In Bad Faith

Chapter 79

From the front window of Misha's now parked car, I let my eyes glide over the harbor in front of us, where hundreds of colored shipping containers stacked on top of each other graced the horizon. I knew that at this moment there were a lot of eyes pointed at us, since my team was strategically positioned on the premises, and watching our every move. Little did they know, we came more than prepared. Floyd talked me through every little detail of their plan, positions, protocols, and stuff like that, so Misha and I were one step ahead.

A deep sigh fell from my lips in an attempt to rid my tensed-up body of all the nerves and hesitations clouding my mind. I needed to be sharp and focused. I was trained to keep cool in situations like these, but now that not only my, but also Misha's and our baby's life depended on it, it was a lot harder to control. But at the same time, this gave me more motivation and willpower to start using the adrenaline rushing through my veins to my advantage. I needed it. "Is your phone turned off?" Misha surly interrupted my stream of thoughts, looking at me as he did. And while his words seemed cold and emotionless, his eyes told me he was nervous too.

"Yes," I answered him softly, submissively, as I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and showed him the darkened screen. It goes without saying that this was all in order to put up a believable play for my colleagues listening in on us and probably trying to see into the car from a distance, but it was not scripted. We broadly talked about what kind of things we needed to say in order to make the plan work, but for the most part, we were going to let it come naturally. We proved many times before that we could do this. We were good at it. But my team was smart too. If they noticed one thing being off, all of this would be over in no time.

Misha shortly nodded his head at my confirmation, after which he opened the door of his car and got out without saying another word. And when he closed the door behind him with a loud bang, I took a deep breath and followed. I looked over to him to see him tactically hide the car key in the left pocket of his jacket, so that he wouldn't have to look for his keys as soon as all hell broke loose. Even the smallest details had been thought of.

"Is that him?" I quietly asked Misha, as we walked into the grounds towards the building where we would meet Ergin Gule, an important figure in the shipment of illegal containers. He worked here, at the harbor, and he'd apparently been an important connection of Misha for many years. But instead of waiting for us in the building we agreed to meet up in, he was already making his toward us, outside and in the open. Which reminded me that no matter how well we had planned everything, there were still many unpredictable factors playing a role in all this. Ergin was one of these. He had no idea. "Yes. That's Ergin," Misha responded, still quietly, as we approached the unassuming man.

As soon as Ergin came close, he greeted Misha with a firm handshake, after which the man averted his gaze to me. He knew I was coming with Misha today, yet still, he looked at me with some kind of distrust visible in his eyes. And he was right. He couldn't trust me. But he couldn't trust Misha either. He was going to be the victim of our plan, since he wouldn't be able to get out of this. He would be arrested today. It was a sacrifice Misha had to make. "Ergin," he muttered, directing himself at me as he held out his hand. I shook it, and feigned a smile as I looked at him. "Nadya Fisher, Mr. Zaveri's assistant," I then told him.

Ergin had agreed to meet with Misha under the guise of a short tour to gauge whether all processes were still going as planned, and finally, have a meeting considering the administrative side of transporting the special shipping containers. But it would never come to the latter, since in just a few minutes, there was going to be a complete arrest team surrounding the three of us. Misha was now going to have to act fast.

"...We're dealing with lots of delayed shipments because of all the severe storms raging over the ocean lately," Ergin told Misha, as we had started making our way through the seemingly endless, wide alley of shipping containers. The weather had been bad lately. Even now that Ergin was speaking these words, the wind was loudly blowing through all the wide and narrow alleyways formed by the piled cargo.