With that accomplished, Shay pulled out her key to get past the first door. Another door with a keypad and retinal scanner blocked further progress. She tapped in the code and placed her eye against the scanner. The huge internal bolts locking the door retracted with a loud thunk, and she pulled the door open to step into a dimly lit metal antechamber.
Hrmm. Never realized how much this looks like the kind of room they stick you in before they start torturing you.
A huge reinforced steel door blocked her progress again. It was a bitch to install since she couldn’t let the workers actually know where they would be working. Instead, she arranged for them to be blindfolded and driven to the site by Shay, after sweeping them to make sure no one had any tracking devices. The workers had all been taken inside before their blindfolds were removed so they couldn’t use environmental cues to begin to try and figure out where they were.
It was amazing what people would agree to when you splashed a little extra cash around. The premium price was painful, but she took comfort in knowing that the workers had no clue where Warehouse Four was located. Of course, the not-so-veiled threat that she’d murder them in their sleep if they ever asked around about the job helped.
Too much? If they came here, I’d have to kill them anyway, so don’t know if that’s better than murdering them in their sleep. At least I warned them.
Shay placed one of her fingers on the door’s DNA reader. A burning sensation followed, and she shook out her hand, waiting for the scanner to confirm it was her. The door bellowed out a loud echoing click, and she pulled the heavy door open.
A few steps into the library brought a smile to the woman’s face. Her history books and records would help her find Abbot’s gold. She didn’t even care about the lack of magical artifacts. Not this time, anyway.
Shay licked her lips, her heart kicking up. Something excited her about this particular chase. Maybe because it was one of the first times her knowledge was helping lead her to the treasure rather than technological tricks or throwing around money.
She also didn’t mind the idea of pulling off a job right under the noses of the Nuevo Gulf Cartel.
Fun, fun. Too bad you assholes didn’t actually finish me off.
Shay took several more steps closer to the books where she inhaled and enjoyed the musty smell of the old books. The collected knowledge represented by the books managed to humble her every time.
Shay had equipped Warehouse Five with traps, but she’d elected not to do that with Warehouse Four, fearing a stray bullet or explosion might set the place on fire and destroy all the accumulated wisdom resting in the pages.
Losing all the books would hurt her more than anything she could imagine. She could easily say it was worth more than a few lives.
I guess I’m just the ruthless pizza and history girl. Too late now to do the history professor gig. Doesn’t mean I can’t have fun on this job.
Shay smiled to herself. It was time to do some more research.
Chapter Twelve
“Welcome to beautiful Mexico,” Shay said with an easy laugh. If she didn’t know Cabo San Lucas was in the same state as the mountainous desert wasteland she currently traversed, she would have questioned why anyone ever came to Baja California Sur.
The Land Rover rumbled over the dried, cracked ground, the bumpy terrain worsening by the minute, and the mountains looming over her like some angry Oriceran giant. The clear blue skies stretched off into the horizon, and she could imagine the night sky would be a beautiful tapestry so far away from light pollution. Too bad she didn’t plan to stick around that long.
Her vehicle closed on the coordinates her research had indicated, a triumph of her old-school book collection over her advanced technology. She never imagined that her history books she’d purchased would prove so useful in a future job.
Guess I picked the right hobby.
Her experience in Austria had impressed the importance of having the proper equipment to recover all possible treasure. Her alerts were still quiet. No one around to bother her.
“This should be easy,” Shay muttered to herself. “I have a whole damned vehicle I can shove gold into. This isn’t some sad old-school donkey. Or maybe I should start using donkeys. Probably some Oriceran donkeys that have magic and wings.” She frowned. “Donkeys that could fucking fly.”
Shay shook her head. Spending too many hours alone in her own head could do strange things, but trust for the most part still remained foreign. Bringing Peyton into the operation didn’t mean she was ready to run around with a partner in the field yet.
Trusting someone to have her back in a fight was something she’d yet to experience. Few people she met were as good as she was when it came to killing. At least when it came to normal human methods and not strange magic, and she wasn’t sure how much she could trust someone who relied on magic. The few marks from her old job that almost took her down were almost all people with access to magic. Despite her job, the actual use of magic still left her uneasy.
Shoving a piece of lead at supersonic speeds into someone’s head is a kind of magic, though. I guess it’s all a matter of perspective.
Shay let out an uneasy grunt and tried to focus on the current job.
Her plan was to locate the cache, then use a small cargo drone to transport all the gold, bar by bar, back to the Land Rover. After a simple drive back to town, she could unload the gold into the private plane she’d chartered and get the hell out of Mexico before any cartel assholes had a clue anyone had ever been in the area. Much less a dead woman.
How do you like that,
