06 Double Danger (19 page)

“No.” Hannah shook her head. “I was actually lucky to have that—it came from a rather obscure professional publication. I’ve not been able to uncover anything else that connects him directly to Lester, beyond the storage unit, but I’ve only just started, and it’s going to take a little time.”

“Which we don’t have,” Simon said. “Even if this thing is over, whoever was behind it is going to be scrambling to cover their tracks. We’ve seen that already.”

“And if there’s still something on the drawing board,” Jillian continued, “they’re going to be even more motivated to go to ground.”

“All of which means we need to get to that storage unit before someone beats us to it.”

T
he storage facility in North Bergen, New Jersey, looked like thousands of others across the country. Eleven rows of low-pitched, cinder block buildings painted a bright white with flat aluminum roofs, each of the 576 individual cubicles fronted by a rolling steel door.

Harrison pulled the new SUV up in front of the building. The guy in charge had been only too willing to surrender a key to Lester’s unit once Jillian had shown him her ID. It was amazing what one could accomplish with the proper credentials. She wasn’t sure how A-Tac normally managed, considering that, for all practical purposes, they didn’t actually exist, but she supposed they worked it out. Maybe they always roped in an official of some kind.

So far, she and Simon hadn’t had any time alone together. Which in some ways was a relief. Last night had been amazing, and though she didn’t regret any of it, she knew she’d made the right decision to walk away.
There was just too much standing between them. And considering the fact that he’d let her go, she was pretty certain he agreed.

She watched as he opened the door on the storage unit, his muscles rippling under the black T-shirt he wore, the edge of a tattoo showing just below one sleeve. For a moment, her breath caught in her throat as she remembered what it felt like to have those arms around her. His hard body, his sharp masculine scent.

Shaking her head, she pushed aside her heated thoughts. Better to let the feelings go and keep him at arm’s length.

“Looks like the place is full of crates,” Harrison said, his voice pulling her sharply back to the present. “Art, from the looks of it.”

“Yeah, but from all over the place.” Simon frowned down at the bill of lading of one of the crates. “This one is out of Ecuador. And the one behind it is from Paris.”

“I’ve got one from Indonesia, here.” Jillian skimmed the paper tucked into a plastic sleeve on the outside of the crate. “But it’s going out, not coming in.”

“Interesting,” Harrison said. “So we’ve got two-way traffic.”

“Yes, but none of that is particularly surprising for an art dealer.” Jillian shrugged, moving to another crate to check its contents.

“No.” Simon agreed. “But it would imply some degree of success. I mean, it can’t be cheap to ship this stuff in and out of the country.”

“Not to mention buying the art in the first place.” Jillian frowned down at the crate’s bill of lading.

“There’s a lot of shit in here,” Simon said to no one in
particular as he moved farther back into the storage unit, shifting crates as he walked.

“No kidding,” Harrison agreed. “Must be at least twenty crates. Maybe more.”

“Yeah, but something isn’t right here,” Jillian said, still frowning. “According to the bill of lading, this crate contains two paintings. Both watercolors. Which most likely means they’re not very big. But look at this crate. It’s huge.”

“I see what you mean.” Harrison nodded. “This one’s the same. One painting. But still a large crate. Although I’d assume that for overseas transport something like a painting would have to be carefully protected.”

“Agreed, but this still seems like overkill.” Jillian picked up another bill of lading. “This one lists dimensions for one of the two paintings inside. Twelve by fifteen. Inches. And this crate has to be more than four feet long. And at least three feet tall.”

“So why don’t we verify the contents?” Simon appeared at her elbow, his breath brushing against her ear as he bent across her to retrieve a crowbar leaning against another crate.

It took a couple of minutes for him to pry the top off. But once he’d pulled the nails free, the wooden lid was easily removed. Inside, the box was filled with synthetic straw—a good six inches deep—and beneath that, carefully secured, the two listed paintings, both lying flat on top of a second layer of the straw.

“There’s still a lot of crate underneath the paintings,” Jillian said, as she carefully lifted the first painting out, laying it on a nearby crate. Simon took the second one, while Harrison removed the second layer of straw. Below that was a wooden barrier serving as a false bottom.

