by Kate Lowell
“What’s the job?”
In the corner, the blond man leaned forward, his eyes intent on Leo. Carragher smiled, and it made the skin on Leo’s back crawl. “Procurement and processing.”
Pick of the Crop
Assistant Special Agent in Charge Bert Harrow sat on the windowsill of his office and stared out over the DC skyline. He chewed absently at the edge of one fingernail. It was a bad habit and an old one that he thought he’d broken himself of years ago. But this damn case…
He forced his hand down and stared at the paper he held in the other. The black-and-white lines of text had long since burned themselves into his brain, but he read them again anyway, hoping for a burst of inspiration that never arrived.
They’d come up empty-handed at the brothels. The computer systems there carried nothing more than a few e-mail accounts and records showing which of the victims were on staff and how often they worked. Nothing at all to indicate where the kids came from or where the missing ones went. Bert had suggested that the ring was killing them, but Leo thought not. If they were, he was convinced he would have heard about it over the course of the past six months. Or the bodies would have shown up somewhere Bert would hear about it. He just couldn’t find them.
With Leo recently promoted to procurement, they had another chance to track down the rest of the ring. Damn, but the man was a genius, and Bert was glad to have been able to borrow him back from Hostage Rescue. He didn’t think he could have done it without him, and with the politicians suddenly breathing down his boss’s neck—and by extension, his own—he didn’t have much choice but to go forward with the investigation.
Funny how no one believes you until the nephew of someone high up in the political machinery disappears.
The suspected extent of the operation made Bert sick. It had slipped under the radar for a couple of years. Local law enforcement agencies were noticing short-term blips in the number of suburban teenagers disappearing, but it was only about six years ago that some random clerk in a sheriff’s office in California had stumbled over the repetitive non-pattern and called it in.
Then someone, somewhere, had recognized an abnormal number of low-risk kids in the reports. Further investigation started showing that there were patterns, groupings that changed location over time. Perhaps the criminals settled in an area, grabbed a few easy targets, then moved before law enforcement could catch on to them. From what Leo had heard, most of them were broken at some discreet location, then transferred to different brothels and private parties to be pimped out.
If the bean counters were right, the money changing hands could have financed the entire FBI for a year. And the brothels were the least of it.
He’d been about two minutes from calling in a raid and throwing away eighteen months of money and effort when Leo’s emergency contact, his fake ex-wife, had come to tell Bert that Leo had been promoted rather than burned.
Bert had lost another couple of nights’ sleep over Leo’s request to take the job. It was a golden opportunity, but it put Leo even further from help and Bert’s ass even further in a sling if things went sideways. But undercover agents were a different breed. When Bert had asked if Leo wanted to be pulled out, Leo refused. He wouldn’t waste all that time and the lives of the two missing agents who had paved the way for Dale Leon to infiltrate the group. Bert wasn’t sure, but he suspected Leo had seen some things in the brothels, things that wouldn’t necessarily show up in reports, that he was having trouble forgetting. Or forgiving.
Leo’s determination to stay made it easier for Bert to okay the change in venue. And in his more honest moments, he could admit that he really didn’t want to pull Leo out. If it weren’t for regulations and his own respect for Leo, Bert would push that man so far into the organization he’d come out the other side.
And he’d have all the information Bert needed.
His boss was going to have his balls on a pole, though, if he fucked this up and it came out that he’d left trafficked kids stewing in that cesspool and nothing had come of it. But at the end of every day, he went home to his fifteen-year-old daughter, Ciara, and listened to her laughter and her stories of all the high school drama, and it fed the hungry black murder in his heart. Bert wanted every last one of them in prison, getting the same treatment they’d handed out to these kids. He might lie to himself about other things, but he’d long since given up lying to himself about that.
He took one final look out over the scattered buildings and went back to his desk. On the left-hand side lay an open personnel file. The original plan had been to put in another agent, giving him a cover as someone Leo knew, someone who could work security with him and be there if anything went bad. Not ideal, not even very likely to work, since the traffickers probably followed the same background-check procedures for every new hire. If it were him, he’d have a few potential prospects under surveillance at all times, in case he needed to fill an opening fast.
The new position had them all scrambling, but if anything, it made their job easier. The only problem was finding an agent who looked young enough that the ring might be interested.
Bert stared at the picture again. If they cut the agent’s hair right, dressed him properly, he might pass for nineteen. It wasn’t ideal. The trafficking ring liked them younger—fourteen or fifteen years old seemed to be their prime target, but there was a range. His team had tentatively put reports of a couple of missing nine- and ten-year-olds and a few twenty-year-olds in the growing file of kids who fit the ring’s profile. Even so, Bert was hard-pressed to see how this guy would fit in with the rest of the victims. The guy was twenty-six and fit and just barely pretty enough to be a believable target.
The only other agent who fit the bill was in France, seconded to Interpol for one of their task forces. Bert hadn’t regretted signing her paperwork when she placed the request, but if he had a time machine, he’d go back and smack his younger self silly.
He hoped Leo could make it work. The transfer to the new site and position was scheduled for two days from now—not much in the way of wiggle room.
