“I’m missing the importance of the sand still.”
I take a long breath. “There are only two international shipping ports that have sand where they land their containers. Ninety-five percent of countries require ports to be overhauled with cement because sand inside the machinery and containers can cause malfunctions over time. It gets into the small areas of the cranes and docking mechanism, causing system malfunctions and engineering and safety hazards.
“The only countries who have not enacted these safety protocols due to their climate and economic problems are all in the Middle East.”
I can practically see the lightbulbs going off in their heads.
“You’re telling me that Ward Enterprises is making arms and drug deals in the Middle East? How are they getting the containers past customs?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “But there’s no way Elias is doing this by himself. He doesn’t have the reach.”
“Fuck,” Liam curses. “This goes deeper than we thought it did. Whoever is funding Elias is now funding Christian, and if they’re moving into the Middle Eastern market, that funder has deeper pockets than we originally thought.”
“Can you get the container open?” Matthias asks from behind me, his voice softer than it’s been all evening. I nod, approaching the small box that holds the metal bars of the container locked tightly.
“Five-two-eight-four-three-seven-four-six-three,” I whisper aloud as the small decoder in my hand wrestles with the numbers. “That can’t be right.”
But it is.
The lock beeps, and the sound of the container’s locking mechanism disengaging is easily heard.
“What’s not right?” Liam asks. The lines on his forehead pucker as he looks at me, concerned. “It worked.”
“Those numbers,” I rasp, stepping back as Maksim and Vas open the double steel doors. “Those numbers spell my mother’s name.”
“Yebena Mat’,” Maksim whispers in awe, interrupting Liam before he can respond. Maksim and Vas shine their lights on the container’s contents, each giving a low whistle. “You’re going to want to take a look at this.”
Liam ushers me forward, his hand on the small of my back in reassurance as we approach the inside of the barely lit container.
Not that I need much light to see what’s inside.
“Holy shit,” I whisper, echoing Maksim’s sentiment. “We got this all wrong.”
seventeen
Holy motherfucking balls, Batman.
The container is full of cash.
An entire pallet stacked with it.
Both containers.
There has to be well over a million dollars on each of those pallets.
“This is not what I had expected,” Maksim breathes. We’ve all gathered around one of the pallets, our flashlights running over the green American currency. “Is it real?”
“It’s real, all right,” Seamus whistles. “The serial numbers aren’t sequential. The paper is used, not new. And some of them even have the security thread.”
“Fuck me.” Kiernan runs his hand along one of the bills. “This feels too real to be fake too.”
“I can’t believe he pulled this off.” I shake my head in disgust, but there’s a small amount of awe that twinges in the background. “There’s no way he could have done this alone.Whoever Christian is working with would have had an operation like this already set up.”
The container grows quiet, and all eyes turn to me.
“You know what all this money is for?” Matthias blinks in disbelief. Of course he thinks I wouldn’t know what’s going on. To him, I’m nothing more than a bird who escaped her gilded cage. A tool to be looked at but never used.
“It’s not really for anything,” I tell him. “This is why the container has sand on it but no code for it.”
