North’s Nikki Read online

  “Don’t have to. Willy is coming with that.”

  In the distance North and Nikki could hear a small vehicle. Only it was coming up on the side where Willy could easily see North and Nikki if the headlights shone in their direction. Even if Willy happened to look down the aisle, their silhouettes would be obvious. Making a fast decision, North tucked her into a spot on one of the shelves down below. The men were still talking, but they didn’t appear to hear her as she sneaked into her hiding place. In North’s case, all he could do was flatten against the shelving. Thankfully the forklift trundled on by and turned down the aisle to where the men were waiting.

  “Okay, let’s get this shipment. As we go, I’ll have you count them off. We’ll get them all out to the truck in the back.”

  “Sure, but have we got a place for them to go for the night?”

  “Yeah, the buyer is waiting for them. He’s not happy about it, but our choices were limited.”

  “Okay, Carl, if you say so,” Phillip said doubtfully. “I sure hope that girl really didn’t see anything.”

  “You said she didn’t,” Carl said, his voice rising. “What the hell, Phillip? Did she, or didn’t she?”

  “No, she didn’t,” Phillip said, changing his tone. “It’s just that we’ve never had anything go wrong before.”

  “And nothing else will go wrong either,” Carl said firmly.

  At that point, the men were helping as the first of several pallets were picked up by the forklift and moved down to the end of the shelving units and around the corner. In a short amount of time, one of the stacks of crates was gone.

  Motioning for her, North and Nikki slid silently forward, across to another aisle. The farther away, the better, as far as he was concerned. What he really wanted was to see what truck they were putting the goods into so North could track it. He didn’t have a tracker on him unfortunately, but, if he at least got a license plate, they could check the CTV cameras around the city and see where the vehicle went.

  Moving through the shelves the same way they had up until now, they made it to the back door where the double loading doors at a dock were open. Moonlight shone in. He watched as the forklift slowly raised a single pallet and put it on the truck, shoving each one a little bit farther back before pulling out and returning to the staging area to pick up the next crate.

  He tugged Nikki by the hand and whispered, “Come on.”

  With it all clear, they raced to the back of the truck. North took a snapshot of the rear license plate, and he then ran around to the front of the truck and took another photo, in case these guys were using a dual set of plates. He’d have done a lot for a tracker right now. Just then Anders, with a hawk’s cry, had him running to the corner of the building with Nikki in tow. There Anders waited for them.

  “We need to track that vehicle,” North whispered to Anders.

  Anders nodded and disappeared.

  North watched him as he approached the truck, did something, then raced back toward them. He wrapped an arm around each of their backs, pushing them quickly forward. They crossed the street and strode up the block into the alleyway as fast as possible, so nobody could see them.

  When it was safe, Nikki asked, “What did you do?”

  He motioned to North. “Track my phone.”

  And North understood. With a big grin, he nodded. “Now that we can do.”

  Chapter 4

  She never would have considered leaving a phone in the vehicle so they could track it. And showed the vast difference between their life experience and hers.

  “It was a burner. I had yet to use it, so it was clean.” At Nikki’s curious gaze, he added, “We always carry a burner on us, in case a witness needs to contact us or even a snitch. Sometimes we need it to call in a murder so we don’t get tied up with needless paperwork involving the local cops. Unless it happens to be related to our current assignment of course.”

  That was such a brilliant idea. Hopefully one she’d never have to use again.

  Back in her car now, with Nikki in the back seat this time as both guys were in the front. North was prepared to drive, and they were still sitting in the parking lot, waiting for the smugglers’ vehicle to move.

  “What if it doesn’t go anywhere tonight?” She was stretched out in the back seat, and, now that the immediate danger was over, she could feel the fatigue pulling at her as the adrenaline in her body had been expended.

  “I don’t think that’ll be an option on their part. An extra shipment has to be moved. Otherwise it’ll raise suspicions. In our case it already has.” He looked over at Anders. “Right?”

  Anders gave a feral grin. “Right. And we need to talk to your warehouse manager as soon as possible. We need to know what he knows.”

  “He won’t be involved, if that’s what you’re implying,” she snapped.

  Silence reigned. But she wasn’t fooled. They’d think what they wanted until they cleared everyone who worked for her company. She leaned forward between the two seats. “Did you figure out what it was?”

  “It’s definitely drugs. I just don’t know what kind.” North was busy taking photographs of each side of the needles separately in the kit. “There’s no labeling on this. That’s what worries me.”

  “Which means, we’ll have to get it tested,” Anders said.

  “And that means, it’s all the same drug, so they can slap a label on everything all at once.” North stopped taking photos and shifted back to the onscreen map.

  “That would have to be machined because you don’t want to do all thirty cases by hand. That would take days,” she said.

  The two men looked at each other and twisted toward her. North asked, “Isn’t there a tape-gun labeler where you can affix all the same information really fast, like a nail gun? You just slap it onto each box?”

  She frowned, then nodded slowly. “There is something like that. I guess that’s probably a faster manual method.”