Using the crowbar again, Simon pried the piece of plywood free to reveal a row of machine guns. Russian made, if the markings were any indication.

“Son of a bitch,” Simon said with a low whistle. “Looks like Lester and this Joseph guy were dealing a hell of a lot more than old paintings.”

“It looks like there’s another layer beneath these,” Jillian said, pushing aside more straw, careful to keep from touching the actual weapons.

“Let’s see what else they’ve been hiding in here.” Simon picked up the crowbar again, in short order pulling the lids from several more crates. Each of them, like the first, held the listed artwork, but beneath that they found more weapons.

Grenade launchers, hand guns, assault rifles, even a crate full of C4. Some manufactured in Russia, some in Germany, and even a couple of crates with arms manufactured in the U.S., one headed for Nicaragua and another to Belgrade. Places where it was easy to get contraband into the country.

“Hey, I might have found something significant back here,” Harrison called from behind a stack of unopened crates.

“Something more astonishing than the cache of munitions we’ve just uncovered?” Simon asked.

“Well, maybe not as astonishing, but quite possibly a hell of a lot more useful.” Harrison stepped back into view, holding up his find—an iPad. “If this belongs to Lester or Isaacs, we just might have hit pay dirt.”

He powered the little machine on. “Gotta love portability.” The screen flashed blue, then rows of apps appeared. None of them looking all that interesting.

“Looks to me like some pretty normal shit. I see Angry Birds and a couple of news apps. Nothing helpful there.” Simon shifted so that he could see better, the movement placing him directly behind Jillian, the heat from his body making it hard to think.

Harrison opened a program and scrolled down, nodding when he found whatever it was he’d been looking for. “This is Lester’s iPad.” He pointed to the name and then closed the screen, scrolling through the rows of apps until he came to a word-processing program. “Let’s see what kind of documents he’s got in here.”

At first the program refused to open, demanding a password, but Harrison navigated out of the app and instead opened a browser. Then after typing in a URL and a password, he downloaded another application. In just a few more minutes, he reopened the program, and the box demanding the password was gone, a list of documents appearing in its place.

“Looks like more paperwork on the shipments. I suspect, if we go through them all, we’ll find a document for each crate.” He opened a couple, and together they skimmed through the two-page reports, each listing the artistic contents of the crates, as well as customs information and insurance estimates.

Simon whistled again. “I had no idea selling art could be this lucrative.”

“Only if you can find the right buyers,” Jillian replied, shifting slightly so that Simon had to step back.

“Yeah, well, I’m thinking the big money here isn’t in the art.” Harrison clicked open another document, this one listing the hidden contents of one of the crates. The machine guns. “Jesus, this stuff is worth a fortune on the black market.”

“Any idea where it was coming in? Or going out, for that matter? My guess is that even with all the precautions to hide the contents, there’d still have been trouble if it came into the country through normal channels.”

“According to this,” Harrison said, “most of the crates were coming into a warehouse just outside of Jersey City.”

“That’s a big port.” Jillian picked up another bill of lading. “I suppose it wouldn’t be that hard for a shipment to skip through customs, with the proper amount of inducement, of course.”

“American ingenuity at its best,” Simon agreed.

“Well, according to Google maps,” Harrison said, “the address listed belongs to a warehouse just at the edge of the port.”

“Definitely a plus when you’re trafficking in contraband.” Simon pulled out his cellphone and began taking pictures of the crates and their contents. “I’m thinking our next move should be to hit the warehouse.”

“Agreed,” Harrison said, “but I think we should have backup. You guys head over there for a look, and I’ll call Avery and have him send the cavalry. So stay put until he gets there, okay? I’ll hang back here and finish documenting what we’ve found.”

“I don’t like leaving you alone,” Jillian protested. “And without a vehicle.”

“No worries. There’s a whole row of rental pickups out there. And these days, all you need to hotwire a car is a computer and a little know-how. I’ll be fine. Besides, once I tell Avery what we’ve found, you can bet Tyler will make a beeline over here. There’s no way she’ll be able to resist a room full of stuff that goes boom.”

