“This shipment is not headed for any standard disposal location and in fact is to be ‘handed off’ to another unit for the next leg of transportation.” Harte maintained a pleasant tone.
Pleasant wasn’t a natural state of being for Harte. Someone, somewhere, was in for a world of hurt.
“Interesting.” Generally, any shipment intended for not-so-legit destinations was easier to hide from surveillance when a corporate sponsor hired multiple paramilitary contractors to move the cargo in segments along an unpredictable course. Each contractor team only knew where to pick it up and where to drop it off. No knowledge of where it came from or where it was going next meant chain of custody was fairly easy to document, but it wasn’t so easy to be sure the actual contents had remained intact from the true beginning of the journey to the final destination.
“I made some friendly inquiries of my own,” Harte continued. “Your recent playmates are on the roster as one of the already contracted teams, but the others? Not really any players we’ve worked with in the past.”
The paramilitary-contractor industry was fairly large considering the sheer turnover rate of people entering the military in the US alone, and subsequently leaving with specialized skill sets. The number fluctuated from year to year but hovered easily around the six-digit range across the various armed forces. That was a lot of people with the potential to become private contractors. But few had the business acumen to exist as solo contractors, and the actual number of organized corporations was significantly reduced. Players as efficient or successful as Centurion Corporation or Edict were limited to a small circle of elite, and each of them had high standards for working with others.
“Edict isn’t likely to play nice with other teams.” Gabe doubted Centurion Corporation would work with them at all unless they were new and being given a chance to prove themselves.
“I know at least two of them have a reputation for not playing well at all.” Harte barked out a laugh. “It’s a train wreck waiting to happen.”
Meaning the cargo was intended to go missing.
There were a couple of possibilities for where the shipment was actually meant to end up. The most likely destination was into the hands of a buyer.
“What kind of research was your missing scientist doing again?”
Gabe wasn’t liking where this was going. “An-mei Cheng is a geneticist.”
“Do we know more?”
“She lives and breathes gene sequences. She’s immersed so completely the sisters send each other family notes in DNA-based codes.” Which still boggled Gabe’s mind a little. He was familiar with codes and had basic experience in reading them, even breaking them. But it’d been an added layer to Maylin’s intelligence he hadn’t anticipated.
“Your girl owns a catering company, right?” Harte was obviously caught off guard too.
Gabe grinned. “Apparently Maylin was pre-med. Her best course of study was developmental biology before she decided she wouldn’t be happy in a medical career. She followed her heart, built herself the kind of business she wanted.”
And he was more and more impressed with every new thing he learned about her.
“Interesting family.” Harte grew serious. “I’ve got a couple of guesses lined up here, but the actual answer depends on exactly what kind of research An-mei Cheng was doing. Quick internet search goes into genetics. But there’s one article catching my eye.”
Gabe strode over to the small desk in the corner. He’d left most of the research files Lizzy had pulled together in the beginning there. Retrieving the folder, he spread the files and quickly scanned them. “Gene-editing therapy.”
“In adult test subjects. Not in petri dishes.”
The applications were broad, and in his line of work, they were the stuff of nightmares. Biological warfare went beyond the definition of horrific and straight to unspeakable.
“Phoenix Biotech is not a US government–contracted research company,” Harte pointed out. This was mostly good news. They wouldn’t be going against the country they loved. “But we can assume they’re not going to appreciate us retrieving a wayward geneticist. We’ll need to crack them wide open so they’re too busy dealing with the US authorities to even try to reacquire the girl.”
“We.” Gabe zeroed in on the key point. It changed everything.
“It is in Centurion Corporation’s best interest to aid in the investigation of potential criminal activity when we have literally been invited into a unique position of observation. The US government is more than willing to have us on point in their already established investigation.”