He lobbed it atthe same time as John shot a hole in the nearest window. The flashbang flewthrough; there were sounds of shouting from within, and then a blast ofbrilliant white that Adele just barely glimpsed through a crack in the boardedup window.
A few secondslater, men with hands in the air emerged from behind the wall, stumbling andrubbing at their eyes. A couple of them had blood trickling from their ears.
Adele slowlylowered her weapon, feeling a surge of relief. Just then, there was the chatterof more gunfire. One of the men next to her loosed a startled cry and slipped.He hit the ground with a thump, gasping. Adele turned sharply, gun raised.
She got off twoshots of her own in the direction of a man who’d been hiding on the roof of thesecond facility. The man looked like he’d been hit in the hand, and he clutchedhis injured arm, trying to raise his gun again at the same time.
At least six menwith machine guns rounded, aimed, and fired in a matter of a split second,dousing the roof with bullets in a downpour of lead.
The mangledcorpse of the Serbian fell, collapsing to the ground in front of the warehouse.
Finally, Adelebreathed.
The man at herfeet was rising slowly with the help of two of his compatriots. The bullets lookedlike they’d hit his vest. Ashen-faced and shaking as he was, this didn’t deterthe other men—once they’d determined he would survive—from teasing him andmaking fun of his expression.
For her part,Adele felt sick.
She stood in themiddle of the compound, between the three buildings, inhaling and enjoying thesudden quiet. No more gunfire, no more shouts. Major Hewer was rapidly issuingorders still, but in a controlled way now, sending men to sweep through thebuildings once more in teams and guarantee they were clear.
Adele glanced atthe second building, finding her fingers trembling where they gripped herweapon.
That had been alot of organs in those containers. She could only imagine how many shipmentshad come through this place. How many times they had packaged the organs andshipped them off around the world. She shivered, staring ahead, stunned. Adelefelt a hand on her arm and glanced up at John. He gestured to the roof andsaid, “Good shot.” She nodded, numbly.
Adele swallowed.She was determined to be professional. This felt more like a military invasionthan anything, but it didn’t matter; she was still on the job. She steadied herbreathing and then followed after John toward the second building, her weaponraised once more, her expression determined.
Over the nextcouple of hours, she watched and helped as more arrests were made. She listenedto the chatter of Major Hewer as he relayed information back to base. Not longafter, there was the sound of sirens, and regular police showed up, preparingto take the traffickers into custody. It wouldn’t be long before the news wouldstart arriving as well, Adele surmised. From what she was hearing, though, fromthe mutterings between Hewer, John, and a man in a pressed suit who’d arrivedwith the police, this was big. The police were finding more and moreevidence suggesting this thing had been international.
Adele glancedaround, staring at nearly twenty men now on their knees, handcuffed, waiting tobe escorted to prison wagons.
“Dear God,” Adelesaid, watching as more and more suspects were escorted off by police officers.The sound of sirens had nearly drowned the sky at this point.
Eventually,Adele found herself in the back of the military vehicle she’d arrived in,alone, trembling. She clutched her hands in front of her, staring at thefacility through the bullet-cracked glass.
She shook herhead, exhausted.
A quiet tap onthe glass dragged her attention to the side. At first she was startled, butthen she relaxed a bit as she recognized Major Hewer. His large, bushy beardjutted out past the chinstrap of his helmet.
He unbuckled thehelmet, pulled it off, and opened the door, glancing at her. “Boss wants tospeak with you,” he said. He gestured with his helmet to the man in the suit.The sky was darkening now and it was difficult to make him out against thebackdrop of the gray warehouse buildings. Adele glanced past Hewer. “This seemslike a big deal,” she said, quietly, trying to hide her nerves.
Hewer examinedher from beneath his dark brows. He nodded once. “You’re a friend of John’s?”
Adele thoughtabout it for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. I am.”
Major Hewercleared his throat. “Friend of John is a friend of mine. You did good work.Thing is starting to look international. Boys found discrepancies on the truck’slicense plates.” He passed a hand over his face, streaking his forehead withdirt. “Looks like this might span several countries.” He shook his head,rubbing his chin. “Spain, Hungary, France,” he nodded toward her, “Germany…” Herubbed his chin. “That’s only what we’ve found in a couple hours. There willprobably be more.”
Adele staredincredulously.
“You did goodwork,” he said with a very John-like wink.
Adele tried toreturn his smile as the large, muscular man turned and began stalking backtoward the suited fellow.
She would haveto talk to him, but for the moment, she just tried to gather herself, tobreathe. She could smell the gun smoke in the air.
It took her amoment, in the back seat of the Humvee, to realize she felt glad; glad they hadput a stop to this. She tried not to think of all those organs in the coolers.What would be done with them? Would they be put to waste? What a terriblethought. Could they possibly be returned to their owners? She doubted it. She wonderedhow many people had died to amass that collection. Could the German governmentuse them? They could save lives still…
These werequestions far above her pay grade, and Adele felt a flash of relief she wasn’trequired to answer them.
She watched thetraffickers taken off one at a time into the back of police wagons. And whilethis was a victory, she couldn’t shake the notion that there was just oneproblem.
They still hadn’tactually found the murderer in Paris.
Scowling at thethought, she emerged from the back of the vehicle and headed toward the suitedman with the mustache.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
“You made thenews,” her father
