He crossed his ankles and settled one hip to Walker’s desk. “Let me tell you a story, Agent Judge. A few years back, my TEAM tangled with a syndicate out of China. The Black Dragons. Worst damned case of child abuse I’ve ever seen. We rescued hundreds of little Chinese girls and babies during that op, but we lost thousands more, simply because we could only reach the ones in America. Which I find an intolerable end to any operation. But the hard truth is, there’s no way to keep up with these human-trafficking bastards anymore. Much less get ahead of the game to save the women and kids before they get sucked into this shitstorm.
“The virgin trade and selling of minors is big business, even in the States. Guess you already know that, but know this, too. I’ve got a man in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, right now, who intercepts and rescues young girls and boys from sex-traffickers moving them into China. He runs my safe house. He gives them safe quarter, medical care, and a chance to just be kids. Usually, they were sold into prostitution by their families. But sometimes” —Alex nodded at the photos— “they’ve been kidnapped. Both ways are morally wrong, but I blame the assholes who buy these little ones, more. I blame the perverts and elitists who think they’re above laws of common decency. They’re the sons of bitches I’m after, and if it takes every agent I’ve got, and every dollar I ever make, I’m going to send as many of them to hell as I can!”
Whoa. Walker couldn’t think of a thing to say after that impassioned declaration.
“To answer your question, Alex has at least eighty agents on his payroll right now,” Persia spoke up, even as her fingers landed lightly on Walker’s tense shoulders. “That’s how many are working your case. Except for David Tao. He’s the agent in Phnom Penh. I’m with you, Alex. I’ve seen the worst mankind can do, and it’s time we end them.”
“Me, too,” Izza said staunchly.
“Me, three,” Walker said, then quietly added, “Boss.”
Alex skewered him again with a terse, “This is your yacht, Chief. What next?”
Walker ran a hand up the back of his stiff neck. Despite Alex calling him Chief, he felt more like a rotisseried Turkish kebob. “I appreciate everything you’ve done and are doing, Alex. Senator Sullivan—”
“McQueen. Please.”
“Okay, well… McQueen, then.” Walker sucked in a long deep breath that didn’t come near to restoring his O2 levels. “It seems like you guys have everything covered, even details I hadn’t thought of. But I need to know who’s in Wallace Goff’s grave. We’re going back to San Diego.”
Damned if Alex and McQueen didn’t nod in agreement at the same time. God, these guys were intense, and he hadn’t even shown them the flash drives yet.
Chapter Forty
Just as Alex and McQueen stood to leave, Walker said, “I still have a couple flash drives I believe are Commander Goff’s.”
Persia stayed where she was, on Walker’s six, gently massaging the blood back into those taut neck muscles of his.
McQueen took his seat.
Alex ordered. “Open them up. Let’s see who’s running this shitstorm.”
In seconds, the entire room had zeroed in on video clips of hundreds of girls and women who’d been surveilled and videoed in various stages of undress. At schools. At doctor’s offices. Inside restrooms and dressing rooms. Some images were grainy and bumpy, as if the person taking the clips had used a cell phone or mini camera stuck under a dressing room or bathroom stall door. Other times, the pictures were crystal clear, which meant the perpetrators had been trusted doctors, nurses, teachers, or friends. Man, it was a sick world out there.
“Scan the rest of these son of a bitchin’ files,” Alex ordered as he scribbled on the tablet beside the laptop. “Send them to this number in Virginia. They’ll go directly to Ember Dennison, who’ll sort these through her facial recognition program.”
Walker looked up at Alex then. “Thought only the FBI had software like that.”
“Guess not,” Alex replied curtly. Which Persia took as his stab at deniable plausibility.
Walker did as asked. When it became clear the first drive held mostly the same types of clips, he moved onto the second. Which was an entirely different video nightmare.
The scene was so dark that Persia had to lean over Walker’s shoulder to see better. She blinked, not believing what she was looking at among the shadows. Women and children. Boys and girls. All behind bars in what looked like a dungeon. All frightened and crying. A dark-haired monster, his craggy features backlit by the blow torch in his hand. Another thinner man with an industrial-sized pair of bolt cutters…
God, no.
