Page 165 of Speechless
Aiden
Trinity.
Why the fuck are you up there?
Trinity
I’ll be home when I can!
The collaboration with the conservation project happened in many places, but often in ports, where things could be loaded onto the boats and then taken to where they needed to be sunk. It wasn’t purely coastal reefs that were being rebuilt. There were some places further out as well.
Which was why I was an hour north of home, almost to Sunset City, driving into Port Sunset. The guard at the gate looked at me sideways asI drove up. Which, fair. I didn’t exactly look like the kind of person who had business at a port.
“Hi there. I’m working with the conservation project, here to pick up some information about what they’re sending out this week.”
Not one word of that was a lie. Iwasworking with them. They answered all my questions. And I was here to pick up information. Just not the kind I was implying.
The schedules of the boat drops were public. It wasn’t easy to find them, but I did. They did their best to make it difficult.
The man frowned at me, his expression saying he thought I was nothing more than a cockroach. Like I was personally offending him. “Name?”
“Trinity Crawford.” I showed him my ID.
He stared at it for a long moment. “Office is down and to the left. Don’t wander around. It’s a hard hat area.”
“Got it. Thank you.”
Adrenaline slid through my veins and made my heart pound. I wasn’t doing anything illegal. Taking pictures wasn’t illegal. As far as sneaking around? I would ask for forgiveness rather than permission. What’s the worst that would happen, being escorted out of the port?
I parked my car where the guard had told me, and then I just… didn’t go into the office. If there was one thing that being a journalist had taught me, it was that you could go almost anywhere if you pretended you belonged and had enough confidence.
Now, to find where they were loading the cars. Closer to the water, obviously. The schedule I found said it was happening right now.
Heading for the water, I walked between stacks of giant shipping containers. The further from the office, the less likely I was to be seen.
A giant crane rose ahead of me with a car attached to it.Bingo.
There was far more noise and chaos here. Several of the truck-sized car carriers sat down at the edge of the water, and men in vests and hard hats rolled them down towards the stacks of shipping containers.Openshipping containers.
The boat they were loading had its own smaller crane, but the boat itself wasn’t small. Big enough to fitplentyof cars. I could barely see the deck, but it seemed like it was open, revealing a large portion of the interior where they could store them.
There was no way for me to sneak around and see what was inside if I wanted to keep myself unseen. But there was something here. Why weren’t the cars being lifted onto the boat as soon as they rolled off the carriers?
A man in a bright orange vest double-tapped the trunk of a white car that came back into view. Too much noise to hear him, but it was clear he was signaling the crane with the giant magnet.
It lowered slowly over the car, ready to snap it up. That was kind of freaky. Remind me tonevergo near something like that.
The man was on the far side of the car. From here I could see that it wasn’t fully lined up, but he couldn’t. The magnet engaged, and the car wasrippedoff the ground—straight onto its side. Brown liquid immediately streamed out of the car wherever it could. The trunk. The windows. Hell, it looked like it was coming out of the wheel wells, and that wasn’t oil.
I pointed my phone at the scene and took rapid-fire pictures as the workers frantically waved at the crane, trying to stop it. I might be able to get another angle if I moved. Plus, it was better not to stay in one spot.
One glance behind me told me I hadn’t been spotted, but I didn’t sprint. I walked quickly past the next stack of shipping containers, and the next one, and one more for good measure before creeping forward and peeking around the corner once more.
Several of the men had their arms over their faces, like something stank. The one who’d first signaled the crane was yelling and red-faced, directing people to open the car and…
Two men rolled a metal barrel out of the shipping container while the others lifted the leaking one out of the trunk. They replaced the barrel, shut it, and this time the magnet worked like a charm.
If that wasn’t a smoking gun, I didn’t know what was.
