Page 37 of Cops and Robbers

“Glad you have a vendetta, but you can join the thousands of others,” Sid said, leaning forward. “What makes you, a thief, special enough to garner our help?”

A dominating force slid over her senses. Her ear closest to Raz felt pressurized. Sid peered at Raz, shook his head, and sat back in his seat. Did Raz use some dragon tactic to snap at Sid? Why would he defend her?

No matter. It was time to change tactics. “You’re looking for Lucifer’s Bell, right?”

Their eyes snapped to Raz. He was looking for the Bell?

Raz gazed sourly at his bottle as if some haunted memory lay within it. “What do you know about the Bell?”

She’d only seen that lost expression on his face when she asked why he worked for the FBI. Whatever his connection was to the Bell, it wasn’t a pleasant one, and Kate would have to curb her answers accordingly.

“At a black-market auction in Hamburg, the auctioneers demonstrated its power,” she said, recalling the video Raz had on his computer. “One ring of the bell in a remote village in the Middle East led to hundreds of dead by a demon-possessed assailant. Then Midnight stole it for Matsuda.” That was the first time Naomi had killed to get what Matsuda wanted. If she kept killing, Kate didn’t know what would hold Naomi back from choosing to become an Archfiend. That’s why she’d pushed up her timeline. Kate had to go after Matsuda now or lose Naomi forever.

Raz’s jaw clenched, though his eyes remained on his bottle. There was a subdued quality to the energy in the room, and Kate remembered the picture of the dead man on Raz’s case board. The Dragon SEALs had been at that event and had probably lost someone close to them. Lukas. Bile rose in her throat, and she twined her fingers in her lap, forgetting for a moment that the motion would appear deceitful.

“Where were you during that auction?” Raz asked in a quiet voice, as if he didn’t want to know the answer.

She placed her hands back onto her laptop. “I was in hiding.” The Bell hadn’t even been on her radar until that moment.

“So you really just wanted us to think you were Midnight to get our attention?” Sid asked incredulously.

“And demonstrate my skills.”

He didn’t seem convinced. But she already knew she had her work cut out for her in convincing them to help her.

“Do you know what Matsuda wants the Bell for?” Raz asked.

She swallowed, remembering the carnage from that single bell toll. “Matsuda loves the challenge of creating stronger weapons to sell. Since no one can record the Bell’s sound and have the same effect, he’s building another one on a massive scale to retrofit it into a Long Range Acoustic Device, or an LRAD. Instead of demonic possession of one or more people, it would target hundreds. And hundreds could kill thousands.”

“You know where the Bell is, don’t you?” Lewis said.

“I know where the Bell and the LRAD replica are, and I want to steal them.” She schooled her face and heart as she’d taught herself for lie detector tests. They don’t need to know that your mission is really to take back the thing Matsuda was using to control Naomi.

She had a hunch Lucifer’s Bell was in that submarine, but as for the LRAD device—there was no guarantee that it’d be down there.

She had to play this smart. Given the way Raz acted after sex, as if she was something to use and discard, she needed to play her cards more cautiously. The rogues had given her no reason to trust them with the truth. This was a team that had one goal in mind, and saving a murdering thief that took out their friend wasn’t one of them.

“Don’t you have your own crew for that?” Sid asked. “Why do you need us?”

“Because Matsuda can’t find out we took it. And I don’t have the resources to accomplish that.”

“Why not?” Raz asked.

Her fingers tingled, and her heart palpitated with anticipation of the next heist. This group was the solution. But this…this was different. A mingling of fear trapped her tongue to the rear of her throat. If she failed, it wasn’t just her life on the line. “It’s at the b-bottom of the ocean.” At their confused faces, she continued, “Stuck in a submarine.”

“Like a working submarine?” Lewis asked, eyes wide.

“The US Navy was supposed to shoot it down in 1946 to keep it out of the Soviets’ hands.”

“Are you talking about the I-401?” Sid cut in.

She grinned internally. So, Sid likes conspiracies? “The I-402, to be more exact.”

“Hold it.” Lewis put his hands out. “Someone, please explain.”

Sid said, “We acquired two special subs from the Japanese after they surrendered during WWII. Are you telling me the conspiracy around them is true?”

She nodded. “After we received them, the US was supposed to destroy both, but they used the same footage at a different angle as proof they wiped out the other. Instead, someone sank it to the bottom of the ocean—intact so they could bring it up after the war to study.”