  Just then the map shifted on the phone in North’s hand. “He’s on the move,” North said excitedly.

  “Which way is it going?” She moved a bit closer and peered over his shoulder to look down at his phone.

  “It’s heading away from us.” He turned on the engine and, taking what appeared to be a completely backward route, went around several blocks, and came up several blocks behind the truck. But because they were tracking it, he could keep the truck ahead of him and stay out of sight.

  “It never occurred to me to do something like this,” she said. “This is really a brilliant idea.”

  “Not necessarily,” Anders said, “because, if they found the phone before they left, it could be in somebody else’s vehicle, and we could be on a wild goose chase right now. Plus we would have tipped them off.”

  At that she sat back. “Well, let’s hope the driver takes us to the destination we want to go, and this can be all put to rest tonight.”

  “I highly doubt it.”

  North’s phone rang just then. He sighed. “Of course he’s got perfect timing.” He put it on Speakerphone. “Jonas, how are you?”

  “Looking for that follow-up. What are you two up to?”

  “What makes you think we’re up to anything?”

  “Because we’re MI6, and I can tell where you are right now.”

  “In that case, you need to be aware that a truck”—he gave him the license plate number—“is heading out with a major delivery, what can only be drugs of some kind. But whether medicinal or opioid drugs, I don’t know. Not bricks but ampules and syringes.”

  Jonas said, “What are you talking about?”

  North quickly filled him in and said, “I’ll send you the photos of what we’ve got. I think the contents of these syringes and bottles need to be tested.”

  “Send me what you’ve got.”

  North handed the phone to Anders so he could send the photos to Jonas which North continued to drive.

  “Where do you think the truck is right now?”


  “I can see it. It’s heading north on Waldorf. We’ve been driving away from the warehouse and trying to stay just a couple blocks behind it.”

  “How are you tracking it?” The suspicion was heavy in Jonas’s voice.

  “Anders tossed his phone inside. We’re tracking his phone.”

  “Smart,” Jonas said in a begrudging voice. “Okay. I got your photos. Now I need to get these pictures to somebody who can tell me something. About how many samples did you pick up?”

  “How do you know we picked up anything?” Anders said from beside North in the front seat.

  “Because I know the kind of guys you are. One box or more?”

  “Only one box. We were afraid, if we took more than that, they would get suspicious that somebody had been into the product.”

  “Right. I’m sending a vehicle to take over the tracking. I want you to hand over the samples you picked up.”

  *

  North kept an eye on the road while listening to Jonas as he talked to somebody in the background.

  “Scratch that. I’m coming myself. I don’t know what the hell you guys have found, but, if we’ve got some smuggling going on, I’m on it.”

  “It’s hardly your deal,” North said. “I thought you were more into shootings.”

  Jonas snorted. “I don’t get that luxury. Drugs are bad news for everybody. Be there in five. You’ll know when I arrive.”

  Nikki leaned forward and asked, “What does he mean, you’ll know when I arrive?”

  The two men looked at each other and shrugged. “MI6 likes to think they’re subtle. But, in actuality, they’re the opposite of subtle.”

  She watched nervously as they drove ahead. “Can he really come in and just pick up the tail? What about us at that point?”

  “We’ll probably get shipped home with a Thank you very much. This is our business. Butt out,” Anders said.

  “Well, that’s not good enough,” she exclaimed. “We’ve gone to a lot of trouble to get this. We need to know exactly what’s going on.”

  “Sure, but you do understand what MI6 is, right?”

  “That’s international terrorist shit. Why don’t we have MI5? Involve them too,” she said mutinously.

  Anders chuckled. “Well, when MI6 gets here, you can ask them that. They can fight over jurisdiction. What we want is to make sure you’re no longer in trouble.”

  “If the smugglers get taken down by MI6, you know they’ll make a direct correlation with my visit on Thursday to the takedown Friday night,” she snapped. “So, not only am I not out of danger, I’m in way worse danger.”

  There was silence inside the vehicle as the two men digested that. “She makes a valid point,” North said.

  “We can tell Jonas. He’ll want the whole story anyway.”

  “He has really shitty timing,” North said. “I would have given anything to have had him not call tonight.”

  “What do you think tipped him off?”

  “No clue,” North said. “But they are always watching …”

  “Why the hell would your faces trigger MI6 involvement?”

  The two men just looked at each other and stayed quiet.

  “Right, more secrets. More shit to hide from me.” She groaned. “Whatever.”

  “When we came off the airplane, your grandfather’s driver took us directly to MI6. He’d been told to bring us there first, before we could see your granddad. We were given a pretty hefty warning then. I imagine that, ever since then, Jonas has kept tabs on us.”

  She gasped. “Really? Right from the airport?”

  “Exactly, right from the airport. Not only did they know where and when we were flying in, they knew when we cleared security, and I believe they’ve known exactly where we’ve been every moment of the day since.”

  She was astonished and horrified. “But I thought we were innocent until proven guilty.”

