Sleeper Cell Super Boxset by Roger Hayden, James Hunt Read Free Book Online

started the cruiser’s engine, turning on the red-and-blue lights. “They’re explosives.”
    “Holy shit.” Diaz quickly buckled his seatbelt, and Cooper floored it. This was the type of case that cemented your career and shot you up the ladder, skipping rungs others would have killed to be even considered for.
    They were only thirty minutes from the port, and when they arrived, police and the sheriff’s department were already on scene, along with an ambulance and at least two dozen confused fishermen. Cooper and Diaz ducked under the police tape and flashed their badges when an officer approached them. “My name is Agent Cooper. This is my partner, Agent Diaz. I received a call from Deputy Sheriff Falls?”
    “Agent Cooper!” A very large, very green, mustached behemoth waved his arm. She walked over to him, and after their introductions, he gestured over to the boat and crates being lugged off. “At first we thought it was cocaine. You know how bad the drug problem is, but before I could explain it to the Homeland agent that I got on the phone, he transferred me over to the DEA, saying you guys handled any smuggling.”
    Cooper peeked inside one of the crates being lugged off and slipped on her gloves. “Well, this is a little out of our norm, but we’re always willing to expand our services when needed.” She’d spent the last six years of her life doing undercover work, learning every drug-traffic trick in the business. Along the way, she’d dealt with her share of guns and explosives. “How many crates?”
    “Two dozen.”
    Cooper turned around, raising her eyebrows. Each device was about the size of a large purse, easily concealed, and could be placed anywhere.
    “What’s that attached to it?” Diaz asked.
    “Bomb squad said it’s radioactive material.”
    Both Cooper and Diaz turned to each other, and Cooper immediately backed away from the crate. Deputy Falls gave a light chuckle. “Oh, don’t worry, they said you can’t catch anything unless it goes off.”
    “Christ.” Cooper glanced around the rest of the dock and made her way over to the boat. “I need to speak to the crew.”
    “Well, there’s only one here right now. The other two were sent to the hospital,” Falls said.
    “Where’s the one that’s here?” Falls led Cooper over to the squad cars, where a young man who couldn’t have been older than twenty kept his face buried in his hands. She leaned into Falls and asked his name. “Billy?” The boy looked up at her. “I’m Agent Cooper, and this is my partner, Agent Diaz. I know you’ve been through quite a bit already, but we need to ask you a few questions.”
    “Do you know how Mark’s doing?”
    Diaz started jotting down everything that was said. Cooper squatted down to her knees. “Is that one of the guys you worked with on the boat?”
    Billy nodded. “He was first mate. Kind of a hard-ass, but a smart old guy. They shot him.” Billy kept staring into his hands, which were still covered in dried blood. “Those guys, they… they were evil. You could tell just looking at them. I knew something was off. I knew it the moment we sidled up to them when they popped that flare. I didn’t say anything, though. Mark had been hounding us all day to keep our mouths shut. He just got tired of me and Tank—” The boy cut himself off with a lump in his throat.
    “It’s okay, Billy.” Cooper placed her hand on the back of his head. “Can we get a towel and some water over here?” Falls nodded his head then rushed off, his uniform jiggling with each bounce. “Billy, what did these men look like? Did they say anything to you about what they wanted?”
    “They wore masks.” Billy wiped his nose, the snot turning some of the dried blood liquid again, which smeared on his nose. “Only one of them took the mask off, but I didn’t get a good look at him.”
    “What kind of masks? Halloween masks? Hockey masks? Ski masks?”
    “No, it was like a, um, the things that