Travis Wells entered some sort of machine shop, and the green lights on the main board flicked higher in volume. The softwareinstalled on Wells’s cell phone was voice activated. Or, more accurately, sound activated. In my headphones, I heard the screeching noise of metal being cut by a diamond blade.
Frank stayed up front, but he turned his body to face us. In between the sounds, Cassie explained what they’d gotten from Wells the previous night. He was meeting his contact here, a man named Darren Regnar.
We listened. The sounds of metal fabrication died down, and the noises of the outside grew louder: birds, planes, the buzzing of electric wires. Travis had made his way through the shop and into an interior yard where the meeting was set to happen.
The sounds were muffled at first, as if his cell was in his pocket, but we picked up enough audio to hear that Regnar was upset that Travis had disappeared for four days.
The audio came in clearer then. Regnar’s voice was gruff.
“What girl?” he asked.
“Just some fuckin’ girl,” Wells replied, his voice rising. “You don’t know her.”
“I’m not sure I knowyou, man,” Regnar said. “So where is she?”
“At my place.” Travis hesitated. He laughed, but it didn’t sound natural. “Motherfucker, if you’d just had the couple days I had, you wouldn’t let that pussy out of your sight. But what was I gonna do—bring her here?”
Regnar didn’t speak for a minute, and Cassie turned to me.
He’s burned, she mouthed.
I put my hands out, palms facing Cassie.
Be patient.
When Regnar spoke again, his voice was raspy. “Well, I ain’t had your week, bro. I had three days of hard labor because your asswas MIA. Which means I had to doyourshit. You know how the boss is.”
Travis’s voice broke. “Was JP pissed?”
Regnar made a noise with his nose. “Jesus, I didn’t tell him shit about you being gone. If I told him you ran off with some girl, he’d beatmyass. But you know what’s gonna happen now?I’mgonna head home. Get me some barbecue. Maybe a six-pack. And you’re gonna pick up six hundred pounds of ammo from storage.”
“All right,” Travis said. “I appreciate you, bro. I’ll do whatever it takes. You know that.”
“Good,” Regnar said. “’Cause I got my cousin working this now. I had to use him ’cause you fuckin’ disappeared. So now he’syourpartner. I already paid him for the week. Out of your cut.”
“Hey, as long as he can work.”
“Oh, he can work.” Regnar chuckled, the timbre of his voice deep. “He’s big as a house. ’Long as you two load up his truck, he’ll head for the DMV tomorrow. He’s driving this time, not me.”
DMVwas an acronym that stood forDistrict, Maryland, and Virginia. And whoever this cousin of Regnar’s was, he would be driving the ammunition directly from Florida to the house in Foggy Bottom.
Cassie leaned forward, rocking in her chair. “C’mon, Travis,” I heard her say. “You can do this.”
“He knows where he’s going?” Travis asked then. “Same house you drove to last time?”
He was fishing for the address, but doing it poorly.
“No, a new place.”
“Oh shit, really?” Travis asked, and Cassie leaned forward even more.
“No, shithead. Same house.”
“And should I go with?” Travis asked. “You know—in case he needs help?”
“Nah,” Regnar said. “There’s a protocol up there. Truck gets to the house. Cases get unloaded right away. Brought upstairs and broken down.”
The conversation continued for a minute more, but there was nothing of value for us. Regnar gave Travis the address of his cousin, which Frank mapped into his phone. We heard the sounds of the machine shop resume, and Frank fired up the van, starting the trek to the cousin’s place ahead of our C.I.
