John Diggle—Spartan—had swapped assignments with Wild Dog. John was weary and exhausted from patrolling the streets, pacifying the vigilante mobs on the hunt for Ambush Bug’s apitoxin-laden blood.
Wild Dog seemed relieved to leave the Bunker; he launched himself onto his motorcycle and took off with nary a farewell wave or glance over his shoulder.
Joe West tried not to take it personally. It was actually very, very easy to do.
He caught Dig up on their progress . . . which didn’t take long. Much progress had not been made.
“I assume you went over his hideout with a fine-toothed comb,” Dig said.
Both Joe and Dinah offered him a sampling of their most withering glowers. They were cops. They knew how to toss a hideout. They wasted no time telling Dig.
“Whoa! Whoa!” Dig held his hands up, palms out. “I surrender! I didn’t mean to offend!”
“There was nothing there except whatever camping equipment he was using to squat, plus the tech stuff he was using to operate on the bees.” Dinah had gone out for dim sum and now passed a box of shrimp shumai over to Joe, who plucked a dumpling out with his chopsticks.
“Is that Jade Garden?” Dig asked, licking his lips. “Can I get in on that action?”
“Dim sum is for people who don’t ask stupid questions,” Dinah said darkly, and then very pointedly ate another dumpling.
Dig pouted and slumped in his seat. “What do we know about this guy? Other than the fact that he’s all Ambush Buggy?”
Dinah shrugged and called up an info window on the big monitor, filled with information that Felicity had grabbed before heading to Central City. “Irwin Schwab. Born in Paterson, New Jersey. Enlisted in the Army at age eighteen. Served two tours in Afghanistan, two in Iraq, before being honorably discharged. Disappeared off the map for a few years, then showed up as a key suspect in a Kasnian bombing of the Bialyan embassy. Internet chatter on the dark web shows people referring to him as ‘Ambush’ at around this time. Mercenary bomber. Next five years, he’s all over Eastern Europe, Africa, and parts of Southeast Asia, knocking things down that are supposed to stay standing.”
“Good money in serial bombing?” Dig asked.
Joe waffled the hand holding the chopsticks. “Not for this guy. According to the job requests Felicity found, he’s at the low end of the scale. Yes, there’s actually a pay scale for mercenaries.”
Dig leaned back and stroked his chin. “But he’s good, right? He took down four buildings here in Star City without even touching the ones nearby. That’s skill.”
With a deft chopsticks maneuver, Dinah plucked another dumpling from the carton. Dig watched like a dog desperate for a treat as she ate.
“We’ve been thinking about that,” she said between bites. “We think his precision is the problem. Some people want messy. They want casualties. Before he became the Bug, Ambush was neat and orderly. No lives lost. No collateral damage.”
“So the people who want those things stay away from him and drive his price down,” Joe supplied.
“Aw, poor baby.” Dinah pouted and knuckled her eyes like a sad toddler.
Dig pondered this for a moment. “So, what you’re saying is, this guy needs money.”
Joe and Dinah considered. “Yeah. Probably.”
“What do we have on his financials?” Dig asked.
Dinah sighed, put down her chopsticks, and called up another screen. “Felicity’s hack found a checking account that’s almost drained and an offshore account that’s empty.”
“We figure he uses that one to accept money for his jobs,” Joe said.
Dig stood up and leaned in close to the screen, scrutinizing it. “I don’t buy it. Larvan paid him in cash, right? Guy at his level, he doesn’t want a paper trail. And if he’s cash-strapped, he doesn’t want to have to pay the wire transfer fees.” Dig pointed right at the screen. “Look here.”
Dinah and Joe both shifted in their seats and bent toward the screen to see what Dig had identified. It hit Joe first, and he sucked in a long breath.
“He just opened the offshore account a couple of days ago. It’s new.”
“Right after he got his hands on the bees.” Dinah slumped. “He’s getting ready for a big money infusion. He’s planning on selling the bees. Or was, before he got stung and went insane.”
“Bingo,” Dig said triumphantly. “And you don’t sell big tech like that out of a crummy condemned apartment out by the Glades. You gotta do it somewhere swanky. Before he went nuts, Schwab was precise. Left nothing to chance. I bet before all the stinging went down, he’d already lined up the place where he was going to hold the auction. You find that, you find him.”
Joe and Dinah nodded thoughtfully, still staring at the screen.
“So, uh . . .” Dig cleared his throat meaningfully. “Now can I have that last dumpling?”
Without a word, Dinah handed over the carton. With an almost giddy smile, Dig tipped the dumpling into his mouth.