by Hunt, James
“We just had a missing-persons case come in, and I’m having to take care of it myself since all of my detectives are out on the street.”
Grant furrowed his brow. “Was it a kid?”
“Yeah. Little girl. I’m about to meet with the mother now. What do you need?” Silence. “Grant?”
“Sorry,” Grant said, shaking his head. “Listen, I need an escort to help me follow a lead. You have anyone nearby that you can spare?”
“Sure, I’ll send a car over. You still at the house?”
“Yeah.” Grant paused. “Listen, give me a call back after you speak with the mom.”
“Why?”
Grant turned and looked at the house, which was still bathed in the blue and red lights from the authorities still on scene. “It’s just a hunch.”
4
The ferry docked at the port was a double decker. The rundown that Sam had received on the drive over told her the vessel could hold twelve hundred passengers and that this morning’s ferry was expected to be close to seventy percent capacity. Which would put the total passenger number between eight hundred and nine hundred people.
Sam was one of four field agents that would board the vessel, which had been broken into four sectors. Sector one: first level, portside; sector two: first level, starboard side; sector three: second level, portside; and sector four: second level, starboard side. Sam had been designated for sector two. She, Hickem, and the other three agents rode together.
“All right.” Hickem swiveled around in the front passenger seat of the crammed SUV, checking his watch. “Ferry departs in thirty minutes and boards in five.”
The SUV slowed as they neared lines of traffic waiting to board the ferry. Families, workers, none of them had any idea of the danger that they could be a part of. But they couldn’t risk alerting the crowds. They didn’t want to spook Anna’s abductor.
“Port authority knows we’re here, and I’ve instructed them to let us know when the suspect’s ticket is scanned,” Hickem said. “You keep your heads down until we have visual confirmation. Once we know he is on the boat, and we have eyes on him, I will instruct the port authority officers to close the gates. We take him quickly, we take him quietly, and I don’t want any shots fired unless threat to life is imminent. It will be crowded on that boat, and the last thing we need right now is a dead civilian.”
“Good thing our ‘special investigative liaison’ isn’t here.”
Snickers accompanied the comment, but Sam kept quiet.
“Yeah, but we’ve got our own sharpshooter with us, right?” The words accompanied a slap on Sam’s shoulder that caused her to turn around. “Heard you couldn’t hack it with the FBI so you hustled over to the Marshals. Bet it feels good to be on a winning team.”
“Lock it down, everyone,” Hickem said. “Marshal Cohen is here because she’s integral to the investigation.”
Sam turned back around in her seat, glaring through the window. She had wondered how long it would take for someone to bring up her past. And while she may have decided to join the Marshals instead of the FBI, it wasn’t because of her skills as an agent. But those clowns didn’t know the whole story. Hell, hardly anyone knew the whole story.
The vehicle braked to a stop, and Hickem turned around again. “Remember that our suspect and victim have most likely dyed their hair to blond and brown. Since the girl’s hair was brown before it’d make sense for her to be the blond one. Good hunting.”
Sam was the first out and quickly melded into the lines waiting to board. She looked up at the sky, where the muddy grey of morning had replaced the black of night.
Despite the summer season, a cool breeze was coming off the water, and Sam’s knees buckled from fatigue as she moved through the line. She caught one of the poles on the dock to steady herself and blinked away the black spots. She was approaching twenty-four hours with no sleep. And the skipped meals weren’t helping, but she knew the adrenaline would kick in soon.
But despite the evidence and the genuine consensus between her boss and Hickem, she couldn’t rid herself of what Grant had said about the trip east. What if they had got it wrong? The doubt twisted the ball of nerves nestled in her stomach, and as she passed through the checkpoint and stepped onto the ferry, her confidence waned.
Chatter filled her radio earpiece, and she adjusted it. She hadn’t worn one since drills in the academy. She didn’t like it then, and she didn’t like it now.
