Fish & Chips (Cut & Run 3)

Ty shrugged out of his jacket and rolled his sleeve up, turning his bicep toward McCoy. His tattoo was no longer there. It was odd looking down at his arm and seeing nothing but skin.

“How"d they do it?” McCoy asked in real interest.

“Some sort of synthetic,” Ty answered unhappily. “They glued it down.”

“Looks pretty good if you don"t know you"re looking for it. We"ll make certain to have spare parts in your luggage somewhere,” Knight commented as he leaned closer and peered at Ty"s arm. Ty put his hand on Knight"s forehead and pushed him away.

“Personal space, man,” Ty told him with a good-natured smirk.

He heard Zane stifle a snort.

“Speaking of personal space, let"s get right down to your toys for this one,” McCoy said as he nodded to Knight.

Knight turned to a rolling table much like the kind on which surgeons kept their instruments and picked through an array of devices sitting there. He lifted a pair of sunglasses and turned to hand them to Zane. He handed another to Ty. They were unusually heavy as he hefted them in his palm.

“Stylish,” Ty commented drily.

“Shut up. They"re embedded with a video feed here,” Knight told Ty as he pointed to the upper left portion of the frames. “The other side holds a battery with enough juice for about an hour of recording or three hours of transmission. Use it sparingly. There"s no recharging it.”

“Okay,” Ty mumbled as he turned the glasses over and frowned at them.

“I"m not sure what good these will be,” Zane murmured, setting them aside.

“One of your goals is to take pictures of the men involved. We figured a Nikon might raise suspicion,” McCoy told them. Ty and Zane both nodded slowly.

“And this is your document scanner,” Knight said as he cradled a long device in both palms. It was roughly the size of a ruler, just slightly thicker. “You know how to use one of these, right?” Knight asked Ty dubiously.

“Push the button, scan the document,” Ty answered obediently.

“And no using it as a club. It"s not built for violence,” Knight admonished.

“I only did that one time!” Ty argued. “And to be fair I"m pretty sure it was already—”

“Can it, Grady. No more using sensitive tech gear to maim, understood?” McCoy interrupted.

“Yes, sir,” Ty said in a disgruntled voice. Zane wasn"t even trying to stifle his quiet laughter.

Knight continued. “We tried to devise some way for the two of you to communicate by radio, but we have nothing inconspicuous enough on such short notice. You"ll be on your own as far as that goes.”

“Cell phones?” Zane asked dubiously.

“They"re not reliable at sea, even if the cruise line claims they are.

Not worth the risk of issuing you any, and you can"t take your own.

You"ll have the Porters" phones, with all their contacts. But I"d be careful answering them if I were you,” Knight rambled.

Ty looked between the two men. No reliable way to communicate with his partner or with the rest of the team while aboard ship. Great.

Zane didn"t look too happy either.

“You"ll be reporting back to us by secure server, but the only access will be on the public terminals. You will go by the codenames Punch and Judy.”

“Punch and Judy,” Zane repeated, voice devoid of emotion.

“Hilarious,” Ty commented acerbically.

“I amuse myself. Get over it,” McCoy shot back. “The computers are public, so remember you"ll have to be careful and clever when accessing the server.”

Ty pointed at Zane. “His job.” Zane shrugged.

“Right.” McCoy handed them both thick folders. “And these are your itineraries.”

“Our what?” Ty blurted in alarm. They hadn"t been told about any itineraries yesterday. That was pretty high up on the list of shit they needed to know about.

“How heavily are we scheduled?” Zane asked, not sounding surprised. Ty looked at him sideways, but Zane was studying the papers and paying him no attention.

“They"re pretty firm,” McCoy told them apologetically. “They found them in one of the Porters" bags as they were searching them for intel.”

“How much planning have you put into this case, exactly?” Ty asked critically.

“The ink is still drying,” McCoy told him wryly. He held up a hand to curtail any further protests. “Listen, this opportunity practically dropped into our laps. We"ve managed to keep a lid on the arrest of the Porters. There are half a dozen agencies that should be notified that haven"t been. Interpol, Europol, Scotland Yard, and the Italian Guardia di Finanza, to name a few. Every one of those will be screaming to get their fingers in the pot, and you both know what happens when a case becomes a jurisdictional war. The only way to keep that lid on is to go in silent and go in fast.”

“Which also means there"s a very real chance of you being arrested for trading in stolen antiquities if you run into an agent of any of those organizations,” Knight told them with a hint of childish glee.

Ty shot him a dirty look, and Zane sat forward as he asked, “And if we run into one of those other agencies—”

McCoy cut him off loudly, calling their attention back to him.

“Your goal is to gather intel, understood? Do not attempt to apprehend, detain, capture, curtail, restrict, inhibit, or otherwise prevent the activities of any of the criminals. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Ty and Zane answered in unison, Ty not bothering to hide how unimpressed he was with the inventory.

“Porter has two partners: an Italian by the name of Lorenzo Bianchi and a Turk named Vartan Armen. Bianchi is the face of the ring, the only one who surfaces. He does the buying. Stolen antiquities, art, priceless relics, you name it.”

“Where"s this intel coming from?” Ty asked.

“Italy. They"ve had a bead on Bianchi for a few years now but no way to get a foot in the door. Everything about him on paper is legit.

That"s where Armen and Porter come in. Armen targets and handles acquisitions; Porter arranges transport and storage. There is absolutely no information in the wind about Armen. We don"t even have a picture of him. Yet.”

Ty lifted the camera glasses and cheekily saluted his boss with them.

“How"d you catch up to Porter?” Zane asked curiously.