Page 15 of Invincible
CHAPTER5
Later that night,the three men stood outside Tyler’s apartment building observing the same young men who had been loitering outside the door the night before.They had spent the afternoon gathering as much information as was available.
Dex had met with the Houston office of the FBI after putting in a call to his home office.
Memphis had gone to check on Mia, who was now housed in a room in a warehouse with the other women.He had had a chance to look around a little, but not knowing the area, all he could give Knox was a vague description of the building.
Knox had spent his time prowling around the waterfront, listening to the workers at the bars and restaurants in the area without much luck.
“You think we’ll run into the she-devil again?”Knox asked with a scowl.
“Don’t be scared.I’m sure her bite isn’t that hard.”Memphis laughed, staring across the road.“Unless you’re into that kind of thing.”
“Who’s the she-devil?You know better than to say that about Tyler.”Dex growled at Knox, making Knox stop in his tracks to study the FBI agent.
The two men immediately locked eyes in some kind of pissing contest that had actually caught Knox by surprise.He didn’t know that the man could actually show that much emotion over anything, especially a woman.He had been so stoic the entire time they were working on Thayer’s case.
“He’s talking about her roommate,” Memphis said, stepping between the two men.“Are we going to have a problem between you two?”
“Nope,” they both agreed.Continuing to the apartment, Memphis pressed the buzzer for Tyler’s apartment.Knox found himself disturbingly excited at the thought of seeing Greer again.When they climbed to her floor, the door was opened by the she-devil herself.
“Memphis,” Greer said, letting him inside.“You must be Dex,” she added, shaking the agent’s hand.“Jackass,” she spewed at Knox.
Turning, she left him standing in the door, staring at her with his perpetual snarl.He knew she did it to get under his skin, but he still couldn’t help but get a thrill out of it.He would have to be insane to take on that much prickly impertinence.
“Troll,” he growled, walking into the room.
“Eunuch,” she responded.Then again...
“Hey,” Memphis yelled at them both.“Between Dex leering at Tyler and whatever this freak show is, I swear I’ve landed back in the middle of junior high school.”
“What are you talking about?”Knox asked.Memphis huffed out a breath, turning toward Tyler.Knox grinned while his brother’s back was turned.It was just so easy to jack with the man.They all turned to look at the door when the buzzer sounded.
“Calm down, it’s just the takeout,” Tyler said, buzzing the taco guy up.Dex pulled his wallet out, paying for dinner when the delivery man made it upstairs.
Finding seats in the living room, everyone dug in.“If no one minds, I asked Greer to join us.She works at a gentlemen’s club a lot of the dockhands frequent so I thought she might have some luck overhearing something.”
“You’re a stripper?”Knox asked, staring at Greer.A feeling of mixed emotions washed over Knox at the thought.Sure, she had the personality of a troll, but he knew he would pay top dollar to see her twirl around a pole.
“I’m a cocktail waitress, but thanks for the compliment,” she answered with a smirk.“I’m afraid these tits aren’t making as much as they used to.”The comment brought Knox’s eyes immediately to her chest before he could stop himself.Was it disappointment now flooding through his veins that she wasn’t a dancer?
“Hey!My eyes are up here.”Slowly, his eyes worked their way back up to hers before he gave a shrug he hoped said he was already bored with the thought of her naked on a stage.
“Anyway,” Memphis said, trying to refocus the group.“I saw Mia this afternoon.The women are being held in a warehouse.I couldn’t get much information other than it looked like every other brown warehouse in a sea of warehouses.”
“That makes sense,” Tyler said, finally tearing her eyes away from her roommate.“It can take at least a month for the containers to be loaded on a ship.They couldn’t keep them in the container that long, but they would have to be somewhere near.I would think they would also have to have an ‘inside man’ to warn them before the container was to be loaded or at least access to the software.”
“I checked with both the Houston and DC offices, but neither had any way to access the manifest for the containers.Since there aren’t any grounds for a search warrant nor is it perceived as an act of terrorism, they can’t just hack in.”Dex added, reaching for another taco.
“If I had access to their computer system, I could find what we need but I’m not good enough to hack around their firewall.I tried.”When he found them all staring at him in surprise as he brought the taco to his mouth, he shrugged.“What?I’m not just a pretty face.”
With a shake of his head, Knox set his beer back on the coffee table.“You would think they would have pretty strong security since it controls where the world’s supplies are delivered.It would be too easy to pirate specific ships carrying high dollar cargo otherwise.”Knox sat for a moment, contemplating the problem.
“Dex, if I can get you to one of the computers, are you good enough to get the information we need?”Tyler asked.
“I should be,” he answered.“I think once we’re in, it’s pretty basic to pull up the information.”
“What do you have in mind?”Knox asked, leaning forward with his hands on his knees.
