Chasing the White Lion James Hannibal (essential reading TXT) 📖

“Hey!”

“Oops, you left your screen unlocked. Not wise in a place like this.”

“No, I—”

She turned the phone around to show him.

He smiled, embarrassed. “I suppose I did.”

Val yawned, typed a number into his banking application, and returned the phone, letting her fingers linger. “Make the transfer, and our grunts at the dock will do the rest.”

He started typing, then stopped. “Weapons first. You have been generous, but you will get paid only when I know the containers are on board my ship.”

“Ooh. Aren’t we feisty?” Val could feel Aku grasping for some smidgeon of self-respect. Her mock charity had pushed him as far as his pride would allow. The clock in her head ticked on. She needed to close the deal. “All right, darlin’. You win. What choice do I have?”

“Exactly my point.”

With a demure smile and a slight turn in her seat, she dialed Eddie. “Matthew? Hand over the merchandise . . . No, I don’t have the money—not yet.” She glanced sidelong at Aku and winked. “Their position is strong. I’m authorizing you to move the containers.”

Val set the phone on the game board beside his fallen pieces and switched to a video display, a wide view routed directly from the dock security cameras. “There they are, the three green shipping containers. We’ll watch the transfer from here.”

Aku nodded his agreement, and Val drew a subtle breath. The rest was up to Eddie, who rarely left his computer during the team’s cons, and a crane operator who hadn’t run heavy equipment in years.

CHAPTER

FORTY-

NINE

PORT ARANON CARGO DOCKS

MILOS, GREEK ISLES

10:48 PM

EDDIEHUNGUPTHEPHONE, looking up at a pair of big Kongarans. “My boss says the deal is on. The merchandise is yours. You want to see it?”

Waiting around with these guys had almost been more than Eddie could take. The bigger of the two carried a machete slung at his back. Eddie figured the only thing keeping the man from slicing him into bits for sport was the occasional sniffle. The guy probably didn’t want virus-infested blood fouling up his blade.

One of the men said something to the other in their native tongue that sounded like, “What did he say?” It might also have been, “Shall we crush this little Indian geek like the bug he is?”

The other one shrugged. They looked at him and frowned.

“The drones.” Eddie flattened his hand and flew it around like an aircraft, then pointed to his eyes. “Do you want to see them?”

The bigger one thrust his chin at the container. “Yes. We see weapons now.”

Communication lines established. Good. Eddie pressed a key fob, and the container’s electric lock disengaged with a hefty clank. He heaved open the door.

The bigger Kongaran pulled a hard-shell case from the stacks inside and set it on the wet pavement. He lifted a gunship drone from the foam packing.

“Careful, please.”

The Kongaran glowered at him.

Eddie shrank back, adding a preemptive sniffle to remind the man of his cold. “It’s just . . . the magazines come pre-loaded, okay?”

After a long exchange in their own language, the Kongarans seemed satisfied.

“All good?” Eddie gave the bigger one a thumbs-up.

As Val predicted during her coaching earlier in the day, his mark answered with a matching thumbs-up, visible to Aku via the dock security camera.

“Good.” Eddie shoved the case into the container and shut the door. “Tell your pilot to dock the boat at Berth E-Four and I’ll have my crane operator load you up.”

Once again, they both frowned.

Using his tablet, he showed them a map of the docks. “E-Four.” He pointed at the berth in the picture and then pointed at the actual berth across the yard. “Your boat. E-Four.”

The big one shook his head. “No E-Four.” He dug a crumpled printout from the pocket of his cargo pants. “Look. Look here. Your message say G-Four.”

Eddie slapped his forehead. “Sure enough. Autocorrect. Gets us every time.”

“Move boat cost fuel.” The Kongaran shook the printout and poked Eddie in the chest. It hurt. “No move. You did this. You fix.”

Eddie could see the guy’s blood beginning to boil. Val had told him to press the Kongarans to the limit, but she hadn’t seen the size of these guys. “Okay, okay.” He let them off the hook. “There’s another solution. The dock crane is on rails. I think my operator can work this out.” He raised a handheld radio to his lips and looked up at the crane cab. “Santini, you awake up there?”

The answer came in garbled, staticky Greek.

Eddie didn’t speak a lick of Greek. “Good. Good. Hey, can you run that baby down the dock—move these containers all the way to G-Four?”

More garbled Greek, with a little annoyance thrown in.

“Yeah. That’s right. G-Four. There was a mixup with the paperwork.”

The final answer came in short and angry.

Eddie clipped the radio to his belt and clapped his hands. “We’re good.”

“You load containers now?”

“One more thing.” Eddie unzipped a duffel and drew out two cans of red spray paint. “We can’t have containers with TACRON’s logo showing up in the Kongaran Republic.” He walked down the line, working the cans to cover each logo with a large, dripping blotch.

The Kongarans didn’t interfere. The smaller one said something in Kongaran. The big one laughed. They seemed to understand.

With his artwork complete, Eddie gave the crane operator an exaggerated wave. The machine swung into action, lifting the containers one by one over the stacks of cargo on the docks and setting them down out of sight on the other side.

As the third container disappeared, the big Kongaran lost faith. “What you pull? Where your man take weapons?”

“It’s all right. It’s all right.” Eddie took the significant risk of touching the man’s arm—another piece of Val’s coaching. “My operator has to reposition the crane before he can move them all the way down to G-Four.”

Milos was not exactly a bustling port. Eddie had to wonder how long it had been since the roving crane had moved down the rails. He cringed as a horrible ratchet and clank