“That’s your cue to fall the fuck over, Frank.” Kyle said. “You’ve been shot dead. So, play dead.”
To his credit, Frank complied. He jerked like he’d been shot then slumped over.
Kyle looked back at the camera and flipped it off. “We’ll find her on our own, thank you.” He turned back around. “Chief, take out the trash.”
“Aye, aye.” Alex opened the kennel door and dragged Frank’s limp body out. Wolf went to the corner of the room and grabbed a folded-up tarp. They placed Frank on one end and rolled him up like a burrito. After that, they carried him down the hall to the parking lot and into the woods, the cameras watching the entire way.
Once they were out of sight of the parking lot camera, Alex texted Kyle the all-clear. Then he kicked the Frank-burrito, not caring where his foot connected.
“All right. Get up.”
Frank sat up and tried to worm his way out of the tarp. He got his head clear of it and asked, “What the fuck just happened?”
“Your worthless fucking life was spared, that’s what happened,” Alex answered. “Now get up and start walking back to the kennels.” Alex kept his Sig trained on the man.
“The cameras—”
“Yeah, don’t worry about those,” Wolf said while Frank got free of the tarp. “There’s a delay on the feed, which gives us twenty minutes to pull out what just happened, edit it, and insert a different bit of footage, where Shane doesn’t interrupt and Alex turns your head into pudding. Capitoline doesn’t have the market cornered on DeepFake technology.” He gave Alex a fierce grin. Tex knew his stuff.
“The conference room is bugged,” Frank said.
“We knew about that, too.” Alex spoke as he zip-tied Frank’s hands behind his back. He hauled him to his feet and looped another zip tie through the one binding Frank’s hands and zipped it around his belt in back so Frank couldn’t get his hands in front of him. “Your friends got an earful earlier, listening to us stumbling to put shit together. Should be disabled by now, since Kyle just did a noisy sweep after ‘finding out’ Capitoline still had access to our cameras. Those’ll black out too. Come on, move it.” Alex gave him a shove.
Frank stumbled forward, then walked back to the kennels as the other men followed with their guns pointed at him.
“Faster. Clock’s ticking.”
Frank picked up the pace.
Kyle waited at the front door. “Inside and all the way to the back.” Kyle pointed down the hall. “Now the real questions begin.”
“You don’t have time. That part I didn’t lie about. They’re going to turn her over to someone in the cartel no matter what.”
Alex’s heart seized.Stay calm. “Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Bullshit.”
Frank shook his head. “I’m telling the truth.”
“No offense if I don’t believe you.” Alex gave him another shove. When they got to the back office, Gina was the only one waiting for them.
Alex grinned. Frank was fucked.
“Come in and have a seat.” She gestured to one of the empty chairs like this was a job interview. Alex pushed Frank down into the chair.
Gina smiled warmly at Alex and Wolf. “Off you go. Leave him to me.”
The door closed with a finality that chilled Alex.
“All right, brother,” Wolf said. “While Gina’s doing her thing, let’s take a look at that map.” They jogged back to the debugged conference room. Alex wondered at what point Frank had installed the bug. He, Stan, Frank, and Sylvie had used the room numerous times to go over some of the training.
Jake, Brock, and Shane had the letter spread out flat on the table beside a phone. The screen on the wall had changed from multiple camera feeds to a satellite image of what looked like a huge house surrounded by trees and not much else.
“Time?” Jake asked.
Kyle checked his watch. “Eight minutes until our doctored feed goes live. Tex, status on that?”