The evil spirit of the scene reached out and grabbed her by the throat.
“Is thisssss…?” She couldn’t speak it. Didn’t want to relive it! “Is th-th-that… him?” she asked, pointing at the monsters in the middle of the flickering nightmare. “That’s him, isn’t it? That’ssss…!”
Who else could it be? “Who took this picture? Is that Domingo? Is that his lair?” She was shrieking by the time she’d finished. But it looked like the inside of one of Zapata’s demented cell blocks. So real, she could almost smell the fear again. The sickeningly sweet scent of burned flesh. The blood! Her heart climbed up her throat, as her stomach pitched its first attempt to vomit up that very same escape route.
Alex slapped the laptop shut, his other hand locked on her upper arm. “Not Zapata,” he told her firmly. “That’s old footage, Persia. Deep breaths. You can do this. Not Zapata, do you hear me?”
She nodded, embarrassed she’d freaked out so easily and so fast. But that place looked the same!
By then, Walker had spun his chair around. He pulled her easily onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her. “I’ve got you, sugar. Take a deep breath. You’re here on Persia Smiles, remember? I named my yacht after you. Zapata’s dead. Julio killed him. You were there; you saw him die. Breathe, sugar. Just breathe.”
Swallowing hard to keep from projectile vomiting on her boss, she closed her eyes and breathed in the scents she loved best. Salt and sea and the slightest hint of aftershave. Shaking like a fool, she looked up into her boss’s tender blue eyes. “I hate black and red,” she told him as the first tears began to fall. “Don’t ever wear those colors again!”
He had the nerve to smile, even as he cupped her jaw and wiped a finger over her sloppy wet cheek. “Yes, ma’am,” he said with genuine kindness. “Mark already talked with me. No more power ties. Already threw them away. Didn’t need them anyway. You’re safe now. Both Zapata brothers are dead. So’s the asshole in that horror flick. It’s old news, kiddo. Is it still okay if I wear pink?”
She choked. Alex in pink? “Sure, but who…? Who…?” Man, this panic attack was so, so bad, she couldn’t talk. She was making such a fool of herself. “Who was that?”
“Roland Montego, a sadist from Cuba. That was one of his holding cells,” Izza said from somewhere behind Persia. “He can’t hurt any more kids or women, because Seth McCray took him out a year ago. The fucker’s dead.”
“His sister Catalina’s dead, too,” Alex said quietly. “You can thank Renner Graves for ending that twisted sociopath.”
“Both your agents?” Walker asked.
Alex must’ve nodded, because Persia didn’t hear his reply. By then, she’d buried her face in her hands, so damned thankful Walker had a good grip on her. She was falling apart and doing it in front of her boss. In front of everyone! “I’m… I’m…” Losing it. “I’m sorry.”
“Folks, we’re all tired. We need to eat,” Izza declared. “I’ve got chicken and cheese enchiladas in the oven. Quesadillas are up next. Anyone hungry?”
Persia nodded, embarrassed, but more aware than ever before how much she valued the men and the sister at her side.
The iron shackles of Walker’s big arms clamped around her, holding her fast. “Roland Montego was another trafficker?” he asked Alex. “He worked out of Cuba? Are you sure?”
She nodded, her heart still pounding hard and heavy, but her paranoia back in its box where it belonged. Shoved down deep where it could wait for another day. Another stiff drink. Another entire bottle. “Yes, Boss. I’m good,” she breathed, still clutching Walker’s arms.
With a curt nod, Alex spilled the heinous story Persia already knew. How Roland Montego had trafficked human cargo to the most perverse buyers on America’s Eastern Seaboard. How Alex had sent Agents Eric Reynolds and Cassidy Dancer Cannon into Cuba to end him. How Seth had been in Florida, at the same time, and had gotten involved in another privately-run effort to rescue those same women and children. One run by Cord Shepherd and his sister, Devereaux, the woman now married to Seth.
“I’ve got a good man still working in the Keys to bring down the bastards behind the sex-trade running between Cuba and the States,” Alex said.
“Cord Shepherd?” McQueen asked, with something that sounded a lot like disbelief, in his tone.