“I want everyone to keep their eyes peeled,” Hickem said, stationed somewhere in the command module. “Port authority knows not to engage until one of our officers is on the scene.”
The gates opened, and heads looked toward the plank that had been lowered so that people could board the ferry. The masses moved as one, funneling toward the deck, and Sam sidled into the shifting horde with the other agents on the loading dock.
Sam brushed her shoulders against a few of the bodies and shuffled aboard. She wore a baseball cap and a hoodie to help her blend into the crowd, and when she finally boarded, she found a good spot with a view for her position. She remained standing, finding a pole to hold onto, and radio chatter filled her ear as the other agents found their mark.
“Sector one in position.”
“Sector four in position.”
“Sector three in position.”
“Sector two in position.”
More and more passengers boarded as Sam scanned the crowd. Families on vacation snapped pictures, couples held hands, and mothers corralled their children in an effort to keep order. And the more crowded the boat became, the antsier she grew.
“I just received confirmation that our ticket has been scanned,” Hickem said. “Anybody have eyes?”
“Nothing.”
“Negative.”
“Haven’t seen anything.”
Sam waited on her response, noticing a fresh cluster of bodies working its way through the crowd. And when she saw a flash of blond, her heart raced. “I think I’ve got something.” Slowly, she worked her way forward, doing her best to try not to draw attention to herself.
“Who’s in position?” Hickem asked, his tone bordering annoyance.
“Sector two,” Sam answered, keeping her voice a whisper as she tried to get a look at the man and young girl working their way toward the port side of the ship. “Sector one, you might have an incoming.”
“What am I looking for? I don’t see anything.”
“Blue pullover for the suspect, holding hands with a girl in a light-purple rain coat,” Sam replied. “They’re close to the window now, facing the water.”
“Copy that,” Sector One replied. “I see ’em.”
“Do not engage until you have visual confirmation,” Hickem said.
Sam’s throat went dry, and the pistol at her waist tucked behind the bulky hoodie grew heavy. A family passed her, and Sam accidentally kneed a little boy, who started to cry.
“Hey, watch where you’re going!” The mother pulled the boy out of the way, trying to soothe him as she cried into her shoulder.
“Sorry,” Sam said, her eyes coming off the target for only a split second, and when she turned back around to face him, the pair was gone. “Sector one, do you still have visual?”
“Negative, had two guys block my line of sight.”
“Shit, I lost them.”
“Dammit!” Hickem’s voice thundered over the radio. “Find them now! Exit team, I want all eyes on the boarding plank. Let’s make sure this guy doesn’t double back and try and get off.”
Sam wheeled around, her head on a pivot as she searched for the most logical path that the pair could have taken. When she looked toward the stairs, a flash of purple ascended the steps. “Sectors three and four, you have incoming.”
Sam walked briskly toward the stairs, weaving around the line gathering at the snack bar. She reached for the railing and used it to catapult herself up the stairs.
Bodies blocking the stairwell only provided fragmented glimp
ses up ahead, and Sam weaved around them to try to get a glimpse of the purple coat but saw nothing. “Sectors three and four, do you have visual?”
“Negative on three.”
“Negative on four. There are a lot of bodies coming up top.”
Sam squeezed between a couple holding hands, eliciting a few choice words as she stepped onto the top deck. She turned left then right, fear gnawing at the pit of her stomach. She circled in confusion, and she suddenly felt lost. She felt it all slipping away. “Fuck,” she whispered to herself and then spotted the sector four agent.
“You see anything?” Sector Four asked.
“Negative,” Sam answered but then walked around the staircase exit and toward the bow.
“Sam, get back in your position,” Hickem said. “The suspect could be circling around.”
“I saw them come upstairs.”
“And they could have come down.”
Sam pushed her way across the deck, the smell of salty air and the warmth of the rising sun beginning to hit her cheeks. “I know what I saw.”
“Dammit, get back in position!”
