The quietness around us was starting to become bigger, and it grew more oppressive and relentless with each tick of the clock. Reina stood before me in my office with her arms tightly crossed on her chest and face as impenetrable and enigmatic as always. Weeks of working and operating together had gone by since we started, and yet she had never once chosen to come into my office until today. The fact that she now stood in this room meant that she had something on her mind—something important that she could not make out and interpret for herself.
Looking with an almost bored interest, I relaxed somewhat in my chair. "You seem to have discovered something significant."
She turned me for a minute, then dug deep into the jacket pocket to present a tiny, inconspicuous flash drive. With an intentional sweep, she slapped it over my desk, which caused a soft but expressly clear clunk upon contact. Before she withdrew back, her hand stayed there for a split second. "I painstakingly tracked a trail of encrypted transfers that I discovered. These transfers are linked to an offshore account—specifically, one that has been used to transfer huge sums of money under different aliases. The frequency with which these transactions occur is too regular to be an accident. It appears someone is supporting a huge operation."
I grasped the drive tightly, spinning it around between my palms so that I would become accustomed to it. "So, you really believe that it is them?" I spoke.
Reina's face was completely unchanged, without any visible emotion, but I could clearly observe the tension that had come in to take up residence on her shoulders, and the unmistakable rigidity of her posture that spoke volumes. "I am perfectly well aware that it is indeed them," she said to me, "But I am not able to free myself from this situation alone."
There it was, staring her right in the face. The unstated confession, a fact she could not confront alone. While she was certainly not pleased with this revelation, there was no denying the fact of it. But she was smart and astute enough not to allow her pride to cloud her judgment regarding the nuances of the case.
With great satisfaction, I gently slid the drive. I grinned. "Fear you were slow trusting me."
standing her ground with her arms tightly folded across her chest, she answered defiantly, "I don't." "But I have absolute trust in the talents and skills you have. "
As my fingers danced over the keyboard, a mocking chuck slipped from my lips beyond control. "Charming," I responded slightly ironically.
She did not respond immediately. Rather, she leaned a little more, her eyes narrowed as she intensely studied the monitor before us as though reading some secret code written there. Most of all the alluring fragrance of her perfume, a faint, subtle combination of jasmine and something deeper and lusher, floated in my direction, as I forced myself free from the vague, almost reflexive feeling of her proximity.
Determined not to let it further distract me, I pushed the idea out of my head and refocused on the present work. I said with some irritation, my eyebrows tightly drawn in reaction to the complexity of the situation, that these are not your regular encrypted transactions. "Working here is military-grade obscuration." But someone seems to have gone to some labour to guarantee that this information does not reach us.
Reina remained silent, but I could feel her eyes on me. She was balancing, calculating, searching for a reason to doubt me. Let her. I wasn't attempting to prove anything.
Minutes passed, the atmosphere in the room thick with tension and unspoken. Then, at last, I discovered something. My jaw was clenched. "Luke and Chris."
Her eyes were drawn together. "You're sure?"
"I would recognize their specific techniques and methods anywhere, no doubt. Luke is the master planner, the one who expertly covers the electronic track so that they leave no trace. Chris is the enforcer—the one whose sole duty is to ensure that no loose ends are left behind or untended in their operations. These two men are not merely criminals, Reina; they are some of the most highly trained and lethal operatives in the entire world. If they are in motion with this much money, it means that the syndicate is preparing to do something on a truly enormous and unprecedented scale."
She took a deep breath, letting go of the tension built up inside her, and her eyes began to lose their keenness, dimmed by a veil of uncertainty. "And what about the leader? Any hint or guesswork on who that might be?"
I gritted my teeth in anger and determination. "No. It appears that whoever replaced me when I was away has been clever enough to remain in the shadows. They have managed to destroy any traceable evidence that would lead to their participation in this charade. If I were ignorant and did not know any better, I would have no qualms in suggesting that they knew that people like us would sooner or later begin investigating their activities and motives."
Reina pressed her lips into a thin line, which showed her determination and will. "Then we must go to the source," she stated firmly.
I understood the type of thing that she was referring to even before she could put it into words. It had to do with the warehouse, the same warehouse where we would work together as a unit when I was in command over them.
I let out a sigh and rubbed my face in frustration with one hand. "This specific region has been open and vacant for decades."
"Then it should be safe for us to proceed with our investigation," she said thoughtfully. "If there just so happens to be something left behind—perhaps records, tapes, or some other form of evidence—then these items may be able to guide us in discovering the new head."
She was not wrong or misjudging in any way. Going back to the same place, however, would be the act of reopening the doors that I had shut firmly years before.
She had to have seen the confusion and uncertainty written so boldly on my face, because she arched an eyebrow at my expression. "If you change your mind or get cold feet, I can definitely go alone," she said with a touch of comprehension.
