Sneak Peek Sunday - Excerpt from ~Deadly Storm - A Kelli Storm Novel~

Monday February 27^th - 2:53 P.M. - Manhattan

10^th Avenue – DEA Offices

“All we have is this guy’s vague recollection of a conversation he heard three or four weeks ago. He didn’t even know what time the deal is supposed to go down, much less which truck stop,” Larsen said in exasperation. “At least he had one thing right. Those pictures you sent me the other day, that’s Mario Delgado, he’s a high ranking member of the Sinaloa Cartel. It seems that Martinez is picking up where his cousin left off, and he’s trying to unite the Mexican cartels into one organization. Looks like he’s making progress if he’s got Delgado working with him.”

“Well that’s just fucking great. We have to stop them tonight, Greg. There are only two truck stops in Kearney, Greg. All we have to do is have people posted at both of them and then we wait. And yes, it would help to know what time this is supposed to happen, but we don’t have that information. We just make the best of it and maybe we get lucky.”

“Since when did you become an optimist? Hell, I’m not even sure I can get the manpower to cover both locations, especially with nothing solid to go on. If we had more, then maybe, but as it is, it doesn’t look good.”

“And since when did you become such a pessimist? Sure, it’s not perfect, but don’t you think that it’s worth following up on? I’ll put a call in to Javier Vasquez down at Narcotics and see if he can pull some people, you just work on getting your teams put together. We don’t have a lot of time, and if Vasily is right, maybe we can put an end to this tonight.”

Larsen looked at her and shook his head. “And what if he’s wrong?”

“And what if he isn’t? We at least have to check it out, Greg. Shit, if you don’t want to take the chance just tell me and quit wasting my time.”

He nodded and let out a deep sigh. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do, but no guarantees.”

“That’s all I’m asking for, Greg. I think I’ll contact Petrov at the FBI too, see if he wants in on this. Never hurts to play nice with the FBI, and we can always use the additional manpower.”

Larsen nodded and glanced at his watch. “If we’re going to do this, we’d better get moving, not a lot of time left,” he said as he stood.

Kelli nodded, got up and headed for the door. “Think we can get this thing together in the next three hours?”

“That’s pushing it, but it’s doable. How do you want to coordinate?”

Kelli looked at him and shrugged. “I’ve never put anything this big together before.”

“Okay, then I’ll call you in two hours, sooner if I get the authorization for the additional people. In the meantime, you get things setup on your end, and maybe we’ll get lucky and pull this off.”

Kelli looked at him and shook her head. “There you go, being pessimistic again.”