Page 49 of Talk to Me

“Work smarter,” Locke said. “Not harder.”

Lips pursed, I eyed the hard drives, then Locke and finally looked back at the building. The drives were nowhere near as satisfying as kicking in doors and cracking skulls. At the same time, they might net us a target sooner.

“How long?” I asked.

“A few hours,” Locke said. “We need a place for me to get everything set up and plugged in. But I have what I need.”

“I have something similar that Patch provided,” Remington admitted. Ice licked every single syllable. “We will need to retrieve it if necessary, but if you have yours—then I say we do it your way for now.”

I agreed with that caveat, particularly because I wanted to get eyes on Patch yesterday. “Fine, let’s go. There’s a couple of hotels back near the interstate.”

An hour later, we were split between two rooms with the adjoining door wide open. Locke worked with plugging the hard drives into a case, then plugging something else into them.

We got more food, and coffee, then waited. Locke was methodical, he loaded and searched each drive individually. The encryption programs took time and it was tedious to watch the screen as it ticked past.

Remington took a shower. When he was done, I took one. Locke waved it off. He’d shower when he was finished. It wasn’t until he was on the seventh drive that he found the address for her house.

“Fallon Brady,” Locke murmured.

“What?”

“Her name, it’s listed as Fallon Brady. I didn’t know Patch’s real name.”

Nor had I and based on Remington’s tight expression, neither had he.

“It’s a directive to acquire her alive, with no fanfare. Black bag job, very quiet.”

“Alive is good,” Remington said. “And bad.”

‘Cause it meant they wanted something from her.

“Where did they take her?” I asked.

“I’m hunting,” Locke said and the screen flickered and changed. I fought the urge to pace. “This bit of encryption is harder and it’s different—the programs are working.” It took another ten excruciating minutes.

Then we had an address.

“It’s a few hours away,” I said, checking the GPS. “We need to get there and scout.”

“We also need medical supplies,” Locke said. “Weapons, gear, and probably stuff to break in and break out. The address doesn’t exist on Google Earth. I don’t even want to know what you have to do to get yourself scrubbed.”

“Shower,” I told him. “We’re leaving in fifteen.”

“Good job,” Remington said to him as Locke went into the bathroom.

He was right. “Yeah,” I said. “Good job.”

Locke gave us each a look then shook his head. It had been a good job. We had a location.

“We do this together,” Remington said. “Once we have her secure and these people burned down, we can deal with everything else.”

“Including who from that outfit was sent to get her,” I said.

He merely nodded. There wasn’t much else to say. Locke was done with his shower and in fresh clothes in under ten minutes. We headed back to the truck with our gear. The hard drives were still with us. They might be useful later.

Hang on, Patch.

We’re coming.