A massive yawn caught him by surprise.
Coffee. I need coffee.
Bert had spent the past two nights at the office, going through files, looking for some way to make this work, taking no time to sleep except when exhaustion forced him. He flipped the file closed and grabbed his mug. The coffee pot was twenty feet down the corridor, tucked into a little alcove. No staff room at the moment—it had been given over to the whiteboards and storage for his operation when they’d outgrown the original room.
On his way back, something caught his eye in Ronalda Jeitteles’s office. Or rather, someone. A young man Bert didn’t recognize leaned over her desk, pointing at the top sheet of a stack of papers. Bert stopped in his tracks and backed up slowly to get a better look at the stranger. He had to be a new analyst—Bert didn’t remember seeing him around.
Holy shit, he looked young. And he was, as Ciara would say, a hottie. Tall, but not too tall, with a slender, whippy body. Dark hair cut a little long on top and in front so that it curled around the edges of his face. With those green eyes, he looked like he belonged on a poster on Ciara’s wall, posing in fashionable clothes with a microphone in his hand.
He was perfect.
Bert stopped someone in the hallway, a young woman just out of last year’s analyst training. “Hey, you don’t know who the new guy is, do you? Dark hair, good-looking?”
She sighed. “Oh, you mean Julian? He’s here interning with Ronalda. Third-year criminal-justice student.”
Even better. No risk of him acting like an agent if things got intense. Bert suppressed a twinge of guilt, easily done with photos of missing kids still haunting his brain.
“How’s he doing?”
She grinned. “Oh, he’s doing fine. But all the girls in the office are so disappointed.”
“Why’s that?”
“He’s gay. You know the saying.”
All the g
ood ones… “What’s his last name? I’d like to look at his file.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, but he was higher in the chain of command. “Fitzroy.”
“Thanks.” He shook her hand and headed back to his office to call Personnel Management.
* * * *
He’d put a rush on Julian’s file, and now he was glad he’d done so. The guy really was perfect. Almost too perfect, in fact—Bert was still looking for the flaw he knew had to be there. Other than the whole lack of bureau training. But that could be a plus, handled properly.
Graduated from high school in Fairfax, completing the Advanced Academic Program with top marks in all his subjects, a trend that had continued in college. Courses in Spanish, French, Farsi, and criminology. Theatre, which surprised Bert but could be useful. He’d taken extra courses each year, and by the time he was done—Bert counted credits on the transcript and whistled—he’d have a bachelor’s in criminal justice and minors in several modern languages, plus a few courses in psych. Not much in the way of math or science, but he’d gotten good marks in the ones he did take. References—probably the most important part of the file—were stellar, describing a driven problem-solver who worked independently and could think on his feet.
Ah, here it is. Julian’s father had committed suicide in front of both him and his mother. Even worse, Julian was apparently struggling to get the gun from him when it went off. And yet…he still passed the psych tests. But a gifted kid might be able to rig his answers. It made Bert stop a moment. A check of the date confirmed the event had happened when Julian was fourteen. He’d had therapy, though they didn’t have the power to access those files.
It kept coming back to his references.
Solid, hard worker, reliable. Pushed himself too hard and had to be reined back at times. Not given to talking about himself, but well liked and made friends easily.
And then it came down to the needs of the case.
I’m a fucking asshole, even thinking about this.
* * * *
Bert stopped in the doorway of Ronalda’s office and leaned casually against the frame, the coffee cup he’d grabbed as a prop held loosely in one hand. “Hey.” The intern was nowhere to be seen.
Ronalda narrowed her eyes at him. Word must have gotten around that he was hunting a young-looking agent. She knew what he was there for, because it was exactly what she would have done in his shoes. Bert hid his smile behind his coffee cup. He was about to start into his spiel about Julian when he heard a quiet, respectful voice behind him. “Oh, sorry. Do you want me to come back later?”
Speak of the devil. Bert stepped aside and gestured the young man to slip by him. “I just dropped by for a chat. You two look busy.”
“Antiquities fraud. Well, antiques anyway.” Ronalda held out her hand for the sheaf of papers that Julian carried, trading them for a stack in her outbox.
“Julian,” she said, “these can go back where you got them. We can look over the new ones later. For now, can you research the trucking routes from New York to Washington for that time period? Include UPS and any other courier you can find.”
“Sure.” The young man nodded as he squeezed by Bert, a polite “Sir” marking the encounter. Bert followed his progress down the hall, noting how easily he navigated the busy corridor. The young analyst had excellent balance. Bert guessed some sort of martial art. Maybe aikido? Tae kwon do? That would be useful if things went bad.
Bert turned back to Ronalda. “He seems like a capable young man.”
She frowned at him. “Don’t roll him up in this operation of yours. Besides, didn’t I hear you found someone to back up Leo?”
He pulled out the visitor’s chair and sat down. “Thought there wasn’t money in the budget for interns this year? Doesn’t matter. I did find someone, but this guy’s perfect. He’ll pass, no problem. I don’t want Leo killed because his backup wasn’t believable.”
