Hyper Lynx (The Lynx Series Book 6) Fiona Quinn (the dot read aloud .txt) 📖

I used my t-shirt to take the vial with me. I could sit in my car around the block, and my phone would alert me if Hanasal’s car moved. I looked at the vial. It was the same antibiotics as before, just a different date on the label. I twitched my mouth to the side and checked on the date.  Had I lost a day from my lack of sleep? No. This label was definitely for tomorrow. I snapped a picture of the label.

I pulled on a pair of nitrile gloves, unscrewed the bottle top, and looked at the pills. I checked the label again. I knew this antibiotic from dolling out Mom’s medications. It should be a bright yellow solid pill. This was a blue and white capsule. This wasn’t the drug from the label. I folded a piece of paper and emptied the vial into the crease. One by one, I lifted and examined each pill. Why not? I had hours to kill. There were forty-two pills in all—three times a day for fourteen days.  On the twenty-sixth pill, something was different. When I rolled it between my fingers, it didn’t feel like granules that shifted as they were pressed. This felt solid.

Slowly, I pulled the capsule apart—no medicine granules. Instead, a piece of paper was rolled tightly and shoved inside. I reached into my glove compartment and pulled out a tool kit. I picked up my pointed tweezers and ever so carefully pulled out the contents, spread the slip of paper—smaller than a Chinese fortune—on my lap, and read what it said. There was an Internet website address and a time. I took a photo and then worked to put it back exactly as I had found it. I inspected the rest of the pills. One other had information, too; this one said Dusty Roads. I swallowed hard, took the picture, put everything back in the vial, gave the vial a shake, and replaced it exactly as I had found it in Hanasal’s car.

At the library on the other side of town, the day after the pill bottle date, I looked up the web address and found a forum for “hipsters who like ferrets.” I scrolled through the messages until I found one posted by Dusty Roads. It looked like a recipe, half in English and half in gibberish, and at the end, it said, “Lastly, add the .onion” and stir.

.Onion meant this was a deep web address.

Last night, Hanasal had received another vial, and I replicated the task and had found another website and another code name. Its posting would go up tomorrow. I waited and got that information as well before I approached Spyder.

“Spyder, I need your help.”

“And how is it that I might assist you, Lexicon?”

I went through my pictures and my actions. Spyder nodded with the utmost of attention and seriousness. “I don’t think I should search the dark web from the library computer. I don’t want to let anyone know that I have this information—they might erase what’s happening. I thought perhaps you might take this to your office at Iniquus and use an encrypted computer.”

Spyder leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead, then left.

That night found me behind yet another tree. There was another handoff, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it. I had just decided to slip forward and grab hold of the vial when my phone buzzed against my hip. Spyder. I swiped the screen and sniffed so he’d know I was there.

“Take cover,” Spyder said.

Cover? Cover. Cover meant weapons would be out. Conceal would mean make sure I wasn’t getting caught. Weapons and cover usually meant guns, I processed. I ran behind the brick wall and plastered my eyes against a crack so I could see what was going on. My phone buzzed again.

“Good girl.”

“You can see me, Spyder?” My eyes traveled around. I saw nothing and no one that I didn’t expect to see.

“I want you to watch for Hanasal and let me know the second he comes out the door.”

“Yes, sir.”

I couldn’t see the door from where I was crouched. I duck-walked to the edge of the wall and held out my phone, so I could use the camera to see what was happening at the entrance. After a while, my hand got tired, and my arm sagged ineffectually. I perched my wrist on my knee and waited. And waited. Oh, dear god in heaven, seriously? I waited. Finally, Hanasal came staggering out with his arm around the shoulder of some guy. I buzzed Spyder.

“Cover,” Spyder said, then hung up.

Within seconds the parking lot was filled with FBI SWAT. They were fearsome to behold in their black armor and balaclavas. Hanasal freaked. With his mind mixing alcohol and adrenaline in vast quantities, he took off at speed I would never have attributed to a man of his bulk. He dashed away from the SWAT unit, out into the street where a shriek of tires and a loud thud was quickly followed by screams as the driver leaped from her car to hover over Hanasal.

Sirens soon followed from around the corner, where I guessed the SWAT unit had staged an ambulance—a precaution they took when they thought their arrestee would fight. Certainly, they wouldn’t have foreseen him running in front of some woman’s car.

I stayed behind my wall. A good operator didn’t risk being seen. But I could see. I saw the local PD come and administer a field sobriety test. I saw the woman’s wrists being cuffed behind her back and saw the police officer helping her into the back of his police cruiser. I saw the ambulance pull a white sheet over Hanasal, slide his body into the back of the rescue squad, and leave without lights. I pumped my fist