Page 137 of Shrapnel

The three adults—and Jackson used the term adult loosely—turned to look at him as one. Jamie glanced over at Noah and Owen before answering.

“Because this isn’t a Weaver operation.”

“Pretty sure Elijah being in the hospital makes it Weaver business.”

Jamie looked…. different. Jackson wouldn’t call him an expert on the weirdo, but he seemed shiftier. Constantly looking over his shoulder and twitching a lot. His hands were constantly moving. If Jackson didn’t know better, he’d think the kid was on drugs.

“He can’t get involved. Grant would be too big a target.” Jamie dismissed Jackson’s line of questioning, looking back over Owen’s shoulder at the computer.

For all his epic fumbling, the geek knew his way around a computer. What would take Jackson days of bribing and begging, Owen could do in minutes. New passport? Done. Fake bank account? Easy. Hacking into a network? Tippity tap and he’s in. He cracked White Sand Mesa in a matter of hours, gaining access to their entire mainframe. Even looping the cameras so their little escapade went completely unnoticed.

As far as rescue attempts, Jackson couldn’t say it was the worst he’d ever had. That went right to Jamie, blowing up an entire mansion with himinsideand then flirting his way to almost unconsciousness.

They made it back to Weaver Syndicate in one piece, Noah complaining about scratches on the truck before he dropped it back off outside of Grant’s cabin. The babysitter club allowed him approximately twenty minutes for a shower and change before they began bugging him, insisting he join in on their little war meeting.

Jackson wasn’t a big fan of the planning aspect of operations. He wasn’t a thinker, preferring action to the minutia of organizing. That was Grant’s schtick. Which is exactly why he should be here.

Noah’s phone pinged. He glanced down at it before pushing off the wall he had been leaning against. “Roland has the pulmonologist. Apparently, she didn’t want to come until Willow schmoozed her. Told her all about this new drug that no one else could figure out.”

“She would know to use ego as a weapon,” Owen mused.

“They’re on a flight now. None of which matters if we can’t figure this out.” Noah said, beginning to chew the inside of his cheeks. The bags under his eyes were dark. Jackson had seen better looking prisoners of war.

Of the three—one over caffeinated geek, a twitchy assassin, and an ex-gang leader on a depression spiral—he was the most well-adjusted.

Jackson should have gone to Russia.

Owen pulled up several images, displaying them on the massive monitor. “These are the pictures I took at the bank. I’ve broken down the photos section by section and blown them up.”

Twenty pictures lined side by side on the monitor.

“I’ve blown them up as far as the resolution will allow. But I still can’t see anything.”

“Can you search the chemicals? They have to be tracked by the government or something, right?” Noah asked, joining them looking over Owen’s shoulder.

“Yes and no,” Owen answered, swiveling to a second screen and pulling up several tabs. His fingers flew over the keyboard, typing in commands faster than any of them could process.

“A lot of the chemicals are pretty typical over the counter stuff—pesticides, mold killer, fertilizer, even chlorine for pools. Perfectly legal, even big brother doesn’t notice if they’re bought in small enough quantities.”

“Timmy McVeigh killed 168 people with stuff he bought at a garden center,” Noah pointed out and Owen nodded.

“Where there’s a will there’s a way. But I did track some of the more controlled chemicals to Satex Chemicals. They had several break ins a few months ago and reported these chemicals stolen.”

Jackson had an idea. “Check their CCTV cameras. Their whole security system is online.”

“The cops already did that. Whoever stole the chemicals used a jammer.” Owen pulled up the police report.

“You unscrambled the videos at the crime scene. Can’t you do that?” Noah asked exasperated.

“Correction: I unscrambledonevideo. The rest were completely corrupted. The only reason I was able to clean up that video was because of the type of camera used. Satex used some cheap shit.”

Jamie placed a hand on Owen’s shoulder and jerked his chin toward the screen. “Can you bring up the fourth picture from the bottom?”

A few tippity taps and the picture took up the entire screen. Jackson scowled at it. He couldn’t see anything except a pile of garbage in the corner of the vault. Several jugs of chemicals were front and center, but they were empty, the labels facing away from the camera.

“Hygiene practices…” Jamie mumbled. “I noticed something when we went into The Cleft. There was a ton of garbage all over the place in both places, but there were no pizza boxes at The Cleft.”

Jackson looked back to the image. Now that he had something to pick out, he could see three or four battered looking boxes with Paul’s Pepperoni Emporium on the side.