Page 71 of Enthraller

Crates were packed in neat rows, to about head height, in a grid system. The warehouse was almost full.

Wren had come to a stop as soon as she’d stepped inside, and when he swung the light in her direction, he saw she was standing, eyes closed, chin slightly lifted, sniffing the air.

“Explosives,” she said.

He felt a visceral chill, took a careful breath. “What kind?”

“I don’t know.” Her tone, when she opened her eyes and looked at him, was frustrated. “My nanos tell me the composition of the chemicals we can smell is highly explosive.”

That was good enough for him. “There are two ways we can go,” he said. “We can slip out of here and set up a watch on who comes and goes. Or we can call in the SF teams now, and see what exactly we have.”

Wren put her hands on her hips. “There are advantages to the first approach,” she said. “But I vote for door number two.”

“Why?” He agreed, but he wondered what her reasons were.

“Because they need to be rattled. They need to feel hounded. And they need to lose access to this arsenal. So far they’ve shown no limits to their behavior. They’ll shoot from space, they’ll taunt battleships, they’ll try to assassinate people by manipulating the head of the SF teams. I want what’s in this warehouse to be made useless.” As she said that, she turned to look thoughtfully at the crates.

“What?”

“We could maybe have the best of both worlds.” She walked over to a crate, put a hand on top of it, and went very still for about five minutes. When she lifted her gaze to his, she looked a little smug, as well as a little tired. “Well, they’ll never use this stuff again now.”

“What did you do to it?”

“The electronics of the devices are dead, and the chemicals have been slightly adjusted, so they are useless.”

Ed looked around the warehouse. “There’s too many for you to do all of them. And I’m guessing it takes a toll.”

She hesitated, turned to study the whole space, and then gave a reluctant nod. “All right, then. Stick with calling in the SF teams.”

Ed used his light to illuminate the freighter label on a few of the crates. Each one was different, but after he went a little further down the row, they began to repeat. So they had a fleet of regular ships that had brought these crates in a few at a time, and they’d had two years to fill this warehouse.

This was a very long game.

“Custom and Excise will need to be invited, too. There’s enough evidence here to keep someone busy for years.” He was amazed at the arrogance necessary to keep the labels on the crates, but then, they’d never been caught before. And while this was obviously a well-resourced operation, the people they had recruited to run it seemed to be either reluctant blackmail victims or deviants like Grayson. He couldn’t see either group being interested in protecting the anonymity of the freighters who’d brought in the weapons.

“What about the woman?” Wren asked. “We can call this in to Protection and SF, but we should be the ones to go look through that building she went into.”

He was pulling his comms unit out of his pocket as she spoke and he paused, gave a nod. If there was anything to be learned, he’d rather they be the ones to learn it.

Paranoia wasn’t a feeling he was used to living with, but looking around the warehouse, it was clear these people had put a lot of time, effort and money into this operation. They would have put people in place to protect their investment.

Right now, Wren was the only person he trusted completely.

“Agreed.” He lifted the comms set up and got in touch with the person Guttra had told him was in charge while he and Hyt were unavailable. “Lieutenant Bartam, I have found something you will be interested in.”

28

Wren stepped into the hall,Ed right behind her, and what little street light illuminated the space disappeared as he closed the door silently behind them.

There was a faint light coming from above, and her eyes adjusted to reveal a large entryway with a sweeping staircase to the right.

There was a faint scent of perfume in the air, and she guessed it was from the woman she had seen come in here earlier.

The woman had been reluctant to enter the building this afternoon, but she was here often enough that her scent lingered.

Wren looked left and saw double doors that probably led through to the fabric shop visible from the street. Ed started up the stairs, and she followed him, her nanos on high alert.

She heard the rumble of a big hover coming down the street, and went very still. It had to be the Protection Unit and the SF teams Ed had called in, moving toward the warehouse.

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