Page 116 of The Fourth Option
Paladin remained curled near the door, his head resting on his paws, nose twitching. Belle glanced at the bed, then at the dog.
Walker studied her in the lamplight. She was tough but there was something beneath it. Not weakness. Just wear.
“I screwed up the buy, my one job,” she said. “Instead, I became a hostage, a liability. That wasn’t the plan.”
“You kept your head.”
“You saved my life, Chris. I’m in your debt.”
Favors. Just like with Staub.
“Let’s review. That’s always important after a mission.”
“Sounds good. What would you have called this meeting in your SEAL Team days?”
“An AAR. After action review is the formal report. A hotwash is what we would do right after a mission while it was still fresh.”
She offered a crooked grin. “Love it. Let’s hotwash the shit out of this.”
“Okay. We can start at the beginning. I heard most of what the guy in the yard said to you. He refused to sell you Snowball.”
“It wasn’t just a refusal. He wanted to know exactly who I was and where I lived.”
Walker went to the bed and retrieved his duffel. Next to the flannel in the Ziploc he had laid out a white plastic trash bag. He returned to the desk, opened it, and carefully removed some of the contents, placing them on the desk: pills, capsules, and half a dozen clear packets.
“So that’s the drug haul,” she stated. “Eclectic mix.”
Walker nodded. “Let’s go back to the point where you spoke with the guy sitting next to the cooler in the yard. He asked you where you were from. I don’t think he did that to the guy in the Jeep.”
“So?”
“The Jeep had Arkansas plates.”
“They only sell to people out of state? We’ve had deaths from Snowball in Louisiana.”
“Connor’s journal says not in New Orleans. It also says that opioid overdoses are climbing around the country.”
“That’s true but that’s not attributed to Snowball.”
“Based on what Leigh Ann said, labs have a hard time attributing overdoses to any specific opioid.”
“Meaning?”
“They were trying to distance themselves from it. Maybe that’s what Connor was trying to crack; connecting the cops to the next level in the network.”
“The smugglers? You get all that from a dealer asking me where I was from?”
“He sold to someone with out-of-state plates and not to you with Louisiana plates. I’m just saying I think that could be significant.”
“Maybe he was just sexist.”
“Money has a way of overcoming prejudice.”
Belle picked up one of the packets, turning it in the light. The label was as plain as a condiment package: “FENTANYL.”
“I didn’t realize until recently that fentanyl is an actual drug name,” she said. “I thought it was some deadly poison the Chinese make.”
“Check out the small print from the manufacturer.”
