Witch Of The Federation IV (Federal Histories Book 4), page 55
“Our last shipment was short.” This was greeted by a collective gasp, but the older woman continued. “We didn’t try to hide it. Obviously, we’re not that stupid. We took what we had to the drop point and told him outright.”
“He was there?” a young man asked, his voice borderline scandalized.
The speaker shook her head. “No, he was conspicuously absent as usual, but he could see us and spoke to us.”
“I never knew Tex to take such a hands-on approach, before,” Alto mused, and her older colleague shot her a sharp glance.
“Exactly. The driver said he drove in, found a camera, and addressed it directly while the co-driver uncovered the load to show Tex the truth of what he was saying. Both men thought they were dead.” She paused and looked around at the others. “To be honest, so did I.”
“You mean he isn’t?”
Again, the speaker shook her head. “No. He told Tex we were one short of the ordered load, showed him the invoice altered to match the cargo we’d brought, and all the speakers said was for him to continue.”
Eyebrows raised around the room. “And?”
“So the driver told him the extended timeframe, and Tex told him to get back in the cab while his people unloaded.”
“There were people?”
“They came out of the shadows, all masked, and got to work. The driver says they moved like operatives.”
“Spies?”
“No, the other kind—the ones who shoot first and ask questions later.”
“Tex has gone up in the world if he uses that kind of muscle now. Those guys usually only consent to carry guns.”
“Yeah. Well, these unloaded the truck and cleared the warehouse. One of them held a gun on my people until the others were done. The driver says the guy got a call, slapped the side of the truck, and signaled my man to leave.”
“What? They let him go? They didn’t go after him?”
“Not so far and that was a week ago. We almost have the rest of the shipment for him, but we’re gonna be a day late.”
The young man gave a soft whistle. “Man, you really like living dangerously, don’t you?”
The speaker snapped a glare at him. “No. I don’t, and my driver doesn’t either. He’ll go because I’ll kill him if he doesn’t and he loves his family. Tex will only kill whoever’s there and I’ve guaranteed that his wife and kids won’t go without, but he’s put his will in order and he’s not a happy man.”
She caught the looks from those around her and returned them. “What? Go ahead and tell me you’d do anything differently.”
One by one, they looked away.
When she spoke again, her voice sounded older and more bitter than usual. “And don’t tell me you haven’t noticed anything as well.” She pointed at another of the men. “Go on. Why don’t you explain what that look was for when you walked in?”
Of the two men present, he was the oldest and he returned her gaze with arched eyebrows. “Do you really want to know?”
She nodded so he glanced across at Alto. The other woman nodded as well. When he looked at the other two, they stared intently and waited for his reply.
He sighed. “Fine. The pizza delivery guy got an order for three Hawaiian, one pepperoni, and a supreme with three sides of garlic bread, twenty donuts, and a chocolate cake. He was intercepted before he reached the drop point and given a fifty-dollar tip with Tex’s compliments.”
His expression was grim as he shot the older woman a worried look. “That observation about operatives… Yes, they were, and high-end ones at that.”
The younger man whistled but his older colleague wasn’t finished.
“It gets better,” he told them. “The babysitter was given the address of a mother of five who greeted her at the door with a smile, a wave, and a list of instructions as long as your arm, one of which was not to answer the door. You can imagine her surprise when she came out from tucking the twins in for the fifteenth time to discover two men blocking the corridor who demanded the delivery.”
Alto frowned and chewed on her lower lip. “Tex doesn’t have a sense of humor.”
“No, and he’s never interfered with the way we manage our drops. He’s never cornered or changed the locations our people need to go to, and he’s never changed the playing field at the last minute like this.”
“So?” She tapped her fingers impatiently on the arm of her chair.
“If it is a new player,” the older man said, “they’re very, very good.”
“You’re not seriously suggesting we simply let them have the top position uncontested, are you?”
He shook his head. “No, I’m merely saying if it is someone new, they’re very, very good and we need to be careful. My people have never been uncovered before—and there have been those who tried. We need to act with caution.”
“And then crush them?” Alto suggested and smiled sweetly.
The grin he gave her in reply was devious and evil in intent. “We smear them so badly their memory will make hardened criminals shudder.”
“You sound like you’ll enjoy this.”
His reply was cut short by the older woman. “And if it isn’t?”
She met their startled expression with a warning look. “If it’s still Tex and he’s changed his routines, there might be a good reason for it. What if he’s responded to some other threat? Or is testing loyalties? You all know what he’s like.”
They blanched. They did know what he was like.
The older man’s expression sobered. “We’re gonna have to be really careful about this.”
“But we will investigate it…won’t we?” Alto asked.
They nodded and fell silent as they tried to think of exactly how they could determine if the person behind the orders was Tex or if it was someone else—without incurring the crime boss’s wrath if he still held power.
It was their youngest member who broke the silence.
“Well, we know how he likes quality materials, right?”
“He also liked like agreements to stay the same,” Alto said, “and he’s been more lenient lately.”
