Breacher (Tom Keeler Book 2) by Jack Lively (reading well TXT) 📕

said, “Zarembina, Abrams and Bell Island. Orbiting around them we’ve got Deckart and Willets, Amber Chapman, and those two Neo-Nazi assassins.”

We were both silent for a while, looking over across the ocean. The image of Amber Chapman came into my mind, front and center.

I said, “It’s going to flip if we keep pushing. It will start to shape up and make sense.” Ellie was looking at me intensely, I held her gaze. “This is going to be pretty big, Ellie. If you think about the property up there. The house and outbuildings, plus the installation on Bell Island. The fact we’re dealing with a company not just an individual. There’s something going on up there and we’re going to end up taking it down. We need to go hard, relentless.”

I saw Ellie contemplating, and I knew she was thinking about scale, about what and who might be out there. She said, “Jesus, I need to tell this to Smithson, the stuff about the submarine. We need to get help. We can’t do this on our own.”

I agreed. “Smithson’s not going to be enough. You’ll have to get the FBI involved, what’s the process?”

Ellie chewed that for a moment. “I’m not sure really. Some deep bureaucratic shit storm, that’s for certain. Let’s go see Smithson right now.”

I said nothing.

She said, “You got a better idea, Keeler?”

I said, “I have a few. Not all of them are collaborative. There are two things that you need to do now, Ellie. One of them is talking to the police here about bringing in the FBI. But we both know that that’s Plan B. In case we get taken out of the game. The other thing you need to do for both Plan A and Plan B is to get your hands on the building plans for the property up there.”

Ellie looked away for a long moment. Then she looked back. “What’s Plan A? I thought you just said we’d need to bring in the FBI because it’s too big for us to handle.”

I said, “Two layers of contingency, Ellie. We need both. Get the wheels turning with Smithson, then get your hands on information about the property. Push comes to shove it’ll be useful for us, and for the feds if and when they materialize. You’re best placed to do both. Whatever they call it. There will be a place somewhere in town with filing cabinets, a coffee machine and a photocopier. They’ll have building plans, septic plans, fire inspection certificates, and stuff like land use change records.”

She said, “Code enforcement office.”

“Sounds good to me. Get in there and get us some useable intelligence on whatever the hell is up there.”

“What, so you can invade?”

“Yes. But not right away.”

“Jesus, Keeler. What are you going to do right now, after this?”

“While you start on that, I’m going to join Dave.”

Ellie brought out her phone and tapped in a message to Dave. She said, “He’ll text me his location.” She appraised me. “You don’t have a phone do you?”

I shook my head.

She said, “That’s convenient.”

I said, “What’s your phone number. Case I need to call you.”

“With what?”

“There’s no shortage of phones, the world’s full of them, like cockroaches, rats, and bureaucrats.”

“You’re going to borrow someone else’s phone?”

I said, “That usually works.”

She reeled off her number. I memorized it.

Ellie said, “Smithson’s going to be at home. I’ll drop Hank off at my place on the way up. Then I’ll go and see about the other thing.” She slid out of the booth and came past me through the door and stepped out onto the stern. I stood up and stretched, slapping my hands on the doorway.

I said, “I’ll stay in touch.”

“With someone else’s phone.”

I shrugged. “Whatever.”

Hank came down from the wheelhouse ladder and leaned out, holding one of the rungs. He swung around. He said, “Hey Keeler.” I looked up in time to see Guilfoyle throw the Remington rifle case down at me from up top. I caught it. He leaned against the railing looking down at me. “Me and Hank just cleaned it for you. You’re good to go, buddy.”

I slung the padded case over my right shoulder. “Appreciate it, Guilfoyle.”

He nodded at me, then disappeared back into the wheelhouse. Ellie put a protective arm around Hank's shoulders. He smiled shyly. Hank was holding a cardboard box with a hundred rounds of ammunition. The box was red and had the words ‘Federal Premium’ in white lettering. Hank said, “Sierra Match King loads, 175 grains. Guilfoyle’s not playing.”

I took the box from Hank. “He was a marine.”

Hank leaned against the galley. “You were military too?”

“Air Force.”

“How was it?”

I said, “I only remember the good parts, but there was a lot of bullshit, that’s for sure.”

Hank said, “What were the good parts like?”

“They were good, Hank. But like I said, there was a lot of bullshit that went with it.” Which Hank didn’t want to know about, because nobody wants to be bored by bullshit.

We left Guilfoyle on the boat. Walked through the cannery and out to the parking lot. Ellie’s truck was parked alongside Helen’s Land Cruiser. Before we split up, Hank held his phone out to me. He said, “Keeler, why don’t you take my phone?”

“Okay, Hank.” I reached over and took the offered phone. It was a small one, with just a number pad and a little screen.

Hank said, “Ellie’s number is already in it. Password is ‘helloworld’, one word no spaces.”

I looked at the phone. Each of the numbers had a couple of letters printed small in the corner of an already tiny button. Hello World with no spaces would be 4355696753. I figured using a phrase was a mnemonic device for Hank. As a computer geek I might have expected him to prefer numbers. Ellie took the phone from me and entered Dave’s number into the little device.

I got into the Land Cruiser, Ellie and Hank got into her truck. I watched them leave the parking lot. Ellie’s F-150 made a low chugging