“Yes, you know him?”
“Hell yeah, I know Cord.” Grimacing like a bastard, McQueen scratched the end of his nose with a covert middle finger salute. Persia grinned. “You’re either one lucky son of a bitch, Alex, or you really do work magic. Seems like you snap up all the good guys and gals before I even know they’re alive.”
“What can I say? I know people,” Alex replied easily. “Plus, I’ve been in this business longer than you and your SOBs. Why don’t you and your people come work for me?”
McQueen slapped his thigh and laughed. “By hell, you’ve got guts. But no, thank you. No, sir. I’ve got teams all over the world. Think we’ll keep on doing what we’ve been doing.”
“You do good work.”
“Damned straight,” McQueen shot back at Alex. “Your TEAM’s not so bad, either.”
“That night” —Walker interrupted the mutual admiration between these two alphas— “in Guatemala, Renzo said his buyer was from Cuba. And now we’ve got footage inside Montego’s jail cells—”
“That looks exactly like the insides of Zapata’s prison,” Persia added weakly.
Another ugly coincidence…
Alex’s head cocked. “You think Montego, Zapata, and Goff were working together?” His icy blues took on a faraway gaze. “The timeline sure as hell fits. You might be onto something.”
“Unless Goff and Montego were part of something bigger,” Walker replied. “When did you end Montego?”
“A year and a half ago,” Persia answered for Alex. “Seth ended Roland Montego inside his own ugly lair down in Cuba. Then last December, in Virginia, Renner Graves took out Roland’s sister Catalina.”
“It was cold that night,” Alex murmured. “And it snowed…”
Persia scrubbed her hands up her biceps, remembering how cold it had been, even in tropical Brazil. That night, no one at Zapata’s lair had yet known the Sin Boys had apprehended Domingo Zapata in Montana. He’d gone there to kill Chance Sinclair and his pretty wife. But that was another story…
“What if these guys are all part of, I don’t know, a bigger syndicate?” Walker asked. “A worldwide syndicate would sure explain these trumped-up charges against me. Hell, even the ICC’s in on it.”
“I’d sure like to know who bribed or blackmailed that judge,” McQueen bit out.
Alex’s eyes turned hard as steel. “Senator. We’ve been looking at this all wrong.”
Chapter Forty-One
They made it through the Panama Canal eight days later, then turned north and traveled up the coast of Central America, past Panama and Costa Rica. Nicaragua. El Salvador. It wasn’t until Walker dropped anchor off the Guatemalan shore, that daily Sitreps yielded solid intel.
By then, he knew Hans Koning was safely at his sister’s home in New York, and Quinn Dooley was back aboard the Iwo Jima. Trevor was somewhere in Africa, doing who knew what. Former Petty Officer First Class Urban Sweeney, of SEAL Team 18, had called to assure Walker they were watching Miss Breeze, as well as the sailors who’d testified against Walker.
Because Alex believed in transparency and made certain that every Sitrep was broadcast over the yacht’s loudspeaker, Walker cringed when he heard his former mistake’s name. Which Sunday Night had surely been. Brief. Exciting, for what that was worth. But the biggest dead-end of a relationship he’d ever encountered. Talk about bad timing, him being with a total airhead when this shitstorm started. Not one of his smarter alliances.
Worse, every time Persia heard that name, her eyes would search for him, and she’d wink, as if she knew what an idiot he’d been. The tease. He needed to explain that one, but with so many others on board, there hadn’t been much time for privacy.
Izza Maher had contacted, of all people in the world, the Queen of England. She’d smiled coyly when she’d told Alex she had a confidential informant on the inside, working to clear Walker’s name. That she’d get back to him the second she had actionable intel.
Of course, he’d asked, “That CI got a name?”
She’d given him a saucy shrug. “Sure. The Queen. Who else?”
Walker’d had to close his eyes and take a deep breath at that totally unexpected, downright impossible, reply. Seriously? Did this TEAM know everyone who was anyone? Guess so.
