“Both the locker and the workstation are used by the same person, Mack Cowling. I can check to see when he’s expected in, but it should be any time.”
The captain radioed directions for all cars to be moved out of sight.
“You more than earned your share of kibble and dog treats today,” Atlas told Evie.
“She’s pretty amazing,” the director agreed. “This is the first time you’ve trained here, but could you came back? I don’t want this sort of activity in my warehouse.” He seemed much paler than he had when Atlas first saw him. “Now I have to explain to management what’s been happening.”
“We’ll see what we can do. The truth is that we have a glut of locations that allow us to use their facilities for training. But Iwill definitely add you to the list.” The captain was pleased, but Atlas was even more pleased and proud of Evie.
“You are so good.” He opened a bag of treats and gave her a few. She had more than earned them. And twenty minutes later they had a suspect in custody, the evidence bagged and tagged, and the captain was already requesting a search warrant for the suspect’s home. All in all, it was already a great day.
ATLAS STOODoutside the suspect’s home with Evie. The other officers served the warrant to his girlfriend and cleared the run-down house before Atlas took Evie inside, but she didn’t make it past the living room. The other officers removed the light switches, bringing up cocaine on strings from behind the walls. In the end, they ended up stripping most of the walls, finding nearly fifty pounds of hidden drugs that they used a field test to verify.
“What am I supposed to do now?” the girlfriend groused as they got ready to leave, late in the afternoon.
“I don’t think it matters,” Atlas told her. “You’ll be in a nice warm cell.” He waited while Carter and Red, the plainclothes officers who’d conducted the search, took her into custody. “All we need to do is find one of your prints on any of the packages and you’ll be going down.” There was just too much product in the house for her not to be aware of it.
“You son of a bitch,” she snarled as Red clapped the cuffs on her, screaming as they got her in the back of the car.
“Did anyone find a basement?” Atlas asked as the guys finished cataloging everything they found.
“I don’t think so,” Carter answered before he got ready to head to the station with Red. “Why?”
“From the outside, it looks like it should have one. There are windows.” He took Evie into the kitchen, the only room thatEvie hadn’t indicated as having anything in the walls. “The door should be in here.” He checked the walls, but it was the floor that caught his eye. “Pull out the refrigerator.”
Officers each took a side, but it glided out easily, revealing a partially closed-up doorway to the basement. He let Evie go and followed her down the stairs, then turned on a light at the bottom. “Guys, get down here,” he called, shining his flashlight on tables filled with money. “Holy shit.”
“What?” the captain said as he came down.
“Jesus,” he added. “There has to be hundreds of thousands down here.”
“Yeah. Looks like we found a pretty major distribution hub. Our friends in custody got the drugs here, parceled them out, got paid, and shipped their shit all over the country using the damned warehouse. Can you imagine? The shipments looked like chocolate, and no one would think anything different.” Atlas patted Evie on the head. After all, she was the one who had found all of it as part of a simple training exercise.
Atlas’s phone rang, and he pulled it out of his pocket. “It’s Bazel,” he told the captain.
“The guy you found in the back of the truck?”
He nodded and answered the call. “Are you okay?”
“I work in yard. Men outside gate,” he said quietly. “I hear them.” He sounded frightened.
“Go inside and stay out of sight. If you need to go to the shelter I showed you. I’ll get home as soon as I can.” He told the captain where he was going and hurried to his cruiser. He got Evie in the back and drove as fast as he dared, with the lights going. Once he reached the house, he parked in front and let Evie out, allowing her to go inside first. She stayed quiet and went right to her dish, so at least he knew there was no one inside.
“Bazel,” he called, but didn’t hear anything. The first thing he did was check the dining room to see if the indicator under the sideboard had been tripped. “Bazel,” he called louder.
“I sorry,” he said, coming out of the back room. “They leave after I call. I thought it was him come back.”
“It’s all right. Is the gate still locked?”
“Yes. I check at gate. Not open.” Some of the color had returned to Bazel’s face, but he was still pale and shaking. Atlas hugged him carefully, and Bazel went right into his arms, holding him tightly. “I want be strong.”
“Hey. It was just a few days ago. The police are still trying to find him, but we have a name now, and that’s been given to all the police. We will find him.” Damn, Bazel felt so good in his arms, and he didn’t want to let him go, but Atlas backed away anyhow because it was either that or he’d end up coaxing Bazel upstairs, and if that happened, there was no telling what he’d do.
“I know you will. I hope he here so you could catch. I hid and watch, but no one come in yard.” He seemed to stop shaking. “You go back work?”
“Yes. I have to go back to work. My shift doesn’t end for another two hours. But Evie and I had a good training class, and she was spectacular.” He called her, and she came right up to him. “I’ll see you in a little while.” He left the house, locking the door, and put Evie in the back of the car before letting dispatch know that they were back on the job.
Still, he was worried about Bazel and hated that he had to leave him, but he had to get back to work. At least he was in town, not far away, and Bazel had his phone. But… the guy was alone a lot of the time.
