Read Online No Honor Among Thieves: An Ali Reynolds Novella (Kindle Single) by J.A. Jance - Free Book Online Page B

shipping containers first. “Holy crap!” she exclaimed. “Not only are the shipping containers there, look at those trucks!”
    Working on a smaller screen, Ali took longer to locate that part of the image. When she did, she saw that the shipping containers—five of them in all—were lined up end to end along a dirt track. Parked perpendicularly to each container, about where the door opening should have been, was a bright yellow box truck very much like the one that had come to grief in the bed of the San Pedro River early that morning.
    “How long ago was this taken?” Sheriff Brady demanded. Ali had to move away from the image in order to call B., pass along the sheriff’s question, and then relay the answer.
    “This one was taken a little over an hour ago.”
    As Ali delivered B.’s message, a little red-haired dynamo sprang into action. Joanna made for the door and dashed down the hall, barking orders into her shoulder-mounted radio as she went.
    “Dispatch, I want all westbound traffic on Highway 92 stopped at Melody Lane and all eastbound traffic stopped at that new steakhouse in Palominas ASAP. Call out the tactical operations team. Any of members of the TAC team currently on the far side of the San Pedro should assemble in the parking lot at the restaurant, where Deputy Stock will be the incident commander. Everyone else should proceed to the intersection of Highway 92 and Melody Lane. Lights but no sirens. No telling how far sound travels over the desert, and we don’t want them to know that we’re coming. Once officers arrive at their designated locations, they’re to set up roadblocks and deploy as many spike strips as they have available. We need to shut these guys down.”
    The conversation was briefly out of Ali’s earshot as Joanna ducked into her office. “Yes,” she was saying when Ali followed her inside. “If this is related to the earlier incident, we may be dealing with automatic weapons. We need to stop these guys, but we also need to be safe. That means that nobody is to show up at either roadblock without a Kevlar vest. We believe the suspects will be driving a convoy of yellow box trucks loaded with contraband.”
    Inside the office, Joanna paused long enough to don her own vest.
    “If the image is from an hour and a half ago, will we be in time?” Ali asked.
    “ ‘We’?” Joanna repeated. “Did you hear what I just said? I want my TAC team, my emergency response guys out there. No civilians. Period!”
    Cami appeared in the doorway to Joanna’s office, iPad in hand. “Excuse me, Sheriff Brady, but I think you’re going to need us. Mr. Simpson has asked the pilot of our chartered helicopter to do a single fly-over of the site and relay what he sees back to me, including—with any luck—some video footage. He’s on his way there now. As the crow flies, he’s probably less than ten minutes out.”
    “He’s sending video footage to you?”
    Cami nodded. “That’s the plan.”
    Joanna looked first at Cami, then at Ali. Finally, with a sigh of defeat, she relented. “All right, then,” she agreed. “The two of you can ride along, but both of you are to stay in the car, well back from the roadblock. Understand?”
    •   •   •
    Ali wanted to object but didn’t. Instead, she climbed into the front passenger seat of Joanna’s Yukon without a word. For one thing, the sheriff was right. Ali had her trusty Glock along, right there in her small-of-back holster, but in a matchup against an AK-47 or something of a similar caliber, the handgun would have all the firepower of a slingshot. As for going into a firefight without wearing Kevlar vests? That would be downright stupid.
    The Yukon left the back parking lot of the Justice Center leading a parade of five or six other vehicles, all of them traveling fast with lights flashing but no blaring sirens. Cami sat in the backseat staring at her iPad and seemingly willing something to show up on the screen. Ali watched