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He doesn’t answer.
I take that as a yes.
The ground tilts from under me. “Oh, I thought… I mean, I thought you just handled celebrities with stalkers.”
His voice is grim. “We do a lot more than that.”
“Sir.” A guard pokes his head through the door. “We’re ready.”
Clay starts walking swiftly and I follow him.
I’m a little surprised when he keeps explaining, “One of our IT guys heard chatter on the web. A group organizing a hit on the bio-tech warehouse.”
“Why not call the police the minute you heard about that?”
“You have no idea how many people are plotting to hurt others,” he says and a shudder runs down my spine. “The police can’t follow every idle threat and we don’t expect them to. There’s a gap between what the law can do and what the criminals do. Sometimes, knowing the police will start investigatingafterthe deed is done isn’t enough to prevent the crime.”
“That’s where you come in?”
He stops, glances at me, and smiles slightly. “You can say that.”
We hurry to his car. Clay opens the door for me. Once I scramble in, he rounds the truck and starts the engine.
“Is that what you were doing when you had to run off yesterday?” I ask.
He nods. “In response to the threats, we amped up security and put more men on the ground to patrol.”
As we move out, I notice a line of black trucks file in behind us. How seamless and efficient. Clay didn’t have to utter one order for the team to be ready to move.
If I wasn’t so nervous, I’d be impressed.
My fingers dig into the seatbelt. “So what happens now? Are we going to stop them from stealing?”
“Wearen’t doing anything.” He arches an eyebrow at me.
“You know what I meant.”
His lips twitch, but he quickly reverts to his stone-cold game face and makes a couple calls. Sensing that further conversation will distract him, I keep quiet until the warehouse rises in the distance.
Since driving this way, I’ve seen tons of trees, abandoned buildings, and graffiti. But this is the first building that looks like it’s been taken care of. The paint is shiny, there’s a flat roof on the top and satellites pointing to the sky.
I squint my eyes, trying to see what’s going on. The compound is large and there’s a giant fence with spiky barb wire on top keeping people out.
From this vantage, it looks like the only entrance is a heavily barred gate. Just behind it is a security booth, which probably houses the gate operator.
There are a bunch of tiny figures in the yard, but I can’t tell if they’re the good guys or the bad guys.
The car rolls to a stop on a hill overlooking the property. We’re clustered by trees and semi-hidden in the foliage.
I fling around. “Why are we stopping? Aren’t we going in?”
Clay shakes his head. “The bandits knocked out the gate operator and took over the main entrance. We can’t go in from here.”
He spoke so casually that I can almost pretend we’re acting in a play. It’s not until the words dawn that fear strikes my heart.
This isn’t just a defensive move. The warehouse has been surrounded. To take it back, they’ll need to be on the offense.
Clay leaves the car.