Everyone aboard looked more and more like a group of suntanned tourists, instead of special operators. Persia was dressed in cutoff jeans with a pink bikini top that revealed enough of her mocha chocolate skin, that Walker couldn’t keep his eyes off her. He was hard for her from sunup til sundown these days. And there was no relief in sight. He was dying to go swimming with her, maybe duck out of sight around the bow. Fondle her. Slip the straps of that skimpy, sexy top off. Kiss the hell out of her. Grab a quickie.
But no such luck. It was Julio Juarez’s quiet report coming over the loudspeaker now. “Senator Sullivan. Mr. Stewart. Kruze and I were too late. Officer Bruno has been reported missing, and Renzo was murdered by unknown assailants at his beach home.”
“Obvious arson,” Kruze cut in. “Nothing left but ash. They found him hanging from gallows behind the place. Birds picked the body clean by the time he was found.”
Sullivan asked, “Is any effort being made to locate Bruno?”
“He went missing a year ago,” Julio replied. “The police consider it a cold case.”
“Someone’s tying up loose ends,” Ryder muttered.
“Any luck with the gangs who abducted Dooley’s daughter?” Alex asked.
That caught Walker’s attention. He lifted his wrist to his lips and kissed the red beads on the only bracelet he’d ever worn. Knowing Alex was as vehemently against sex-traffickers as Walker was—helped.
“There are currently no gangs in or around Monterrico,” Julio replied. “A small army came through and assassinated all gang members over a year ago. Many people think it was the government’s way of clearing the way for the new democracy.”
“What do you think?” Sullivan asked.
“Not sure what to think,” Kruze spoke up, “but the city’s clean of all gang activity. People are pleasant, willing to talk and answer questions. It’s safer now.”
“That’s one way to dispose of evidence,” Alex muttered. “Clear out the rats in the name of public service. Find out who was behind that kill order.”
“Yes, sir,” Julio replied.
“Anything else?” Sullivan asked.
“We’re still talking to people, sir,” Julio answered. “Showing Commander Goff’s picture around in case anyone recognizes him. We’ll be in touch.”
Sullivan signed off with a curt, “Copy that.”
Adam Torrey was next on the horn with a casual, “Hey, Boss.”
“What’s up?” Alex replied evenly.
“Ember’s still working her magic. I’ve got accurate account numbers, just need a way inside.”
“You’re breaking into a
bank?” Walker asked. Unbelievable.
Adam’s chuckle came through loud and clear. “Sure, why not? Goff’s mother also retained a deposit box on site. I’d like to know what’s inside that, wouldn’t you?”
“Well, yeah, but…” What Walker really wanted was to be working with Adam. Like the old days. “Don’t take chances.”
“Are you alone?” Alex barked.
“Nope. Rory Dennison and Renner Graves are here in Singapore, too. Figured the more the merrier.”
“Be safe.”
“Copy that.” Adam ended the call.
Beau Villanueva came online next, but he had nothing new to report in his quest to locate Prince Khalid and his family.
“Where are you?” Alex asked.
“Outside Louveciennes.”
“You’re in France?” Walker asked, as the very proper French pronunciation rolled smoothly off Beau’s lips.
“Well, yeah. I’ve got good intel Khalid was spotted here. Where else would I be?”
It was common knowledge the Saudi royal family owned some of the poshest palaces in the world. But France? Really?
“Hmmm,” Izza mumbled dreamily. “Connor’s going to take me there some day.”
“Stay in touch,” Alex ordered.
And that was that.
“Were you planning on going ashore in Guatemala?” Persia asked.
Walker shook his head. “Not until we hit Mexico.”
Which they did three days later. By then, everyone was antsy to get off the yacht. Since Puerta Vallarta was convenient and accessible, both by sea and by air, there were plenty of cruise ships docked and thousands of tourists. Walker opted to stay behind with Ryder.
“What’s your real plan, Chief?” Ryder asked once Persia and Izza disembarked like two BFFs going shopping. Alex and McQueen had gone on ahead to replenish supplies. Brim had taken Rover for a walk to stretch their legs.
“Nothing,” Walker replied as he watched the woman he loved turn around, smile, and wave. He waved back. She was grinning, and that had to be enough, considering it was the last time he’d see her.
Walker (In the Company of Snipers Book 21) Page 35