The warehouse was at the end of a rutted road on a man-made peninsula lined with similar buildings, all of them in disrepair. Simon drove slowly, he and J.J. keeping their eyes peeled for any sign of activity, but the place remained eerily quiet, the harbor glistening gray in the fading twilight.

“Looks deserted,” J.J. said, putting voice to Simon’s thoughts.

“All the better for us to get in and out and find something to lead us to Joseph Isaacs and the people he’s been working with.”

“I don’t know. It just feels too quiet, if that makes any sense.”

“It does. Especially considering the reception we’ve gotten the last two times we’ve followed a lead. But the only prayer we have of catching these people is to keep pushing.”

“And when they push back?”

“We push that much harder. I know it’s tough, and I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to call it quits. Especially considering everything that’s happened.” He held his breath, not really certain what answer he was looking for. But if he’d thought about it, he’d have known there was only one possibility. This was J.J. after all.

“I’m here for the duration,” J.J. responded, her chin shooting up, the motion a sure sign that he’d angered her. “I knew when I went to work for Homeland Security that it was possible I’d wind up in dangerous situations. I just didn’t expect it to be like this.” She paused, clearly considering her words. “You know, here—”

“With me?” he finished for her. “I know. And I know it’s hard.”

“But we’re both professionals, so we’ll get through it.”

Simon’s guilt surfaced again. What the hell was he thinking? There’s no way she would ever have voluntarily agreed to partner with him. Let alone pick up where they’d left off ten years ago, before she and Ryan… he let the thought drop. As much as he wished he could turn back time, handle decisions he’d made differently, it wasn’t possible.

His mother hadn’t been a model parent, but in rare moments of lucidity, she’d always said that a person made his or her own bed, and that there was no changing it after the fact. At least in this one thing, she’d been right. And besides, even in better times, he’d never been the man J.J. had wanted. It had always been Ryan.

And Simon had never been the kind of man to settle for being second-best.

He pulled the SUV into the shadow of the building across from the warehouse and turned off the motor.

“So how do you want to handle this?” she asked, her mind clearly back on business. “Do you want to wait for backup?”

“Doesn’t seem necessary,” Simon said, getting out of the SUV and pulling his weapon. “Like you said, the place seems to be deserted. But if you want, I can go ahead and scout it out while you check in with Avery?”

“No way,” she said, as she too exited the vehicle, gun at the ready. “You’re not going in there without me.”

He smiled, thinking that she was a hell of a lot better at this kind of thing than she gave herself credit for.

The warehouse, at the end of the row facing the harbor, was smaller than the others. It was fronted by two cargo bays and a small door at the top of a short flight of stairs.
They approached the first bay, guns drawn, not willing to take any chances, but it was locked from the inside.

The second bay was also locked. So they headed up the stairs to the door. As expected, it, too, was locked. And while Simon could have made short work of the lock with a well-placed shot, it was also barred from inside, which meant there was no access here either.

“So what next?” J.J. asked, her back to the wall as her gaze swept across the empty street and adjacent warehouses.

“We need to find another way in.”

“I agree,” she said, “and the only way to do that is to check out the rest of the building’s perimeter. So in an effort to cover ground more quickly, I’m thinking we split up and head down each side of the building. If we’re lucky, we’ll find some other way to get inside.”

“I don’t know. Seems like it might be better if we stay together.” He knew he wasn’t making sense. If it had been anyone but J.J., he’d have thought it was an excellent idea to split up. Which smacked of chauvinism—and something else he wasn’t even going to try to put a name to.

“It’s your call,” she said with a shrug, her expression hard to read. “But I still think it’s the best thing to do.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. So we’ll split up and meet in back unless we find a way in.”

“Okay.” She nodded, suppressing a smile, already moving toward the metal stairs.

“Hang on,” he said, his fingers closing around her shoulder as she turned again to face him. “I want you to keep your eyes open. All right? If there was someone here, I think they’d already have shown themselves, but it never hurts to be too cautious.”