Page 26 of Run

“You’re doing great,” he reassured her.

She smiled at him, making a hot curl of envy unfurl within Elle. Unable to help herself, she glanced over at David, only to find his eyes on her. For a microsecond, the room emptied of everyone but them as Elle’s breath hitched in her chest.

Then Julia continued to speak, shattering the moment. “We’ve managed to gather some information about how each group runs their drug trade, including who supplies them with their product, where it comes into the country, where the low-level dealers work, and the next delivery date for the James Syndicate. Callum?”

She stepped aside for their boss, who was in full-blown operation mode. You could tell because he was too focused on the task to shout.

“We plan to instigate a campaign of sabotage and escalation,” he said. “Starting at the bottom of the power structures, taking out the ground soldiers, before working our way up to higher-value targets if needed.”

“Why not blow out a bigger target straight off?” Megan asked.

“Starting small makes it appear more natural,” Dimitri said. “Like they’re jostling for power, testing each other out. It also reduces the chances of them negotiating their way out of this.”

Joe nodded. “If we did something big, it’s possible they’d decide to get all the players around a table and knock it on the head that way. Which means they might find out that none of them are behind the trouble. Nipping at their heels isn’t worth a sit-down, but it will seed mistrust, anger, and fear. All things you want in a war.”

“It’s also the approach that’ll attract the least attention from the authorities or media,” Callum added.

“Okay,” Megan said. “How do we do this?”

Callum motioned to Julia, and a new slide appeared on the wall. “These are the targets we’ve identified. As you can see, there are several, which means we have a lot of ground to cover. We’ll split into three teams, each dressing and acting like one of the gangs, then in the gang’s persona, we’ll take out one of their rivals.” He rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “I’d like more time to prepare, but we don’t have it. This needs to be done hard and fast, and because of that, we’re heading out this evening.

“Julia will coordinate everyone from here. Rachel and Elle will man a mobile post in the field. I’d rather keep you here, Elle, out of harm’s way, but we might need your hacking skills.”

“I wouldn’t want to stay here,” she said honestly. “I’m more use to you out there. Don’t worry; I’ll keep my head down and be the ‘man in the van.’ Although, I’m going to need better equipment if we’re setting up a mobile comms unit.”

Rachel looked up from her phone, where she was either checking the stock market or buying something ridiculously expensive—or checking in with her army of demon minions…

“Let me know what you need, and I’ll procure it from TayFor.”

“By procure,” Elle said, “do you mean steal from your family’s pharmaceutical company?”

Rachel appeared bored. “Borrow. Requisition. I’m CEO. I don’t need to pilfer.”

Really, there was nothing to say to that. Elle had been inside the company and knew they were loaded to the gills with state-of-the-art tech. There was no doubt in her mind that whatever Rachelpilfered,it would do the job.

“As for the rest of the teams,” Callum said, “we’ve got Dimitri, Joe, and Megan together. Then me and Ryan. That leaves Harvard with David. Anybody got any problems with that?”

There was silence.

“Good. Julia will send everything she has to your new phones. Read up on it and be ready. Then bloody delete everything so we don’t have another phone screwup.” Callum took a step toward the door, but Rachel stopped him.

“What about weapons and other military gizmos? I can’t procure those from TayFor, and I’m assuming the police won’t allow us to raid the Benson office armory. How exactly are we going to sabotage things without the right equipment?”

“Gizmos?” Ryan mouthed at Elle, who grinned.

“It’s a technical term,” she whispered. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Don’t worry,” Callum said. “We’ll be well enough equipped to deal with this lot. David and Lake spoke with their contacts this morning, and they’re setting us up with whatever we need. Now, get together with your team and prepare as best you can. Ryan”—he was back to barking orders—“get your arse to the kitchen. We’ll eat and talk.”

“How well he knows you,” Elle said as Ryan rushed off. Then her eyes settled on Rachel, and she grinned. Laptop under her arm, she skipped over to Rachel. “High five, partner.”

Rachel did not high five; instead, she pointed a red talon at herself. “Me boss.” She then pointed at Elle. “You minion.”

“Technically, you ain’t my boss anymore.” Elle sat tailor-style on the kitchen chair beside Rachel and opened her laptop. “I’m sending you a list of all the tech gear I need. Also”—she stopped typing for a second to look at Rachel—“there’s a really cool lava lamp on the desk in the IT area, can I have it? The guys wouldn’t give it to me when I was working there undercover, even though I asked nicely.”

“No.”

“Pretty please? You’re the boss. You can order them to hand it over. I mean, how professional is it for them to have it on their desk in the first place? Is that the kind of image you want your company to project? Hippy-dippy lava lamps?”