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“No. No. That number will be fine,” Lester assured Mason.
Joe could almost see the crooked agent mentally rubbing his hands together. He thought the nineteen SWAT members were going to be his witnesses to destroying Joe’s reputation. Wasn’t he going to be surprised when he and his minions were the ones taken down, instead.
Lester snapped upright. “Let’s move out. I have to be back on the West Coast first thing tomorrow morning. Here are the coordinates where our agent should be.” Lester turned his phone to them.
All four SWAT members leaned over and nodded.
“Off Old Bay Road,” Mike put in. “We’re familiar with the area.”
“Right,” Mason concurred. “Our squads are already geared up and ready to go,” he told Lester. “I’ll send them out in a caravan after you, and I’ll notify our command bus where to meet us.”
With Lester taking the lead, the group walked from the room.
“Now I really need you on my team,” Hank told her. “You’ve managed ten years working for that arrogant prick? Your patience must be off the charts; far better than mine would have been under similar circumstances.”
Joe was thunderstruck by the compliment. “I…I don’t know what to say. I’ve just been trying to do my job and survive.”
Hank smiled. “I can see we’re going to have to work on your self-esteem. But in an arena where enormous egos are often the norm, you are a breath of fresh air.”
Joe fumbled with how to respond.
“You’re supposed to say thank you, then we move on,” Hank gently prodded. “As a matter of fact, not to be presumptuous, but your transfer papers are on the bus ready to be signed if you’re really interested.”
Joe managed to answer around the lump in her throat, knowing she’d put pen to paper the minute she stepped foot in the vehicle. “Yes. And…thank you,” was all she could manage.
Rather than look smug, Hank simply nodded, and after giving Lester and company a decent head start, they walked out to the command bus.
Twenty minutes later, they were parked outside the warehouse; a place with which Joe was becoming far too familiar. She hoped, as she watched her one-time fellow Nevada agents—backed up by three SWAT squads—that this was the last time she’d ever have to lay eyes on the freaking place, or those grasspoles, some of whom she’d thought were decent people.
Mason had left his mic live, so the occupants of the bus were privy to everything going on once the group walked inside the warehouse.
“A fucking cooking lab,” Lester’s voice boomed, holding just the right amount of disgust.
Again, stellar thespian material. Maybe once he was in prison, he could join whatever drama club the place offered.
He barked to his agents.
“Shiley, Caston. Get prints”
Two of his men would dust the equipment, then the fun would really begin.
It only took a few minutes before one of his flunkies spoke out. “We’ve got enough impressions to run through the system, Chief.”
“Do it.”
With the DEA’s advanced technology, they’d send a file of what they’d found to the national archive, where the images would then be run through a specialized app that stored tens of thousands of prints. Because hers were on file, they’d find a match almost?—
“Yes, sir. They belong to Agent Pikens, sir,” Shiley, not surprisingly, clipped out.
“Well, shit…” And didn’t Lester sound profoundly disappointed. “I had my suspicions, but finding actual confirmation…”
Mike clearly wasn’t feeding into Lester’s pity-party. “Right. So where is it you say her phone’s been traced to? I think that’s our next priority.”
Lester grunted, and Joe wasn’t sure if it was due to his plan coming together nicely, or because Mike had dared to speak up, but he responded snarkily.
“North of here. There’s a small river,” he hmphed at the group.
“The stream that cuts through the county is about three tenths of a mile back through the trees,” Mason corrected, but without seemingly doing so.