The Exporter: A Michael Thomas Thriller by Gavin Reese

Author:Gavin Reese [Reese, Gavin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Liquid Mind Publishing
Published: 2022-02-07T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty

THIRTY

February 24th, 05:43 a.m.

28 Swan Street, New Orleans.

“Someone’s coming.”

Michael paused in his search of Lemalin’s desk drawers, shut off his low-power, red-lensed flashlight and stood still. He took in a deep, calming breath. Jane watched the front yard and Swan Street through a narrow gap in the plantation shutters on the south wall of Lemalin’s second-floor home office.

“I can’t make them scurry off, you know.”

“Sure you can,” Michael replied. “We would just need to be gone before the cops came back to ask you about it.” He carefully lowered himself into the chair behind Lemalin’s desk.

They had waited more than an hour after the last cop drove away from the residence to begin searching it. As long as Lemalin’s phone was still on and active on the opposite bank of Lake Pontchartrain, both had felt more comfortable making sure the patrol officers had actually gone back to work. Michael was accustomed to working these investigations on his own, but Jane had offered to keep watch as he searched for evidence. Shutting down every time someone walks their dog or drives past slows us down, but it’s also less likely to arouse suspicion. Suspicious flashlights brought down Nixon, so I don’t stand a chance.

“They’re gone.” Jane shifted her body weight between her feet and pulled the shutter slats open just a little more. “I keep waiting for someone to show up at the vacant house and call the cops about the Mercedes that isn’t supposed to be in the garage.”

Michael resumed his search of the desk’s contents and moved to the bottom drawers to stay in the plush leather swivel chair for another few minutes. He pulled a manila file folder out and examined a slew of documents under the low-power red light. “I think I’ve got something here. These are invoices to Louisiana Exports for overseas shipments and maritime security contracts.” His assurance increased with each page flip. “This seems to already corroborate the initial allegations and desk nerd intel. Lemalin runs a lot of maritime security contracts, but he only ships containers after he gets the security contract for a specific ship’s crossing.” Michael shook his head. “Yeah, there’s not a shipment invoice here that doesn’t also have a corresponding contract.”

He set that folder aside and pulled another out from the drawer. “This one is strictly his accounts receivable for acceptance of the containers.” Michael retrieved his cell phone from his pants pocket, brought up its Internet browser, and searched the name of the company that had purchased a container from Lemalin. He scanned through the results, half of which were in Russian, and settled on a link to a news article by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. Michael flipped through the other invoices. “We’re almost there,” he told Jane. “A company called Odessa Overseas, Incorporated has been buying containers from Lemalin for at least a few years. A group of investigative journalists has tied the company with smuggling operations based in Odessa, Ukraine, and they

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