"Joey? Ready for debriefing?", Silvo asked the cube nervously as the team gathered around the table. Included Blue, even if she decided to lay down next to Blaise's seat, making sure to be in the way if he tried to get up. Or sit down. Or do anything, really.
"Nope", Joey declared. "I might need medical help. I broke all my ribs by laughing too long all day, man", he explained with a snort.
Sil looked between the cube and Blaise then cleared his throat.
"I...can imagine. Did you...find out who put that video on YouTube?", he asked, as neutrally as he could.
"Me? Noooooooo. I know nothing about that. Or about how it spread over any media I could....the culprit could find", he corrected.
The screen on the wall lit up and the video of Blaise chasing the big dog began to play.
On repeat.
Until Sil found out how to turn it off manually.
"Anyway", Joey sighed. "Let's get down to business. First, I am busy with backing down our little plan. Collecting data and research to prove that tracker won't harm the dog in any way so animal protection organizations won't try to have our heads when they'll hear about this. I am waiting for a warrant to authorize that trick as well and for the record, we have a judge on our side. Well, on my side. Funny how the 'you do me a favor, I do you a favor' system works.", he snickered.
"Now to get to the juicy part and I'm not talking about Blue's anal gland, the tracker is working beautifully.", he announced before asking Silvo to turn on the screen again.
Once done, a map appeared on the screen this time. The first ping was at the dog salon. A moving red dot was visible, traveling from the dog salon to another location just outside town.
"This is Andrei's little man cave and 'little' is an euphemism. You want to thank me after this operation, get me his house and all its sweet technology. Perfect place to live when you're a bit paranoid and not a fan of people. Now I'm not some high rank criminal but I do love my privacy. Which is kind of ironic, considering I love violating other people's privacy. For the greater good, of course", he said and everyone could hear the grin in his voice.
"I'm keeping an eye on the surroundings and the calls coming in and out of the property. There's a limo on the way and I'd say this is the ride home for the little furry princess. Who obviously likes to ride in style and not to ride while cleaning up her owner, like our little Blue. Right, girl?".
The dog's head perked up and she rolled on her back, all paws in the air, expecting to be petted by whoever was talking to her.
"Jesus, girl, don't roll on your back that easily. Sil's ex-girlfriend did that all the time. It didn't end well.", he commented.
Silvo glared at the cube but Joey didn't give him the time to say anything.
"As soon as the dog is in that car and out of the property, I will be able to follow the tracker signal to its final destination. Once there, all you have to do is to let me do some more of my magic and you all can crash Madame K's party and bust her ass.", he declared.
Then, oddly enough, he went silent for a moment.
"One more thing though", he said after a little while.
"My research on the containers following the same patterns of delivery gave me some results. I located 11 containers dispatched over the entire area over the past 3 months. I have visual evidence of young ...persons being pulled out for three of them. You can see them being pushed inside different cars and I'm still trying to track them all. Something came up.", he continued.
"I ran facial recognition on the ones I could get a clear image from on the images I had. Found a website on the dark web. And... now this is getting disgusting", he warned.
Displaying the picture of a young girl, obviously scared, being pushed toward a car and a picture of the same girl wearing outrageous makeup and a white shirt on the screen, Joey then showed the website he was talking about.
"This site is an auction site. Live. It gets online once a month. Usually offering 10 to 12 'subjects' as they call it for sale. People whose identity is hidden under fake username can buy the one they like and discuss how the delivery can happen. Now this site is run by some nasty but efficient cyber criminals from Russia. I'm gonna need some time to get in discreetly and gather more information. And...".
He paused then sighed. "I also need to ask Judge Judy how far he wants me to go on this one. Obviously we have many options, from hacking them and getting the information on every pervert logging in or we can pretend to be buyers and take down the assholes closest to the logistics. Since this is dealing with the worst kind of people on Earth, I'm all for nuking them all online and in real life but that's just me."
Sil walked to the printer that went on a few seconds ago. Taking the paper sheet coming out of it, he distributed them around. Joey had worked on putting together all the intel he gathered so far.
"Anyhow, for now, we're on standby. Until Little Princess Dog gets to her destination or takes a shit. I'll keep you posted. Probably more about the first part than the second. The only dog shit I am remotely interested in is Blue's and only because I want to see the Boss take care of it with a snow shovel", he chuckled.
He didn't really feel like joking though. After spending the night investigating pedophiles and that disgusting website, he felt more like turning off all his technology and hugging something.
Which was very new for him. He loved his technology. But to be reminded some people abused it in such an abominable way was hard.
It almost took away his appetite.
Almost.
"Oh, boss, thanks for the pizzas by the way", he added as everyone began to get up.
Sil and one of the team members, Cain, froze and arched a brow.
"Pizzas?", they asked in chorus.
And Blue stood up as messily and as quickly as she could when she heard the word.
"Yeah, it should be delivered at your office in five. Already got mine", he explained before biting in a large slice.
"You know, to celebrate our new team member and to light up the mood", he continued with his mouth full.
"Not that he ordered pizzas when /I/ joined the team but that's on me, I didn't find out he had a special credit card for business expenses at the time.".
Sil and Cain looked at each other then at Blaise.
"Pizzas do sound good", Sil admitted.
Blue barked, sat down and held up her paw.
"Yes, girl, there's one for you too", Joey laughed before filling his mouth with pizza again.
He almost felt bad for not being physically there and catching that paw though.
YOU ARE READING
Encrypted Connection
RomanceJoey lived in his own little bubble. In fact, he liked his own little bubble. Everything was safe and predictable, and he had control over everything. Blaise's life was on autopilot: find the bad guys, kill the bad guys. There was nothing else, no...
