Against The Machine (Bill Blake Book 2) by Rob Jones

Author:Rob Jones [Jones, Rob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-01-14T16:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FIVE

After a short drive. we found the farmhouse. It wasn’t hard. Michelle checked some kind of online business register and tracked down Gobet that way. The business was called Gobet Imports and located in a farmhouse three kilometres outside of Meaux in a rural commune mostly dominated by dairy farms. From Paris, we cruised through the French countryside on the autoroute at a level seventy kilometres per hour. Michelle nothing for most of the way. We smoked, windows cranked down an inch. She tuned into a terrible radio station but seemed to like the music so I sucked it up. She needed any distraction she could get. She broke the silence when we reached the farm.

“Bill, I want you to be careful.”

I nodded in acknowledgement but said nothing. I was too busy scanning the property which seemed quiet and dark. “The place looks empty.”

It was very late in the evening now, and it looked like no one was home. The farm buildings were old and tired and splashed with mud from the recent rainstorm. I was looking for the name given to me by Fatima as some kind of confirmation. Then, ahead on the left, I saw a rust-speckled roller shutter on a warehouse with the name Gobet painted on it. Big red letters in peeling paint on a blue steel door.

“Looks like we got our man,” I said. “Pull over. I’ll check inside the warehouse first, and then maybe the main farmhouse.”

She brought the car to a stop and after pulling a torch from the glove box, I got out. I heard nothing. The wind rippled through some tall dead grass growing up the side of the warehouse. Michelle wandered over to me. I saw two chunky steel shackle padlocks, at least a kilo each in weight, securing its door and turned back to the car. “We’re not getting in this way. I’ll check the back. Pull over to the side and keep the doors locked.”

Around the back, I found a suitable window and put it in with the Glock’s grip. After smashing the glass shards clear, I climbed in and landed with a smack inside the warehouse. Its interior was divided into sections by long stretches of industrial shelving racks with interlocking wire decks. Most were empty, but the ones along the far wall were stacked with large wholesale cans of spices and dried figs and medjool dates. The whole place smelled like cumin or coriander or a mix of them. This was the heart of Gobet’s import business, but it was just a façade, covering up the real business. People trafficking.

“Looks like Fatima got everything right,” I said, swinging the torch over the stock. I could see an open internal door leading to a narrow corridor. It receded into darkness. “This is a front for the operation, all right. Maybe the main one.”

“But where is Juliette?”

“Not in here. Maybe we’ll find some clues inside the main house.”

“How do we know he’s not in there, sleeping?”

“We don’t.”

I heard

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.