,” Indali said. “Street value, that is.”

  “And how long have they been moving drugs? How long would they have been selling?” Serafina asked.

  Everyone turned toward Melody with that question. She’d been the one to really dig through all the shipping records.

  “Not that long. A month or two. But the number of crates like the ones we found were… Well…” Melody paused, shaking her head. “Doing a bit of math, I suppose you could say they made well over ten billion. Assuming they sold everything at the current value.”

  “I can’t even think about ten thousand dollars,” Trish said. “Let alone two billion. What does ten billion buy?”

  “A lot,” Gus said, frowning. “The more frightening question, though, is who it buys. Not what.”

  Everyone got very quiet at that. More than likely, they all immediately thought of the assistant warden, generals, admirals, and hundreds and hundreds of people who had all been willing to do what was asked of them.

  Without a question, because of their pay.

  “How do we go forward?” Janelle asked. “Where do we even begin? This seems almost too big of a case for us.”

  “That’s part of the problem and the case itself,” Melody said. “As Gus likes to say, the Fed got ‘blowed up’ and isn’t really an organization anymore. Not like it used to be. We might just be the best qualified for the case because there
isn’t anyone else.

  “As to how we go forward or start… I don’t know.”

  “We should reach out to organizations who are lobbying for the Para world exposure, or hiding it,” Trish said. “They’d know who has money and who doesn’t. Wouldn’t they? I’d say they’re the most likely to know who’s throwing money around.”

  “Good idea,” Serafina said, nodding her head sharply.

  “I’ll contact C&C,” Gus said, leaning to one side. “They owe me a favor. I’m pretty sure I could get in to see what they can tell me. I’m sure they’re at least ankle deep in those waters. Could probably point me in the right direction.”

  “Take Trish, Indali, and Chloe with you,” Melody said immediately. “Vanessa, Janelle, and I will start hitting the phones and calling around.

  “Serafina, I’m going to give you the lovely task of digging through all those missing people from the databases, see if you can’t find anything further. Probably should give a copy over to our local IT guy. He’s a bit of a cretin, but he does his job very well.”

  Nodding his head, Gus stood up. He needed to go talk to Mark for a minute or two in person. He hadn’t seen him yet, but knew he needed to make time for him.

  Last Gus had heard, Mark had gotten in early this morning and gone straight to his office.

  Leaving the department quickly, Gus made his way to the main lobby. Up the elevator to the top floor and straight to Mark’s assistant.

  The woman seemed slightly dazed, sitting there with a funny smile on her face.

  “Uh, can I go in?” Gus asked her, standing in front of her desk. She seemed like a nice enough woman and Gus didn’t want to impose.

  But right now she didn’t seem much like her normal self.

  “Nobody can go in,” said the woman, and then she laughed softly. “You can go in, though, Gus. Director Ehrich always says you can go right in.”

  Gus stood there unsure how to proceed. He got a strange feeling from the woman.

  “You alright?” Gus asked her.

  “Yes. Nobody can go in,” said the woman, nodding her head. “Not even me. But you’re Gus, and you’re different.”