  “Where the hell did you get that lie from?” North asked humorously. “When it comes to terrorism and smugglers, you can bet you’re guilty until you’re proven innocent.”

  “Will we be in trouble for tonight’s events then?” she asked, her stomach sinking.

  “I doubt it,” North said. “Because, of all the things MI6 is good at, it’s making scenarios like this one disappear permanently.”

  Chapter 5

  Nikki hated to hear the behind-the-scene details of MI6. It was reassuring but also scary. She’d heard all kinds of nightmare stories about secret government activities, but it was different when it was in the fantastical region of far distant news rather than when it involved something she could watch while she was sitting here in the vehicle. “How will we know when he arrives?” she asked.

  “There won’t be any doubt about it.”

  Following the truck, they went forward another block. Halfway through the block, a vehicle came out of an alley and pulled in front of them. “And that’s MI6,” North said. At the next intersection, a second vehicle jumped ahead of the first.

  “Why did they insert two of their vehicles back to back?” she asked.

  “Because now they’ll separate us, breaking off our tailing of the truck,” North said with a heavy sigh. He motioned ahead as the distance between the tracked vehicle and their vehicle widened. One MI6 sedan took off after the truck they’d been following, but the other one right in front of them was decreasing its speed, blocking their path as they tried to overtake it. North hit the brakes, slowed down and pulled off to the side.

  “Are you just giving up?”

  Anders snorted. “It’s not a case of giving up. Jonas will be in this particular vehicle. He sent his men after the truck.”

  “It’s still not fair,” she said, crossing her arms and sinking into the back seat. She couldn’t believe how pissed off she was.

  Just then, as she watched, two men exited the vehicle in front of them. They put their hands on their hips, moving their jackets strategically aside, and stared at Anders and North.

  “Are they armed?” she asked.

  “Letting us know they’re armed,” North said humorously. He rolled down the window and called out, “Hey, Jonas. How are you doing?”

  “Which one is Jonas?” she muttered from behind the front seat.

  Neither Anders nor North answered her, but the two suited men both walked toward their car, … one on either side. Anders rolled down the window on his side and smiled up at the second man. “Hey, I’m Anders. Who are you?”

  The second man leaned down, propped his arms on the window.

  Nikki poked her head from the back seat forward to the driver’s side and said, “You should have let us track the vehicle.”

  Jonas studied her with interest. “And why is that?”

  “Because I’ve been on this case since the beginning,” she cried out in frustration. “You guys will just hush up this whole thing. That truck will disappear off the face of the earth, and I’ll never know what happened.”

  One eyebrow popped up on Jonas’s face. He looked at North and said, “Caught a live one, did you?”

  She spied North trying to hide a grin. “It’s not funny,” she said mutinously. “You can’t just step into our operation.”

  That gaze of his zinged back toward her. In a very gentle voice Jonas said, “We’re trying to keep you safe.”

  She flattened against the seat and glared at him. “I was safe enough until you guys arrived.”

  He chuckled. “Let’s see the goods.”

  Anders obligingly handed over the box to North, who passed it on to Jonas.

  He opened it, studied the contents, then turned toward her in the back seat. “Do you have any idea what this is?”

  “No, I don’t,” she said. “It was found inside a shipment that was supposed to have been only wine.”

  “And where’s the rest of the shipment?”

  She gave him a hard look. “Don’t look now, but it’s driving away from you.”

  Again his grin came and went. He no
dded, smacked the side of the car and said, “We’ll be in touch.” He turned and walked away.

  She waited until the two agents were back in their own car, then leaned forward and said, “I can’t believe you guys let him take that stuff and disappear with it. He didn’t give us any assurances that we’d be updated, further informed. Nothing.”

  Neither of the men said anything.

  Her gaze flitted from one to the other. She got angrier and angrier as she realized how much they’d been cut out of what was going on. “I can’t believe you guys let them do that. They took over the entire operation. We’re out in the cold.”

  Again neither of the men said anything. She fumed as the black car drove away ahead of them. But North did not start up the engine to her car.

  Finally she flung herself forward and said, “So now what? Just go home with our tails between our legs?”

  North held up his phone, and she could see the smuggler’s truck was still moving ahead of them.

  She gasped and said, “Are we going after them?”

  Anders held up one of the ampules that had been inside the box.

  She laughed, shaking her head. “Oh, my goodness, you two are good,” she said. “Now I feel much better. Come on. Let’s go after that truck.”

  North smiled as he started the engine and pulled back onto the road.

  Anders looked at his partner. “She’s a little bloodthirsty, isn’t she?”

  North nodded. “I like it.”

  “Good for you,” Anders said. “She’s likely to eat you alive in the night when you’re sleeping.”

  North burst out laughing. “Not likely.”

  She reached over and smacked Anders in the shoulder. “That’s not fair. I can’t believe you’d say something like that.”

  He looked around the interior of the car. “Bloody bugs. Who knew England was full of insects that bite. Damn mosquitoes. What the hell? It’s the wrong time of year for them.”