Sam winced from Hickem’s scream and then plucked out the earpiece. She hastened her pace, and then, between two groups, she saw the shimmer of the purple coat. Sam pushed the earpiece back into position. “I have visual. Top deck, bow of the ship.”
“You have visual on the girl or the suspect?” Hickem asked.
Sam tried to put herself in a better position to see the girl’s left-hand side and the man that was holding her hand, the mercenary that most likely had a pistol beneath his jacket and possessed a faster draw and fire time than she had ever recorded during her training.
With another ten yards to go, Sam positioned her hand near the firearm, walking awkwardly as she closed the gap. The radio chatter grew louder, and Hickem bombarded her with questions as the agents topside converged toward the suspect.
Sam passed through the narrow bridge that exited out onto the nose of the ship, and she saw the back of the suspect that held the hand of the girl in the purple jacket. “I have visual on suspect and girl.” With the element of surprise her best weapon, Sam removed her pistol and charged the man, placing the gun into the small of his back. “Do not move. Do not scream. I am a US Marshal, and I’m placing you under arrest—”
But before Sam could finish, the little girl in the purple raincoat looked up at her, tears streaming down her red cheeks as she cried. But it wasn’t Anna.
Sam removed the pistol from the man’s back and then stepped away. “Sir, I’m sorry, I’m—”
The elbow that knocked her in the stomach and made her drop her pistol also buckled her forward and supplied momentum for the mercenary’s next blow as he spun around and rammed his fist into her face, and blood gushed from her nose.
Sam blinked, her hands instinctively reaching for her nose, when she noticed the mercenary reach for the pistol beneath his jacket.
“Freeze!”
The order was echoed on either side of Sam, and she watched the mercenary’s attention pivot toward the distraction. Time slowed as the mercenary aimed his weapon toward the agent on the left, and the sound of the gunshot was nearly simultaneous with the eruption of screams from the passengers as the mercenary collapsed to the deck.
“Suspect down, suspect down, suspect down.”
Sam wiped blood from her upper lip and then reached for the pistol on the floor as the hordes of passengers retreated toward the opposite end of the boat, fleeing from the dangers of the shooting, and then parted when she saw the flood of officers break through the crowd. Hickem was among them.
Sam holstered her weapon, still pawing at the blood oozing from her nose as the team of medics that accompanied Hickem worked on the mercenary, who already looked dead. She stared at him, his eyes still open, the anger and rage and focus that she had seen just moments before now nothing more than residue.
“What the hell was that?” Hickem had both hands on Sam, using his size and strength to spin her around like a toy. When she didn’t answer immediately, he inched closer, the tone only more threatening. “I said, What the hell was that?”
Sam worked her mouth in a stutter, unable to find the words, and then like a car with a dying battery, she finally sputtered out a coherent sentence. “I-I had sight on the target, so I engaged.”
“But that’s not the goddamn target!” Hickem roared, and when Sam couldn’t provide answers to his questions, he ran his hands through his buzzed hair. “The mercenary is here, but the girl isn’t?” Hickem was speaking to no one now. “How the hell does this happen!” He stomped his foot, rattling the floor, but Sam was still looking at the dying man on the deck, the medics failing in their resuscitation. It was Neil Sambayo.
Sam dabbed the blood on her nose and found that it was already clotting, but she couldn’t rid herself of that metallic scent.
“We need to get in contact with Grant,” Sam said, a degree of fear and urgency to her words. “We need to get as many agents east as we can.”
5
The Seattle PD cruiser traveling east on the two-lane country highway looked out of place, like a city tomcat thrust into the wilderness. Trees replaced skyscrapers, and mountain terrain replaced the sidewalks packed with pedestrians. The sun peeked over the horizon, revealing the empty winding blacktop ahead.
