Page 177 of Carrick
The wind coiled low and sharp, slicing instead of biting, cold enough to feel like a warning. Quinn and I moved without speaking, slipping into position on either side of my Charger asgravel cracked beneath our boots and suspicion settled thick as the dark. My hand hovered near my weapon, and I let it.
Then came the headlights—too clean, too deliberate, cutting through shadow like scalpels. The sedan behind them glided forward, glossy and wrong, cloaked in its own gleam, its shine a slap against the rot around us.
It was new. Expensive. Too expensive for Rayden. My gut clenched. I met Quinn’s eyes through the dark and knew we were thinking the same thing—this didn’t feel like a meeting. It felt like a trap, dressed up in chrome.
Something felt off. I just couldn’t figure out what it was.
And that felt even worse.
The car stopped about twenty feet away from us, facing broadside, aimed towards an exit point. The engine cut off, followed by the headlights, and then the door opened. Rayden stepped out into the cool night air, head on a swivel, trying to look everywhere at once. I could immediately tell that he was even more nervous than we were. Gone was the false bravado he’d put on in the apartment.
He was scared.
He reached back into the car and I tensed, my instincts screaming that he could be reaching for a weapon, but when he straightened again, he was only carrying a small black courier bag. He gave a twitchy, nervous smile as he approached, and a half-hearted wave.
“Carrick. Glad you could make it. I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
I gave him a nod. “We said we’d be here. We don’t make promises we don’t keep.”
A humorless chuckle escaped his lips. “Yeah, well… I don’t have a lot of experience with people like that. Trust doesn’t go far in the circles I find myself in these days. Those guys run things based a lot more on fear than anything else.” He glancedover at Quinn. “And you must be Officer Mercado. Good to put a name to a face, I guess.”
“Good to see you safe and sound, Rayden. Let’s not waste any time. What do you have for us?” Quinn obviously didn’t want to be here any longer than was absolutely necessary.
I couldn’t blame him. The hairs on the back of my neck were permanently standing at full attention. I couldn’t shake the feeling we were being watched, but I tried to push the feeling aside. The plan was good. We’d taken all the precautions we could.
Rayden closed the distance and placed the courier bag on the hood of my Charger. He unzipped it, and pulled out a small flash drive, and a few pieces of paper in a manila folder.
“Ok, here’s what I’ve got. I know it doesn’t look like much, and I don’t know if it’s enough to take the entire operation down, but it’s something.”
I glanced at the papers. They were spreadsheets, lists of numbers, some names, very sterile and pristine looking. “What are we looking at, Rayden?”
“These papers, along with the stuff I copied to the flash drive, are all information about a secondary company that has been flying so far under the radar I’m not sure if anybody has even heard of it. Not a part of the Borovsky Enterprises umbrella. It’s called Revenant Logistics. On paper, it’s clean. Real estate. Logistics. Boring stuff. But under the hood? This is where the worst stuff is happening. They’re moving people. Women. Possibly kids. Weapons. Prototype shit. Stuff I don’t even recognize.”
He handed everything to Quinn, who put it into his own bag.
“I wasn’t supposed to see any of this, obviously. But I got put on security detail at one of the big-wig’s houses, guarding the place while he was at some high-profile meeting. He had toleave in a hurry, and didn’t lock his office. I noticed, went in, and there was his computer, still on, unlocked.”
He gave a little shrug, like he was trying to justify his actions to himself, even now.
“I started poking around, just trying to see if I could find out if they had any information on Bel, and I stumbled across… all of this. I know it wasn’t what we agreed I’d do, but it seemed like too much of an opportunity to pass up. I carry this flash drive with me everywhere, encrypted with my own personal program, so I took a chance and copied over everything I could find about Revenant Logistics. These papers were on his desk, and I just made copies on his home printer copier.”
His voice dropped, and he looked between us, genuine fear written across his face.
“They’re experimenting, man. On people. On systems. Ways to disappear people and still profit. Oleg Karsin’s running it, as far as I can tell. Borovsky’s name never touches a single thing.”
I gave a low whistle. “Motherfucker. If all this is true, and it’s all on here… shit. This could blow shit wide open. Good work, Ray. Stupid risk, but still. Good work.”
“Yeah kid. You did good. Now you need to get the fuck out of here and lie low. Don’t do anything to arouse suspicion. If you need exfil, reach out on this.” He pulled out a new burner, one Jax had equipped with more advanced tracing protection. “Trash your old phone. It’s too hot, now.”
Rayden nodded and slipped the new phone into his bag before zipping it up. “Okay. I’ll keep my head down after I send you the encryption key for the flash drive. I didn’t want to print it out, in case I got searched before I could get everything to you. Do you still want to stick to the check in plan we made?”
“Give it a few days to cool off, then yes. For now, we just need you to be as inconsequential and unthreatening to the Dom Krovi as possible. And make sure you create a dummy emailaddress to send the encryption information, then delete the account immediately.”
He nodded again and turned to walk back to his car.
I couldn’t help myself. I had to ask.
“Nice wheels you got there. How’d you afford that?”
