“Let’s cut the pleasantries and get to the reason you’rehere, shall we?”The man’s voice was sharp and cut through Elliot’s words.
There was a pause. Talon could just imagine Elliot lifting his eyes to the man and staring at him for a moment. Elliot didn’t suffer fools or assholes. At this point, Talon was pegging Shoemaker as a level ten asshole.
“As I was saying, Mr. Shoemaker, we’d like to see your paperwork approving the rare earth transportation.”
“Why?”
“Because Guardian is in control of three containers of yellowcake uranium, and we aren’t going to release them unless you have the legal authority to ship, sell, or process the minerals.”
That was Marcus. The man was just like both his fathers. Direct and uber smart. The guy earned a full-ride scholarship to Harvard and could have had his pick of law schools, but he wanted to follow in his dad Jared’s footsteps. He wanted to work for Domestic Operations, and Talon knew someday he’d run the freaking branch. The intellect on that dude was off the charts.
“Brittany, we’ll need legal in here and tell them to bring the file on the mineral agreements in the Sahel region.”
“Yes, sir,”a woman’s voice answered.
Elliot played nice.“Thank you. We have some other questions as well.”
“Do I need my lawyer present?”
“No, sir, this is about your daughter,”Elliot continued.
There was silence for a moment.“Why? What did she do?”
“Sir?”
“What else could this be about. Guardian Security asks about my daughter, which means she’s in trouble. If she did something illegal, that’s on her. She’s her own person.”
“Ah, no, sir, she was found in a metal container on the ship. She was beaten and left to die.”
“By who?”Her father’s words snapped back at Elliot.
Talon hissed. “Stop the recording.”
“Stopped,” Dude replied immediately.
Talon shook his head in disgust. “What would your first question be if you had a kid and someone told you they were beaten and left to die?”
“I’d want to know if she were okay and where she was.”
“Yeah, me, too.” Talon grabbed his coffee and sat down. “Okay, let’s hear the rest.”
“We’re working on that. We have DNA, pictures, and fingerprints of the pirates, plus the woman in charge is alive and in our custody, so we’ll have answers shortly.”
“Do you want to know how your daughter is?”
Marcus’s voice held none of the contempt that would drip from Talon’s if he’d heard the question.
“I’m assuming she’s alive, or you would have told me she’s dead. Where is she? I’ll send someone to bring her back to the States.”
Elliot gave him the name of the hospital.“Figures she’d mess up a job as simple as environmental compliance,”her father muttered.
“Excuse me?”Marcus said with a hint of disbelief in his voice.
“Honestly, I’m a bit disappointed she got involved in the shipment. She’s there to represent the company and ensure we meet the governmental requirements for exporting the rare earth minerals we have agreements to extract. Treaties our government has ratified and contracts given to us to extract, ship, and process them. Not to do inspections of cargo.”There was a knock in the background.“Enter,”Shoemaker barked. “Ah, here is my corporate lawyer, Julius Williams. Did you bring the folder?”
“I brought a copy of all the agreements.”
“I take it you’ve had requests for this information before?”
