Page 71 of Fighting With Light

“I’m find doing what we have to, but I’d like to avoid prison.”

“The ends justify the means, right? Plus, it can’t track back to us, if it makes you feel better,” he says.

I sigh and look at the screen. “I guess,” I mutter. He kisses my cheek and, with me still in his lap, pushes up closer to the desk. His arms come around me, and I watch him type in a code, and enter something into a search bar. Images of the world come up, similar to Google Maps, and it hovers over what I think is Colombia. It’s not like Google Maps in the sense everything is labeled for you, it’s just green.

“Do you know which state the producer is in?” Liam asks, his breath brushing past my cheek.

“I think I heard Medellín.”

“Oh shit, that’s the big boys.”

I nibble on my lower lip.

“Well, I know from general information a lot of these types cook in the mountains because it’s hard to detect anything. The problem is Medellín is huge,” he says.

I try to recall all the conversations I’ve heard about shipments or issues with the shipments. And something my brother Romeo said pops into my head. “I remember Romeo said something about no runways. You could only get it by truck because there was no place for the plane to land other than a river, but that’s questionable too.”

“Well, that helps,” Liam says and starts typing again in the search bar at the top of the screen. The screen moves again to mountains and what looks like rivers. “So Medellín sits in the valley of the Andes Mountains and there are rivers all around it. The major one is the Magdalena River. Logically, they are probably close to water because they need it. It’s a long shot and a lot of land to cover, but the border of the river is a place to start.”

“They can’t be the only ones who cook cocaine in the mountains. Even if we find something, that doesn’t mean it’s the people my father buys from.”

“No, but I think I might be able to find that information by going through ports again. You said they can’t go near the Gulf or Florida by water, so they come through Mexico. That’s a long ass drive and would cost too much. So…I’m thinking, if it were me and I was shipping millions of dollars’ worth of pure cocaine, I’d want to move it as fast as possible. So I bet they ship it from themountains to Medellín, then fly it up to Mexico, get it to the border, and then hand it off.”

I try to put all the puzzle pieces together and think of a smarter way to obtain this information. “We don’t have to search through the jungle; we just have to know who’s shipping it.”

“Yeah, that makes the most sense to me. But, I have to admit, it would be really handy if we could find their spot because if we could trace Colombian cocaine all the way to Washington D.C., aka my father, then there would be no sweeping things under the rug, it would be too hard to refute.”

“That’s a lot of extra puzzle pieces, Liam. I don’t know if we can find all of that information.”

He shrugs. “It’s worth a shot. I figure we can start with private airports that fly to Mexico City. I doubt they are going through the international airport, so it would only make sense to start with the private sector. People don’t ask questions, and in a place like that, I’m sure they are happy to look the other way.”

“How am I supposed to help?”

He chuckles and squeezes my thigh. “Well, I know it’s boring, but you’re going to have to go through flight logs and mark any that have gone to Mexico City. Then from there, we’ll compare weights logged. We know they divide into kilograms, and usually, there is a high volume with this stuff. Do you know how much your dad moves?”

I pin my lips together. “I think he gets a lot because my brothers were nervous about the amount coming and being able to move it in time. But I also think he deals in wholesale for other dealers as well.”

“I have to give your dad credit. He’s a good businessman,” he says with bite.

“He won’t be for much longer,” I mutter.

“So I’d assume he probably gets a thousand kilos.”

“Maybe? I don’t really know numbers,” I tell him.

“That’s okay. What I’m getting at is if we can find the right weight, it will help us narrow down transport and possibly where it goes through at the border. I’ll have to hack my way into that information.”

“But what if we can’t find any of that? This is all assumption.”

“Correct, my dear Watson, so that’s why we’re going to have to dig through the mountains.”

I groan and lean my head on his shoulder. “Why do you get to be Sherlock Holmes?” I mumble.

He laughs and turns, dipping his head to kiss me. I tilt my chin up, leaning into it, and before I know it, he’s stolen my breath. His hand drags up my thigh to my hip and squeezes. I sigh, wrapping my arms around his neck, rallying the heat between us.

“I could do that all day,” he whispers. I smile and bite his lower lip, making him growl. What I don’t say is I could, too. I could do this…for the rest of my life. But I keep my lips sealed and smile instead. “You can be Holmes if you want, princess. I’m happy to be your Watson.”

I laugh and kiss him briefly. “Right then, I have some sleuthing to do.”