The man shrugged. “So? What if we deliberately put sub-standard materials in the next shipment—”
“What?”
“Are you suicidal?”
“No, which is why we follow the shipment with the good stuff so that we can prove we were only testing who he was. You know Tex. He’d appreciate a little caution like that, right?”
Alto and the older woman contemplated his face while they turned his plan over in their minds.
“Besides,” the young guy continued, “we’re all fairly sure we’re not dealing with Tex, right? If we had the tiniest reason to believe it was him, we wouldn’t even have this discussion, would we?”
He looked at them, his eyes almost pleading. He sure as shit didn’t want them to have this discussion if they had the slightest inkling that the man was still in power. He really was nowhere near as understanding as he tried to paint him.
The fact that he hadn’t killed the driver and then driven the truck through one of Alto’s better-known businesses for failing to deliver according to the request was completely out of character. Tex had been fair when it came to business, but not meeting a commitment by the deadline?
Not a hope in hell. There had always been an example. Always.
As for playing with substandard materials… Man, even he wasn’t brave enough to yank that particular chain. The last time someone had tried to slip something subpar past Tex had been two years before—and the results still caused him to shudder.
There had been casualties. The crime boss who’d tried it hadn’t lived past the hour in which the shipment had arrived and neither had his family or any of his lieutenants. Not even the ‘protected’ ones in law enforcement. The young man shivered.
“You’d better hope it’s not Tex,” Alto said, watching him, “because it’s your ass that’s on the line.”
His heart sank. He’d assumed it might come to that, but he’d hoped not. He grimaced. “Fine. Whatever.”
He ducked his head to make it hard for her to read his expression. There was no way in all the living hells of this world that he would risk his business for this little experiment.
Firstly, because he wanted to survive and secondly, because if the person in power was not Tex? Then they were good enough to maybe hold their own against all comers—and he wasn’t.
The best he could do was hope he’d survive the experiment and get to keep some of what he had. No. Alto might not know it, but she and her boyfriend were the ones who’d take the fall. He had it all worked out.
Todd leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He could still taste her on his lips. The scent of her and her smile lingered behind his consciousness.
He sighed, opened his eyes, and pushed off the elevator wall. Damn, but he’d hated leaving her behind.
The elevator slowed and he swallowed the hollow sadness that threatened to engulf him. He raised his head, thumped a palm against the wall, and suppressed the memories stirred by the hospital’s antiseptic scent.
Not too long before, he’d been in a place like this. He knew what it was like to be discharged and on his own. There was no way he would let his people go through that.
“They’re big boys, now,” Stephanie had told him when he’d mentioned where he would go first.
“Two of them are girls,” he’d corrected her, and she’d raised her eyebrows.
“Should I be worried?”
The look he’d turned on her had all the certainty in the world. “Not a chance. They’re my team. You’re my girl.”
That had earned him more arched eyebrows and she’d drawn back. He’d had to reach out fast to snag her around the waist and pull her against him. “Don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise,” he told her as he stooped to capture her lips in another kiss.
It had left them breathless and he smiled at the memory. The elevator jolted to a stop, however, and brought him abruptly back to the present.
His mind turned to business and he hoped his three miscreants had recovered enough that he wouldn’t have to leave them behind. Drusilla’s knee had been fairly badly twisted and only the armor had kept her leg from giving way.
Jimmy had been lucky. The shot that had shattered his armor hadn’t done any damage to the organs it had passed, and the stim pack and pressure bandaging had been enough to make him forget about it until The King’s Warrior had drawn them into its hull.
It was Ka he wanted to kick the most. Her armor had done its job or she’d have died with the blow that split it open. What she’d done when she was supposed to have downloaded Dreth systems was to load herself up on stim packs and staple the wound shut.
She and Piet had bound her ribs and the staples slowly tore free of the wound when they’d prepped the entry into the Dreth dreadnought’s command center—and not one of the team had told him. Sealing tape wasn’t the only thing the demolitions man carried extras of, and Todd had added more items to the team’s personal load-outs.
Suicidal maniacs, the lot of them.
It was only a pity he couldn’t add an extra conscience. He wondered if supply would find him some if he asked them nicely enough. In the meantime, he would simply have to kick their asses hard enough that they thought twice about holding out on him the next time.
He needed his team, dammit.
They were damn lucky they’d ended up on The King’s Warrior where there were Meligornian healers to speed the process along. Remembering that brought a smile to his face. His three Marines were ready for pick-up and had been for the last three days.
He’d spoken to the chief healer, who’d given him a very small smile and showed him exactly how effective Meligornian healing was. His face heated at the memory.
The healer had thought it funny that his worry had blinded him to their real conditions.
“If they wouldn’t have benefited from the extra rest,” the Meligornian admitted, his eyes sparkling with mischief, “we’d have told you sooner.”
“I’ll give them bed-rest…” he’d begun, only to have the man lay a hand on his arm.
“Give them another day,” he had said. “Some trauma runs deeper than the body.”