“Too bad.” She looked down at the papers spread across her desk, all business. “He’s not an agent, so you can’t have him.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve used a civilian. And he’s only half a civilian if he’s an intern.”
Ronalda speared him with a look. “He’s a twenty-year-old university student.” She half rose to her feet, arms braced on the desk. “I’ll fight you on this, Bert.”
He got to his feet as well. “So will I. We’ve got three options. One: we scuttle this operation to save Leo’s life—think about the money we’ve spent and the pissed-off politicians we’ll have. Two: I send in someone that only barely passes for twenty and hope they swallow it. Three: I at least get the chance to put the idea in front of your intern, who can pass for a teenager. We’re in too deep. I’m going to talk to Ramos.”
She stood straight and moved around the desk to stand in front of him. “Not without me, you aren’t.”
He smiled and bowed theatrically. “After you.”
Hammer Mill
Julian pulled a blank sheet of paper onto the stack in front of him and wrote the name of another trucking company across the top. They were tracking an interstate antique furniture fraud case, of all things, and he was trying to figure out where the real pieces were being replaced with the fakes. Or, he was gathering the information, and then Ronalda would show him how she went about determining the most likely exchange points.
His phone rang. “Julian Fitzroy.”
“Julian, it’s SAC Ramos. Could you come by my office? There’s something I want to discuss with you.”
“Of course, sir.” What had happened? Had he done something wrong? Three years of college, all the hard work, the volunteer hours with Legal Aid—had he flushed it all down the toilet without even knowing? Working for the FBI was the only thing he’d ever wanted to do. If he screwed this up, he didn’t know what he’d do after college. Law, maybe, though he faced the idea with dread.
His heart pounding in his chest, Julian put his research away in a drawer and went looking for the SAC’s office.
When he finally found it, Ronalda was already there. So was the guy who’d been in her office a while ago. And, behind the desk, an older man with salt-and-pepper hair and a wide mustache in need of a trim. Given that he was behind the desk, he had to be Special Agent in Charge Greg Ramos. The three of them seemed to be in the middle of a heated argument.
“Sir?” Julian said, not entirely sure what title you used when addressing the second in command.
Silence fell abruptly. Then Ramos rose to his feet. “Julian, come in.”
The guy Julian didn’t know stood up. “I’ll get an extra chair. Don’t start without me.” He gave Ronalda a hard look as he passed her, a look she returned with interest.
“Sit down, Julian,” she said and pulled the now-empty chair next to hers.
Julian sat down nervously. “Is something wrong?”
“Why don’t we wait for Bert to get back, so we don’t have to go over things twice?” Ramos smiled at him. “How are you enjoying the FBI so far? Ronalda keeping you busy?”
“It’s great, sir! And good busy. I feel like I’m learning a lot.” Julian returned the smile cautiously, leery of overstepping his bounds and seeming too familiar with the SAC. Maybe he hadn’t done something wrong after all. He wondered where this meeting was going. “I’ve wanted to work here ever since I was eight or nine,” he added, just to make sure they knew he was planning to apply with them.
“Well, it’s not all raids and newspaper articles, but I’m glad you’re enjoying it.” Ramos looked up as Bert came back into the room and set a battered office chair down beside Julian. “Okay, we’re all here. Bert, can you close the door?”
He leaned forward, and something about his expression caught all of Julian’s attention. “You’re here on an internship, so I want you to understand that nothing that is said in this office will affect your future with the bureau, whether you say yes or no. But Bert here feels he’s in a bit of a bind and that you are the right person to
help him out of it. Ronalda, on the other hand, makes an equally convincing case for the fact that it’s not your responsibility and that it would be unfair of us to ask you to involve yourself in an FBI case before you’ve had any training.”
A case! They were talking about involving him in a case, like a real special agent. Julian made his expression as serious as he could and asked, “What do you need me to do?” while inside he was jumping for joy.
Ramos sat back. “I’ll let Bert and Ronalda fill you in. I’m here simply as a mediator and to give the final say on the matter. I’m by no means convinced that this is a good idea myself, but I’ll give Bert some rope.”
Julian looked at Bert. “Rope?”
Bert grinned. “To hang myself with. Don’t worry. I’ve got it all thought out. There’s some risk, but you’ll be going in under the supervision of an experienced agent with an excellent track record.”
Before they could start, they made him sign another nondisclosure agreement. This one went further than the last one and pertained specifically to this case. Then they laid it out for him.
Human trafficking. Teenagers. Not the ones you would expect being kidnapped, but normal kids from nice suburban families. Healthy, well fed, no problems with drugs. Most of them were attractive, but some were ordinary. The first indications that this was an organized ring had come about six years ago. There had been two failed attempts to infiltrate the group, both of which had ended in the disappearances—and presumed deaths—of the previous agents. Four and a half years later, they’d put an agent undercover, and he’d gotten the organization’s attention—got himself hired, in fact. Then, eight weeks ago, the nephew of a governor had disappeared from his bedroom in the middle of the night.
Because of that, they suddenly had all sorts of money to chase down this group. And all sorts of pressure to produce.