That was it. I let out a laugh that was bitter and devoid of actual amusement, as irritation started to build and form bubbles inside me. "Not a chance in the world am I going to let that happen. You may not believe in me, but there is absolutely no way you're going to go there without some backup ready to stand behind you and watch your back."
Her lips were pursed into a tight line, so tightly clamped together that she appeared to be straining to suppress either a sharp, biting response or maybe a witty, clever comment that would showcase her intelligent mind. "I have a strong belief that tangible results are to be observed and quantified, not to be talked about which can go wherever it wishes without any substantial intent. If you have the resources to assist me in uncovering those results, then I can promise you that is the sole thing of consequence to me in this particular situation."
In fact, it was always going back to that specific location where it came up once it was relevant to her. For a period of a few weeks, I had been going out of my way to show her that I was absolutely no threat or danger to her whatsoever, and still, despite all efforts and intentions on my part, she kept me at a considerable distance from her, going out of her way merely to be close enough to prevent me from getting near her. This truly shouldn't have had the emotional effect on me that it did end up having, but it did anyway.
I stood up from where I was lying, stretching out my arm to reach for my coat. "Well, then we must go immediately. We just can't spare a minute."
The ride to where we were headed was tight, the only noise that interrupted the thick, oppressive silence between us being the low growl of the engine. Mera's eyes were unerringly fixed on the road before us, her fingers absent-mindedly drumming a slow, steady beat on her knee, a beat that mirrored the almost palpable tension suspended between us. I recognized the look on her face all too well; I knew it from long experience. It was clearly more than patent that she was intensely focused inward, completely consumed by some introspective process, carefully weighing an infinite number of possibilities in her mind as she struggled to guess every conceivable end result that the situation we presently found ourselves might have.
I, however, was grappling with the weight of my own choices and recollections. As the lights of the lively city whizzed by outside, recollections continued to force their way back to the front of my mind, not allowing me to be by myself for another moment.
Flashback: I was firmly planted in a vivid flashback of that turning point when Luke, Chris, and I were officially introduced to one another for the very first time. This was not a simple friends' gathering; it was something much deeper, as we were a brazen group motivated by our ambitious plans of building an empire that had the potential to fundamentally alter our fates. I headed our team in this configuration, carried the weight of taking the critical decisions that would in the end shape our course for the future. Always with his usual smirking smile, Luke always seemed to be a few strides ahead of the rest of us, plotting and planning for the adventures awaiting us. In this setup, I was the leader of our group, shouldering the heavy burden of making the pivotal decisions that would ultimately shape our direction for the future. Luke, always with his characteristic smirking smile, always appeared to be a few steps ahead of the rest of us, masterminding and scheming for the adventures that awaited us. Then, there was Chris, a tough man who was characterized by his relentless drive towards action, showing fierce commitment to our cause but also possessing a capacity for brutality whenever the situation demanded it. Together, we had forged something very powerful and lasting—until that turning point came when I made the painful decision to step away from our venture. It was at that moment that I left them to their own devices, and they started to stumble about blindly, taking actions without my direction.
Reina's voice was so pure and clear that it seemed to have cut through the hazy mental turmoil; which snapped me out from my deep daydreaming and returned me to the physical world quite forcefully. "If you were still the leader of the group, do you honestly believe you could have maintained your position of authority in such a difficult setting?"
I looked at her. "What is that supposed to be?"
She shrugged. "You obviously ran a tight ship. They trailed behind you. Would they have done this if you were still here?"
I could feel my fingers involuntarily tightening around the steering wheel, and I could feel my jaw tightening with every second. "You must understand that I do not issue orders to criminals, Reina."
"On one particular occasion, you were able to do that task."
I felt an intangible piece of myself shattering into bits right in that instant. I explicitly stated that I left the situation since I had no longer wanted to have anything to do with it. She stood there, completely speechless and shocked by what was unfolding before her eyes, a great wave of surprise crashing over her for the first time in her life. "Don't talk about my past as if you have any actual knowledge of what it actually was." But following a quick interior battle, she pulled herself together and recovered her poise; her face shifted clearly with fresh drive as her face changed.
I breathed slowly and deeply and clutched the steering wheel harder in an attempt to ground myself firmly in the here and now. The GPS unit told us that we were headed in the direction of our destination. I turned onto the deserted and vacant road, and the warehouse began to take shape in the distance before us. It appeared as dead and inert as it ever did, but there was a nagging sense that something was actually amiss.
I halted far back, scanning the area. "Something's wrong."
Reina frowned. "What?"
I took deep breaths, releasing a difficult breath as my senses were awakened and became sharply focused on my environment. "They are no longer here. The gang has relocated to a different place." The realization fell upon us with a crushing feeling, similar to the oppressive weight of cold. The warehouse hitherto our sole sure lead in this case—proved to be nothing but an empty and hollow shell. And that left us one step behind our competitors.