Todd had been reluctant but it had meant one more day with Stephanie, and the healer had been fully aware of the fact. The man had laid his palm over Todd’s heart.
“Your troops are not the only ones who need the time to heal.”
That memory calmed some of the irritation he felt at the trio’s extended hospital stay and he’d begun to see the funny side of it by the time he arrived. Of course, that wouldn’t stop him from immediately dragging their sorry asses back into training.
First, though… He sighed. The Navy had called and they had a meeting to attend, something he’d tell them once he had them all in one place.
Todd strode purposefully down the corridor until he reached the ward where the three Marines waited. They were seated in their beds. Ka was propped on three pillows and tapped busily on her tablet. Jimmy lay as still as a rock with his eyes closed and Dru was reading.
He leaned in the doorway and waited for them to acknowledge him, but the three of them did a good job of pretending to be too absorbed in what they were doing. For a moment, he was torn between anger and laughter.
The laughter won.
“Come on, guys.” He chuckled. “You’ve been healed for three days now.”
They groaned, eased out of their beds, and made a show of moving gingerly. Dru came down on one foot and put as little weight on the “injured” knee as she could. Jimmy winced and clutched his side. Ka slid carefully clear of the blankets and stood with a dramatic grimace.
Todd rolled his eyes. “Oh, give it up. You all forget that I know how well Meligornian magic heals, so stop gimping around and walk like damned Marines.” His voice cracked with authority and they all jumped. “I’m beginning to think you all need extra training.”
That got them moving.
Ka grinned, shrugged off the hospital gown, and headed to the shared closet at the end of the room. “Give us five, boss.”
“I’ll give you three,” he retorted, “and it had better be the fastest three in all the worlds!”
Jimmy straightened and followed. “I told you he wouldn’t fall for it,” he grumbled and sent Dru a dark look.
She shrugged. “It was worth a try.”
“You three have had it too easy,” Todd told them. “Especially if you thought I wasn’t checking in with the healers.”
Dru gave him an unrepentant grin. “Boss, we thought you’d be too busy saying hi to your girl.”
He gave her a grim smile. “I’m never that busy.”
Her grin vanished and her expression became serious. “Not even for your girl? That’s sad, boss.”
For a moment, he thought she’d add more but she didn’t, and all three were dressed and ready to leave shortly after.
“Where to, Lance?” Ka wanted to know as they left the room.
“Meeting room,” he told her shortly.
He didn’t need to look back to know his answer had generated raised eyebrows and an exchange of glances. Well, too bad. They wouldn’t get anything more until he had the entire team in one place—and a room locked down as securely as Ka and Piet could make it.
She frowned at him when he told them what he wanted.
“I thought I said I wasn’t a hacker, boss.”
Todd inclined his head and regarded her steadily. “Past experience says otherwise, and I say too bad. You owe me for three days’ rest and getting your asses out of a bad place.”
“Given that it was you got them into the bad place, in the first place…” she began but caught his look. She sighed. “Fine, let me see what I can do.”
Gary, Reggie, and Henry met them in the corridor carrying coffee and a tray of sandwiches they’d “liberated” from the canteen. Darren, Angus, and Piet were already seated inside. They looked up as the others entered.
“It’s about time you dragged your lazy arses out of bed,” Gary said by way of greeting.
“And it’s about time you lived up to your boasting,” Reggie added, his gaze on the sandwich platter.
Jimmy curled his lip. “What’s the matter, wee man? Couldn’t you handle the boss on your own?”
Gary snorted. “Like I needed to. He was being handled quite nicely by his better half. Something you don’t have.”
Reggie gave a short bark of laughter. “Why would he need one of those? He has you.”
“Oi!” Neither man was impressed, and Reggie snickered.
Todd cleared his throat and they settled instantly. Jimmy, Dru, and Ka found seats with the others.
“So,” he began when they looked expectantly at him, “I have news from HQ.”
Gary groaned, and Reggie took a deep breath and buried his face in his hands.
Ka froze and stared.
“How badly are we screwed?” Drusilla asked, and Henry nodded in agreement with her question.
“Yeah,” Gary added. “Are they even gonna give us a reach around before they shag us?”
“Trust you to want a little slap and tickle before the main event,” Reggie joked.
“And trust you to know,” Henry added.
“Hey, since when were you invited?” Reggie demanded as though he resented the intrusion on his joke.
“Since Gary decided he liked Angus because you weren’t around,” Darren quipped, and all eyes shifted to the usually silent Marine. “What?”
Jimmy chuckled. “Well, someone’s come out of his shell.”
Gary regarded the man with a sour look. “Yeah, and he can crawl right back into it and all.”
“Which won’t keep him safe from the shagging HQ wants to give us,” Reggie observed. “Those bastards like it hard and fast without so much as a kiss beforehand.”
“Or a thank you after,” Jimmy added morosely. “Ingrates.”
“Knowing our luck, they’ll want us to go back into the middle of the pirate fleet to find them another luxury cruiser.”
