Sin wanted to jump out and kill the bastards, but she didn’t have a weapon.
Within ten minutes, the men were back in the truck and gone.
Sin and Charlie waited in complete silence for another fifteen before either made a sound.
“It was them,” Sin said, pointing to where the truck had been. “The bastards that killed Alex and the others.”
“Don’t go jumping to conclusions.”
“Conclusions?” Sin snapped her head around and glared at Charlie, “Didn’t you hear what he said?”
“Yeah, I heard,” Charlie’s voice stayed calm as he spoke, “but I didn’t hear him say if they killed the first three agents or Alex or all the above, and more important . . .” Charlie put his hand on Sin’s shoulder to silence her, “I didn’t hear who gave the orders.”
Sin looked down at the ground and kicked a few loose shells.
“Did you notice the weapons they were carrying?” Charlie asked, dragging Sin back into the moment.
“Among other things,” Sin said. “They looked like Glock 18 machine pistols. You don’t take those to a party unless you plan on doing some serious damage.”
“What else did you notice?”
“Can we get away from here and continue the debriefing then?”
Charlie smiled. “Sorry, old habit.”
Sin nodded her affirmation.
“Before we leave, we need to sink our equipment.”
“The Navy isn’t going to be too happy about that,” Sin said.
Charlie chuckled. “Nothing the Pentagon won’t replace at hundreds its actual cost.”
“You are just one big conspiracy theory.”
“You can thank my conspiracy minded brain that you weren’t on the receiving end of one of those Glock 18s.”
Sin stopped mid-motion as she was picking up her air tank and heeded Charlie’s words. “Good point.” She then grabbed the tank and handed it to him.
He took it, strapped it to the other equipment and wrapped everything in their weight belts.
Standing at the end of the Point, Charlie and Sin both grabbed the wrapped equipment.
“On a count of three,” Charlie said.
Sin rolled her eyes. “Let’s go, Jacques Cousteau, I’m wet and cold.”
Charlie grinned as he counted.
They heaved the bundle out as far as they could and watched it sink.
“Come on,” Charlie said. “I parked an old truck at the Dairy Queen a half mile south of here. We can ride back to North Point and talk about what we found.”
On their drive back, Sin mentioned that the two men they saw were definitely professional. “Whoever is fronting this operation isn’t just using local talent,” she said.
“The locals are just the scapegoats,” Charlie said. “If anything goes wrong, they are going to leave the idiots to be hung and try and get away scot free.”
He glanced over and again Sin was biting her lower lip. “You really have to stop doing that,” he said. “What are you thinking about?”
Sin released her lip and pushed her wet hair away from her face. “I’m thinking there are a lot of pieces to this puzzle, and the church and fishing company are the next two pieces to explore.”
Charlie nodded. “The church is important, but I don’t think the fishing company is the place we need to search.”
Sin thought for a moment and pointed a manicured nail toward him. “The orphanage is in the same building. That’s where we need to search.”
Charlie smiled.
Sin looked at her watch. It was almost one a.m. “I’m going to go over there later today and see if I can get a tour of the place. That will give us an idea of what to look for.”
“I still have a little bit of searching to do in order to get all the architectural drawings of the church,” Charlie said as he pulled the truck next to Sin’s vehicle.
“Let’s meet at four p.m. at the hangar, compare thoughts, and figure out the next step,” he said.
Sin leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Thanks for always being there for me.”
Charlie blushed. “Get out of here and be careful.”
Sin opened the door and slid out of the truck. “You, too.”
19
Sin knew that Carmelita had friends who worked at the orphanage, so she asked Carmelita to call and arrange a tour for her. At ten a.m., she was dressed and headed out the door.
“Do you mind if we go with you?”
Sin turned and saw Carmelita and Maria standing behind her.
“Maria has some friends at the orphanage and I have not seen my friend Rosa in a while. I thought we could all go together,” Carmelita said.
Sin smiled at them both. “Sounds like a plan.”
They were greeted—if you can call it that—at the front door of the orphanage by a security officer. He let Carmelita and Maria pass, but stepped in front of Sin as she stepped forward.
Sin read his name tag—York.
“Do you have an appointment?”
Sin stared at him through her mirrored lenses, eyeing the guard from top to bottom, wondering if he could have been one of the ‘pros’ she saw last night. “O’Malley,” was all she said.
“ID?”
Sin pulled her military ID from her pocket.
“Pff, so you’re the war hero everyone’s been talking about,” the guard groaned. “Can’t seem to find your name on the list,” he smirked, trying to give her a hard time as he flipped pages on his manifest.
“It comes after ‘N’ and before ‘P’,” Sin said sarcastically.
The guard checked off the name and opened the door. “Bitch,” he mumbled as Sin passed by.
She slapped her hip and glared at the guard through her glasses as if to say, kiss my ass.
Carmelita introduced Sin to Rosa, who led them to the great room which overlooked the water with large plate-glass windows.
Maria released Sin’s hand and ran over to a group of girls in the far corner of the room. The jumped up and down, giggled, and hugged when they saw each other.
“Maria will be fine with her friends while we see the rest of the orphanage,” Carmelita said.
Sin
