The two men working on the crate gave no indication that they were aware of their audience—even the older guy, who’d been so careful coming out of the bar, seemed oblivious. The whole setup stank worse than the harbor water. It was even possible that Batman’s clumsy message had been a sincere attempt to warn her away from a bad situation. It was possible that Batman wasn’t here, and wouldn’t be here. At another time Catwoman might have reconsidered her own presence, but not this time.
Catwoman was close enough now to hear Eddie clearly. He described the places he’d been and the jobs he’d done. If there were cops hidden in the rafters, they might find it interesting, but Catwoman found it boring. So, it seemed, did the older man. He made the right noises at the right time, without actually participating in the conversation. Between the two of them they’d gotten the wrapping off the crate. They removed the contents—smaller crates—and spread them across the floor. Catwoman took note of the military stencils covering most of the smaller crates.
Weapons, she thought, sinking down on her haunches. Bonnie had blathered that the Feds weren’t really interested in Eddie because he collected tiger relics. Selling U.S. hardware to terrorists, without government approval, was different. Catwoman glanced into the rafters again. The space was lousy with human shapes. She caught a brief glint of metal; someone had unholstered his gun.
It must be getting close to midnight.
She chose her final position, against the outer wall on the far side of the crate, looking back the length of the pier. She was not alone; there was a man with a gun crouched between her and the crate. The damned wooden planks creaked beneath her feet. The crouched man turned around. He should have seen her; he must have seen her silhouette, but he did nothing about it. Catwoman was relieved, and she was disturbed: if her own presence raised no alarm, how many men were hiding in the shadows? Did they all know each other? What were they expecting? What were they planning to do?
Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209