Jameson (In the Company of Snipers #22) - Irish Winters Page 0,86
He could only hope Maddie’s plane was late. Or that she’d had a change of heart and come to her senses, had at least re-evaluated her rash decision to take on Lucy by herself.
They arrived at the address within twenty minutes, and the taxi left them on concrete that wasn’t sidewalk. Jameson paused a few seconds to get his bearings. Heavy machinery rumbled nearby, vibrating the ground beneath his feet. The air was brisk, full of salt, sea, diesel fumes, and commerce. Full of sound and the capitalistic heartbeat of America, the world of container storage. Of semi-trucks coming and going. Of train engines pushing and pulling. Of dock workers calling out orders and foul language.
The steady rumbles were heavy-duty front-end loaders, forklifts, and massive industrial cranes, each assigned to maneuver containers from here to wherever they were destined. Pushers that moved stacks of containers along railroad tracks, for transport or for safekeeping until their carriers arrived. These were the southern docks of the Port of Boston, and he was standing inside the high-tech container facility once known as Castle Island. Given the amount of time it took the taxi to travel here, and the lack of scenting anything the least bit edible on the breeze, he told Eric and Harley, “We’re at Conley Terminal in South Boston.”
“Right on,” Harley replied. “Don’t know how you knew that, but keep your ears on. We do this together. We get in, get Maddie, get out.”
By ears, Harley meant the wireless headset Jameson had secured over his head. Listening and interpreting audible data was his gift. Without asking or talking, he turned with his head up, his nose in the wind, and his new team at his side. Maddie was here. He’d never be able to explain how he knew, and it wasn’t because he could scent her like dogs scented missing humans. But he’d never been more positive. Somehow, she’d arrived before them.
“She’s already here,” he told his teammates with confidence.
A heavy hand cupped his elbow. “Then you lead,” Eric breathed, “and we’ll follow.”
He’d no more than uttered that order when his phone chirped. Harley’s buzzed at the same time. Both men asked, “Yes, Boss?”
Jameson had lost his cell after Delaney’s jet exploded, and he hadn’t thought to grab the burner from the safehouse before they’d charged out to rescue Maddie. He cocked his head now, listened, and prepared for the worst. Cell phones ringing in harmony always spelled trouble.
He just didn’t expect Alex’s voice in stereo, bellowing, “Wait for me!”
“What the hell?” Harley muttered. “Where are you, Boss?”
Jameson sensed the direction of the shockwave rolling toward them. “He’s right there.” He almost told his teammates to, “Duck.”
OhGodOhGodOhGod. Jameson is here? Eric and Harley, too? How’d they do that? How’d they know where I’d be? I didn’t even know where I was going until I called Nash’s loan shark.
Which had been the luckiest guess of Maddie’s life. She’d snagged the burner phone back at the safe house, and then, after she’d snuck inside the power company truck that had been parked fortuitously on the curb outside the safe house, she’d finally called the number that wicked loan shark had nailed to the middle of her front door, like an eviction notice. Which seemed like another good sign at the time, him answering his phone as quickly as he had.
But now that she stood in the shadow alongside the Black Irish Rose Tavern, avoiding eye contact with everyone and keeping her head down, she wasn’t so sure of anything. Planning a strategy back inside the safe house was easier than implementing it out here where anything could go wrong. She’d used every last bit of her savings to rent passage on the private plane that brought her to an airstrip outside South Boston. There she’d called a cab to get her to this exact business on the Harbor.
The grimy denim jacket she wore now, she’d stolen on her way past a row of disgusting, smelly forklifts. It was too large and smelled so strongly of body odor that it watered her eyes. The ball cap she’d picked up from the ground didn’t fit any better. But the jacket concealed her nine, and the dirty cap made her anonymous, just one of the guys. One of the short guys.
She’d never met Nash’s loan shark in person, but when he’d first called, demanding she pay off Nash’s debt, he’d sounded just as she’d expected, cold and ruthless. What she hadn’t expected was that he’d also