Drifter and Strike both whistled at the same time because that meant we’d destroyed approximately double that amount back in those apartments. The Collective was going to be pissed. Someone's ass was going to be on the line for that fuck up. I grinned at the thought.
“Shit,” OD muttered. “Million? With a fucking M?”
None of us were rich. We all did alright for ourselves, but not millions of dollars alright. Especially not after we’d funded building the damn apartments. That had taken up the majority of our liquid cash that we’d saved.
Flir nodded.
“How the fuck do you figure that?” Relay asked.
“It’s not hard, there are seventy-five duffel bags. They banded them in stacks of one hundred bills despite the denomination. So that’s about half an inch tall and three and a half ounces or so. That’s about four million physical bills.”
Our mouths were hanging open as he rattled all this out. That didn’t deter him in the least. He was on a roll now.
“That’s about five hundred and forty-four stacks in a bag. Those military style duffel bags hold one hundred and fifty liters of volume, so those stacks fit easily enough with a little extra room.”
Jesus. My eyes were starting to cross.
“That’s just under half a mil in each bag.” He paused to double check his math, then nodded to himself before continuing. “They only filled them to about eighty percent capacity. Makes them easier to move quickly. They’re about one hundred to one hundred and twenty pounds per bag. Which is why we were able to get them out of there a lot faster.”
“This one was carrying them lined up on his arms,” Strike said, slapping me on the back and grinning at Ruck. When we returned, Ruck had sent Merc to join the others, out patrollingthe compound perimeter, but they were going to lose their shit when they saw this.
“All that is going to add up to around thirty-five million,” Flir said, getting back to the matter at hand. “Give or take a couple mil. And again, that’s assuming they used an equal amount of denominations. I won’t know for sure until we count them all.”
“You’re going to count all of them?” Strike asked, arching a brow.
“That’s going to make him blow a load in his pants,” I muttered.
Flir scowled at me. “No. Some of those machines we grabbed were money counters. I’ll use those for that job. It would take me far too long to count four million bills. Probably around-”
“Shut the fuck up, nerd,” Relay barked, shaking his head. “This was all mostly rhetorical. Shit. I think you just melted my fucking brain.”
“It’s seventh grade math, you neanderthal.”
“Seventh grade for robots maybe, but not humans.”
“That…seems excessive. How can this outfit print that many fakes? It’s too much, it’s going to bring attention,” Drifter said, getting the conversation back on track.
“That’s where the laundering comes in,” Ruck told him.
“That’s still a lot of damn laundering,” I pointed out. “More than can be done in this city. Maybe even the state.
Ruck sighed. “I’ll have to do some more digging, but likely it’s more than just laundering money through their own businesses. This probably has international connections. Something like run the counterfeits through the legit businesses and then do transactions with other, cartel owned, legit businesses outside the U.S. Or sell the fakes at discount, ten dollars to every hundred, then the cartel launders it themselves through their own businesses. Other things that I can’t think of right now. Thisis way more complicated than I thought. The good news is we just dealt them a massive blow.”
I finished the thought for him. “The bad news is we just made an international enemies list.”
Everyone went silent at that, thinking about what the ramifications of taking all this shit from The Collective was going to be. We’d just made a lot more enemies. Fuck me.
“I also need to point out that the thirty-five million is like pennies to these guys,” Strike said.
“Well, there’s the thirty-five, but then there was the additional fifty to sixty million we destroyed back at the apartments.”
We all glared at Flir.
He just shrugged. “The money is one thing, but the true hit came in taking these machines. They probably have at least one more operation like this somewhere in the city, but we just cut their product in half. That’s going to piss off their clients. And drug lords and cartels don’t like it when you fuck with their cash supply. The Collective is going to be gunning hard to get these machines back.”
“We should destroy them,” OD said, giving Ruck a meaningful look. “Make sure they don’t get their hands on them.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Kilo said, holding hands up. “That’s insane. This is free money for us.”
