armor and automatic weapons to stand guard.
By the time they arrived, it was past midnight, but no one was sleeping. As long as the pirates were in port, Eyl was a twenty-four-hour operation.
Still, they’d found nothing. The pirates who’d been infected with the Snakehead virus were already dead, killed by Cade. Their boats were gone, wrecked or scavenged. Their names brought only blank stares from the few people willing to talk.
“A waste of time,” Cade said again.
Graves shrugged. “If you have any other ideas, I’d be happy to—”
Cade had already turned away from him and activated his phone. He called Zach.
“Give me something I can use,” he said.
“AND HELLO to you too, Cade,” Zach replied.
It was past six in the offices, and nothing seemed nearly as fresh as it had this morning. They’d all been up since before dawn, with nothing to show for it.
Bell and her colleagues were frozen with some combination of humiliation, fear and ass-covering. They refused to call Graves without any fresh intel.
They were stuck. They knew it. They’d even sent Hewitt and Reynolds out for pizza. The stink of failure was starting to fill the air.
Bell looked up from her screen. “Is that Cade?”
Candle didn’t stop popping M&Ms into his mouth. “Tell him we say hello.”
“Well?” Cade asked.
“We’ve got exactly dick,” Zach admitted. “Sorry.”
“Look harder,” Cade said.
Zach allowed himself a little sigh of impatience. Zach actually liked talking to Cade on the phone. The nerve-rending effect of his presence was neutered. Even Cade was incapable of reaching through the telephone to tear out your throat long-distance. Sure, his voice still had that creepy, cold flatness, but Zach could handle that. It made him a little bolder, a little more likely to give Cade a direct order.
Of course, Cade always came back. Always. You could send him out against the worst possible nightmares, things that handed out death and destruction like business cards, things that had extinction encoded into their DNA—and Zach had —and he’d still come back.
Which meant Zach could act as tough as he liked on the phone, but there would be a price to pay. Eventually.
Still, Zach figured, you have to enjoy yourself when you can.
“Hey, fire me,” he said. “We’ve done our best. I’ve run names of all the pirates through our covert databases, with no contacts to any of the known players. No activity at all in that part of Africa. The Archies looked at their database. No employees match the authorization for the original Somali shipment.”
“That’s what they did, is it?” Cade left that hanging for him.
Zach didn’t pick it up. “Well . . . yeah.”
“And what did you see when you looked through their records?”
Son of a bitch, thought Zach. Of course he should have checked their findings. Old habits. He’d actually started to think of them as coworkers, like they were all on the same side. He chipped in for the pizza , for Christ’s sake. Stupid, stupid, stupid . . .
“Call you back in five.”
He hung up and moved around the desk to sit at Book’s workstation.
Book, who was lying on a couch across the room, flipping pages of documents, began to rise. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”
“This is your shipping and freight database, correct?” Zach clicked around, getting a feel for the interface.
“You don’t have clearance—”
“Nice. Very intuitive. Almost like a Mac.” He quickly found the shipment number. Book had left it up on the screen. He was over Zach’s shoulder now.
“I’m not going to tell you again, Barrows.”
“He’s right, Zach,” Bell piped up. “There’s a protocol we have to follow. We’re talking about trade secrets as well as national security—”
Zach talked over her. “You couldn’t find any record of this guy here who authorized the shipment, right?”
“That’s right, genius,” Book said. “No such employee. Fake ID
By the time they arrived, it was past midnight, but no one was sleeping. As long as the pirates were in port, Eyl was a twenty-four-hour operation.
Still, they’d found nothing. The pirates who’d been infected with the Snakehead virus were already dead, killed by Cade. Their boats were gone, wrecked or scavenged. Their names brought only blank stares from the few people willing to talk.
“A waste of time,” Cade said again.
Graves shrugged. “If you have any other ideas, I’d be happy to—”
Cade had already turned away from him and activated his phone. He called Zach.
“Give me something I can use,” he said.
“AND HELLO to you too, Cade,” Zach replied.
It was past six in the offices, and nothing seemed nearly as fresh as it had this morning. They’d all been up since before dawn, with nothing to show for it.
Bell and her colleagues were frozen with some combination of humiliation, fear and ass-covering. They refused to call Graves without any fresh intel.
They were stuck. They knew it. They’d even sent Hewitt and Reynolds out for pizza. The stink of failure was starting to fill the air.
Bell looked up from her screen. “Is that Cade?”
Candle didn’t stop popping M&Ms into his mouth. “Tell him we say hello.”
“Well?” Cade asked.
“We’ve got exactly dick,” Zach admitted. “Sorry.”
“Look harder,” Cade said.
Zach allowed himself a little sigh of impatience. Zach actually liked talking to Cade on the phone. The nerve-rending effect of his presence was neutered. Even Cade was incapable of reaching through the telephone to tear out your throat long-distance. Sure, his voice still had that creepy, cold flatness, but Zach could handle that. It made him a little bolder, a little more likely to give Cade a direct order.
Of course, Cade always came back. Always. You could send him out against the worst possible nightmares, things that handed out death and destruction like business cards, things that had extinction encoded into their DNA—and Zach had —and he’d still come back.
Which meant Zach could act as tough as he liked on the phone, but there would be a price to pay. Eventually.
Still, Zach figured, you have to enjoy yourself when you can.
“Hey, fire me,” he said. “We’ve done our best. I’ve run names of all the pirates through our covert databases, with no contacts to any of the known players. No activity at all in that part of Africa. The Archies looked at their database. No employees match the authorization for the original Somali shipment.”
“That’s what they did, is it?” Cade left that hanging for him.
Zach didn’t pick it up. “Well . . . yeah.”
“And what did you see when you looked through their records?”
Son of a bitch, thought Zach. Of course he should have checked their findings. Old habits. He’d actually started to think of them as coworkers, like they were all on the same side. He chipped in for the pizza , for Christ’s sake. Stupid, stupid, stupid . . .
“Call you back in five.”
He hung up and moved around the desk to sit at Book’s workstation.
Book, who was lying on a couch across the room, flipping pages of documents, began to rise. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”
“This is your shipping and freight database, correct?” Zach clicked around, getting a feel for the interface.
“You don’t have clearance—”
“Nice. Very intuitive. Almost like a Mac.” He quickly found the shipment number. Book had left it up on the screen. He was over Zach’s shoulder now.
“I’m not going to tell you again, Barrows.”
“He’s right, Zach,” Bell piped up. “There’s a protocol we have to follow. We’re talking about trade secrets as well as national security—”
Zach talked over her. “You couldn’t find any record of this guy here who authorized the shipment, right?”
“That’s right, genius,” Book said. “No such employee. Fake ID
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