Rising (Anderson Special Ops #2) - Melody Anne Page 0,10

of buttered rum in each of them for flavor.

“Thank you,” Chad said, sipping it before continuing. “As you might recall, the man they were following was the head of the Latino chapter in the Seattle-Tacoma area. With deeper investigation they found he was also overseeing territories in BC and vast areas up and down the west coast from top to bottom, even going east into Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, and Arizona. His operation had been headquartered in San Clemente, California, but when the FBI started closing in, he vanished.”

This was the ninth meeting he and Chad were having together. When the briefings had begun, Joseph had been shocked at the enormity of this underworld community. Now, nothing surprised him. There was a lot of darkness in the world. It was a damn good thing the light eventually flushed it out. Knowing how much evil existed though, gave him more resolution than ever to solve crime not only in his area, but all around the US.

Joseph waited for Chad to go on, not asking questions. Chad would tell him what he could and in the time he felt was right to share. He wouldn’t share anything that put either the team or Joseph at risk. Joseph patiently waited while sipping his coffee and wishing for a cigar in his fingers.

“Our team found out every detail possible about . . . let’s call him . . . Jack . . . and then heard of a small, upscale party being held in a five-star restaurant. We placed one of the team inside as a patron, two of them as servers, another as an agitator, and the final man in the van with video and audio.”

Joseph didn’t ask which man was in which position. Again, Chad would give him the information he needed to have — and nothing more.

“Great job,” Joseph said with another smile. “What I wouldn’t give to be one of those guys on assignment.”

Chad chuckled. “I’m sure you’d have been the agitator.”

“Damn straight!” Joseph exclaimed with a sparkle in his eyes.

“When Jack went to the restroom, the diversion was set into motion, keeping his bodyguards busy. The team grabbed Jack, and had him loaded into the van before anyone knew he was missing. Our agitator was kicked out of the restaurant, and the other team members were back in position while our surveyor had Jack far away when his bodyguards tried to find him, leading to no covers getting blown.”

Chad paused, and Joseph had no doubt he was mentally going through the footage they’d taped. “Like most suspects, he hadn’t been willing to share . . . at first. But soon, he was singing like a canary, giving our team more than we thought we’d get out of him. He gave numbers and some names, and that led Brackish to work some magic on his computer.”

Joseph sat a bit taller in his seat. “Do you have the person who attacked Katherine?” His body was nearly shaking.

Chad’s expression fell a little and Joseph didn’t want to hear what he had to say. But he wouldn’t bury his head in the sand. “Joseph, remember in the beginning when I told you there’d be people you probably know caught up in this circle. There’d be people involved that could even shock you.”

Joseph nodded, his throat tight.

“It wasn’t Katherine’s attacker, and I’m not sure how to tell you. Rip off the Band-Aid has always been my philosophy, but I’ve never been in a situation like this.”

“I agree, just say it,” Joseph said as he leaned forward.

“Brackish has been doing a lot of investigating not only in the past few days, but in the past few months. He’s been running non-stop, looking down all the holes he can to find where drugs might be showing up. The run he did last night was for bank accounts that had deposits with at least a million dollars in red-flag type of deposits in the last ninety days. It was a bit surprising how many people in the Seattle metro area hit that amount under those circumstances,” Chad said, giving a long pause, turning a single piece of paper over in his hand again and again.

“Spit it out, Chad,” Joseph growled.

With an exhausted sigh, Chad opened the paper, laid it flat, and slowly slid it over to Joseph.

Joseph quickly slapped his hand on the paper, pulled it to him and saw a long list of names, with one highlighted approximately three quarters of the way down. Joseph’s heart