Page 107 of Redemption

“You can’t stop the sales from going through,” Deacon said.

Sugar gave him the finger. “Fuck you.”

“There are bigger things at play.”

She shook her head. “Don’t care. I’m here about my girl. I didn’t say I want to stop the distribution.” Though she did. AKs or whatever hitting the street under the government’s blind eye would kill her or at least require her molars to get capped as she ground them down. “I hope whatever deals you’ve cut recently are worth it.”

Deacon didn’t respond.

“About the rescue operation.” Tommy broke the awkward silence. “If you’d like to coordinate—”

Sugar shook her head. “Not at this time. All I’d like is intel.”

“We’d like to keep any actionable information admissible in court—”

“We’re not going to take grenade throwers to an Iowa farmhouse,” she snipped. Or she didn’t think they would, technically. She hadn’t seen any plans, so…

“They’ve only had her for what, less than twenty-four hours?” Marco asked.

The ATF trainee nodded. “If she was the cause of the cancelled gun sale last night, yes.”

“They haven’t moved her yet,” Deacon said. “Vashchenko needs to make money from the sale last night, so it has to be rescheduled. We’ve given Mayhem approval to buy another weapons cache in three weeks.”

She muttered.

“Sugar,” Deacon snapped at her. “You have no idea who the end distribution is. Ease off the guns.”

“No matter what Mayhem’s doing, I think Vashchenko skimming off the weapons sales,” Marco added.

“We haven’t seen that,” Tommy disagreed.

“I feel like we would’ve caught it,” Deacon said.

Marco nodded. “Sure enough, someone will.”

All of this seemed backward. Why weren’t the Russians taking advantage of the East Coast, particularly the gang network and distribution channels along the 95 corridor? Or the West Coast, milking their South American cartel connections? “It hasn’t been that many years since I left ATF. What am I missing? Why are the Russians doing it this way?”

Tommy twirled a pen between his fingers. “You’ve heard of old money and new money in the South?”

Sugar nodded.

“The Russians have had an influx of high-end investors since the fall of the Soviet Union, with many of them finding ways to work the free market. Every year since, their wealth and ability to amass it, albeit in questionable ways, has led them to search for the most favorable investments and offshore accounts. That pursuit of diversification and expanded portfolios has found their way to—”

“Moving guns up the middle of the US?” Sugar cut in, connecting the dots out loud.

“Using an established distribution network,” the agent said.

“Mayhem motorcycle club.”

The agent nodded. “That has charters all over the US, and in some places abroad. They took on something more akin to the opioid distribution line from the south. Cut out the cartels, the Irish, the other players who you’d expect to come from the coast lines, and you have a better rate of return.”

“It’s all about someone’s retirement, huh?” Sugar let that sink in.

Tommy agreed. “When you have hundreds of millions or billions of dollars, and you can’t yield the percentage you want, you look for new, lucrative revenue sources.”

“These assholes don’t care how it happens,” Deacon said. “Then you have people like Ivan Mikhailov acting as a sort of hedge fund investor.”

“He’s the one involved with taking girls for partial payment.” Sugar turned her attention to Deacon, and their waiting game started. He held the keys to making this rescue job safer for all involved.

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