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Shattered Edge(73)



I could see why. The guy could never keep his mouth shut long enough to stay alive.

“Well Dan, every agency needs good gophers. They’re important too.”

“You’re shittin’ me right?”

“Yeah Dan, I am.”

He laughed. I didn’t.

We pulled into what appeared to be a private air strip after we went through several layers of security. I knew better. It screamed government all the way around. The damn government needed to quit buying those black Tahoes or Surburbans. They were dead giveaways. They were scattered everywhere.

Dan pulled up to the plane and I hopped out. “Thanks for the ride Dan. Have a nice career.” I didn’t wait for a response but headed up the steps.

When I reached the opening to the aircraft I heard, “You must be Caroline Cole.”

“That’s correct. And you are?”

“Mick Waterson. Welcome aboard. First things first. ID’s.”

He showed me his and I showed him mine. There were two other people on board, one being the sandy haired man from that night in Charleston. He did two long slow blinks, signaling me to act like we’d never met. Hmm, this might be interesting. Even these people, this high up, didn’t know about my change in identity.

“Caroline Cole meet Pete Kowalski. He’s the one that’s running this show. And over there is Jonas Richardson.”

“Pleased to meet you guys.”

Mick said, “Have a seat Caroline and get buckled up. We’re ready to take off.”

We started talking about my thoughts immediately. They kept countering me and I had to hand it to them. Everything had validity. But so did my ideas.

“Look guys, let’s think about it. We have these huge trucks coming over the border filled with all kinds of stuff...lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, what have you. What if the distribution center they’re going to is owned by someone that’s linked to the cartel? What if they have someone on the payroll...so when the inspection occurs, things are missed, overlooked, whatever? It’s not impossible. My other thoughts have to do with how things are shipped. What if there are false bottoms to everything? Enough room to smuggle in kilos of heroin or coke?”

They were all shaking their heads going, “No fucking way. We have drug dogs.”

“Right. I’ve thought about that too. What if they’ve done something to the dogs to mess up their sense of smell? It happens to humans when we get colds. Like inflammation. It screws up our taste and smell. Why can’t they do something to the dogs? Or spray something on the drugs to keep the dogs from finding the scent?”

They all shut up and stared...and stared...and stared. I was getting very uncomfortable by the time Pete finally said something.

“I told you she’d be worth the trip.”

That was the conversation for the rest of the flight. We were on the computers and communicating with veterinarians all over the country trying to figure out what could disable a dog’s sense of smell.



********



We landed in El Paso and headed straight for EPIC (El Paso Intelligence Center). Preston was due to arrive in two hours.

They handed me a stack of folders and told me to figure out which ones had merit. They were talking about the wholesale food distributors in the U.S. that the Mexican produce was being delivered to.

I wanted to throw the folders right back at them. They didn’t believe me. Or at least that’s how I perceived them to feel. Screw it, if these needed reviewing, then that’s what I’d do.

It took me two days before the pattern started to emerge. One company, Mendoza Produce and Mexicana Produce started to look suspicious. When I tracked their deliveries to DFW, two days after every delivery, there would always be a spike in either drug related shootings, arrests or something similar. It kept getting more interesting. These two wholesalers were directly tied to one large distributor, East Coast Wholesaler, that handled grocery chains all over the southeast and east coast.

On the third day, I presented my findings. The shit hit the fan. Preston smiled. So did Pete.





CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN





Justin



Today would’ve been our wedding day. I couldn’t run fast enough or far enough to get away from those demons. I was on call and wanted to work straight through. I didn’t want to stop for anything. Pearce happened to be on call too, so every now and then, he’d stick his head in and check up on me.

We both had a few minutes over lunch and he took me aside and wanted to know how I was.

“Don’t ask me that today.” I couldn’t stop the tears from dropping onto my cheeks. I didn’t really cry anymore, but the tears were present today. My heart would never mend. There would always be a piece of it missing. I wondered one time if a heart transplant would make it feel better. When people talked about broken hearts, I never knew their chests truly hurt. Mine did...all the goddamn time. It hurt when I woke up. It hurt when I worked. It hurt when I ran. It hurt when I ate. I’m sure it even hurt then I slept. It would always hurt until the day I died.