Grant rode shotgun inside the police cruiser, while Officer Lane kept both hands on the wheel, two and ten, body faced straight ahead. He squinted due to the rising sun and reached for the pair of sunglasses clipped to the overhead visor. “How much farther do you think we need to go? It’s been nothing but us on the road for the past forty minutes.”
Grant flipped through the notes on his yellow pad, trying to draw any missed connections that he might have overlooked. “The next town isn’t much farther.” He glanced over at the odometer. “Another ten miles or so.”
Grant started with motivations first. The simplest explanation for Joza taking the family was the money and revenge. It matched the guy’s profile, and five point eight billion dollars was a lot of money. Still, the type of operations that he was able to pull off stateside, what with hiring mercenaries to do his dirty work, was surprising, even with his level of influence.
But that of course led Grant to the mole that was working in Hickem’s unit. Agent Kover could have provided insight into matters other than just the family’s location. Kover most likely aided in helping skirt customs and federal checkpoints.
Grant circled Kover’s name, frowning.
Lane looked over, clearing his throat. “What’s wrong?”
“One guy,” Grant answered. “One FBI field agent was able to outsmart two agencies in the abduction of a family under witness protection.” He made a note to look up Kover’s file.
“Aren’t those guys, like, trained in espionage?” Lane asked.
“They’re trained to investigate,” Grant answered. “And this guy didn’t strike me as top of his class.”
A small pinpoint of pressure formed between his eyes, and he set aside the notepad, giving his brain a rest. He blinked a few times, taking in the scenery. Most of the country outside of Seattle was the same as he found in Deville. Rocks and trees. Needing a different distraction, he turned to his driver.
“How long have you been with the department?” Grant asked.
Lane cleared his throat, sitting up a little straighter as he answered. “Two years, sir.”
Grant cracked a good-natured smile. “You don’t need to call me sir. Try Grant.”
“Yes, sir.” Officer Lane cleared his throat again and then laughed nervously. “The lieutenant told me that you two used to work together.”
“We did.” Grant peered through the maze of passing trees that stretched to an endless horizon. “I’m sure you’ve heard about it, though.” He caught his own reflection in the window then turned back toward Officer Lane.
“Of course I heard about what you two did.” Lane smiled, an almost giddy r
eaction spreading through his body. “You guys exposed the largest human trafficking ring in the world. I mean, those guys you stopped had connections all the way to a Washington senator’s office.” He shook his head. “People still talk about that case. It put our precinct on the map.”
Grant scratched the stubble along his chin. “Still not sure that was a good thing.” While the young officer looked back on those events with a sense of wonder and awe, Grant only remembered the violence that came with it. He had put himself in danger, and he’d put Mocks in danger. If the chips had fallen in any other order, then he wasn’t sure they would have made it out alive.
“Did you know they use that case in the academy now?” Lance blushed a little bit. “I mean, it’s used in the ethics portion and how you’re not supposed to disobey orders, but still, they cover everything you did. I don’t know if it makes you feel any better, but all the guys in my class took your side.” He shook his head, smiling in disbelief. “I still can’t believe I’m driving Chase Grant. The guys back at the station are going to go nuts about this.”
Grant couldn’t help but like the kid, and it wasn’t just because of the gushing flattery. He reminded Grant of a cop he used to know back during his academy days. He caught a bullet on the street eighteen months later.
“All of those cases you study, and all of that training you go through in the academy,” Grant said. “It’s always different from the real thing. It sounds cliché, but it’s true. You can change the answers on a test, you can revise a paper that you’re submitting, and you can even hang up a new target at the range.” He flexed his fingers, curling and uncurling them into a fist. “But you can’t un-pull the trigger in the field. And you can’t bring someone back from the dead.” He swallowed the thick ball of grief growing in the back of his throat. “No matter how many people you save from human trafficking.”
It was quiet for a long time, neither Grant nor Lane sure of what to say, and then the young officer adjusted his grip on the steering wheel, the sound of his fingers coming off the leather akin to Velcro tearing apart.
