Карен Кингсбери - A Distant Shore [calibre]

When she got married and left this place, the knife would be tucked into her suitcase, next to the cash her father was going to give her. If Henry Thomas tried to harm her or sell her… if his guards did anything to her, she would kill them.

Then she’d be on the next flight out of Belize.

CHAPTER FOUR

At least there is hope for a tree: If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail.

—Job 14:7

Jack Ryder didn’t care if he died.

That was why he was the best special agent in the San Antonio FBI. Jack took chances where other agents were careful. He was bold where the rest shrank back. He lived for the mission. At twenty-six, his superiors all told him the same thing.

They’d never had an agent like him.

Jack was a chameleon. He could grow out his beard and get intel on a Middle Eastern weapons cache. Cut his hair and shave and work undercover drug busts at a high school. Wear tennis shoes and ripped-up jeans and fit in on any college campus.

Since his twenty-third birthday, Jack had been working for the FBI, and in the past few years he’d moved to undercover missions, one after another. Oliver had told him that agents who joined the bureau younger than age twenty-five rarely lasted, and that typically an agent had to be at least thirty to succeed at undercover work.

At every point, Jack was the exception.

Lately his missions were focused on international drug and sex-trafficking rings that also did business in the United States. The missions were getting more dangerous. That was okay with Jack. If there was a God, He had intended Jack for this job alone.

He gripped the wheel of his black Ford Explorer and stared at the road. To get to the FBI office in San Antonio, Jack had to drive past a cemetery. He made it a practice not to look. Better to keep his attention on the living, the ones who needed rescuing.

Cemeteries made him feel. And according to his personal rules, feelings were a sign of weakness, a waste of constructive time and energy, forbidden. Period.

It was Thursday, the first of July, and his meeting was on the fourth floor, where the most sensitive missions came together. Jack wore dark pants and a black belt, the white button-down shirt and navy tie and jacket—a size up to conceal his pistol.

FBI standard fare when Jack wasn’t on a mission.

Martha Lou Henderson sat at the desk by the elevator. She’d worked there a hundred years at least, and trustworthy didn’t begin to describe her. The woman didn’t blink as Jack swept his badge beneath the sensor. Only when the light flashed blue did she smile. “Morning, Jack.”

“You’re still not sure it’s me.”

“Nope.” She grinned. “And I feel that way about your boss. And his boss.” She pressed four buttons on the control panel and the elevator door opened. “Have a good day, Jack.”

“You, too, Martha Lou.” He chuckled as he got on the elevator.

Everyone had to be kept accountable. Agents had turned against the FBI in the past, succumbing to the lure of drug money, bribes and the promise of power. Accountability was necessary even for those who, like Jack, would give their lives for the job, agents who embodied the FBI motto—Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity.

Jack passed through two additional security clearances before entering the meeting room. The walls on the fourth floor were solid glass and always clean. The view of San Antonio’s Hill Country never got old. He looked around and smiled. Never mind that he was early, his boss was already there, talking with two of the bureau’s other top undercover agents.

Jack took a seat at a desk in the front row and spread his legs in front of him. He had topped out at six-three, tall enough to play college football if he’d wanted to.

But after Shane died, football lost its allure. Like life itself.

Until Oliver Layton found him.

Oliver was bald and black, and before his days with the FBI he had set records at Ole Miss as a star running back. He spent the first two hours of every day in the gym and he looked like he could still outrun any defense. Oliver’s mind was even faster than his feet and back in the day he had been best friends with Jack’s father.

For two decades Oliver had run a division of the Transnational Organized Crime program from this office. Oliver’s agents worked with governments and police forces from other countries, and with every branch and office of the U.S. military and law enforcement. Whereas police forces typically focused on taking down a criminal, the TOC unit took down criminal empires. Oliver saw to it. Every mission was secret, and each was critically important to the man.

Jack’s respect for him knew no limits.

“This one will be dangerous.” Oliver folded his arms and stared down the three men as the meeting began. He said the same thing before handing out every mission. The work they did was always dangerous. But something about Oliver’s tone told Jack this one was worse.

“We’ve talked about Anders McMillan before.” Oliver’s expression hardened. “Drug lord, a trafficking demon doing business in Belize. In the past decade, he has run a blatant sex slave factory under the guise of eight different fake business names. Always with young teenage girls.” He shook his head. “Sickening.” He paused. “Anders has gotten a little sloppy this past year. Now he calls his place the Palace. Parades around thinking he’s some kind of Belizean prince.”

Anders McMillan. The name was immediately familiar to Jack. So was the country. “We’ve talked about him before. We never had evidence.”

“Exactly.” Oliver paced a few feet and looked at one of the senior operatives seated next to Jack. “Tell them what you found, Matthew.”

Silver haired and sly as a fox, Matthew Pendergast opened a folder in front of him. “McMillan is still very careful. He advertises his girls a dozen different ways and changes his means of interacting with customers every few months.”

Jack knew that much. The entire FBI knew. Until recently, Anders McMillan had used online shopping sites to traffic girls. The public might think that a $15,000 bed was a typo. With McMillan it wasn’t. And once the sale was made the customer wouldn’t get a bed. He’d get membership into the seediest of high-roller clubs.

Pendergast looked at his notes. “Lately he’s pushed sales through the Blue Breeze Yacht Club, north of Belize City. He owns it. The place is a haven for wealthy playboys and customers of the Palace.”

Blue Breeze Yacht Club . Jack pulled a notepad from his backpack and jotted it down. “Is that new?” He looked from Matthew to Oliver. “There are several yacht clubs on the shores of Belize. I haven’t heard of that one.”

“Exactly.” Oliver nodded to Matthew. “Fill us in.”

“This club is definitely new. And it’s not a club as much as it’s a front for trafficking. McMillan is relying on previous customers and beach-going regulars. Millionaire retirees who spend their days on the water.”

“And their nights at the Palace.” TJ Simpson tapped his pencil on the table. He was ebony black with the body of a Navy SEAL. If TJ was on the mission, it was big. He shook his head. “Scum.”

“Right.” Oliver took a deep breath. “We have a chance to connect with an insider this time around. Which is why we need to move now.”

Jack felt his adrenaline kick in. Working missions for the FBI would never get old. “An informant?”

“Not yet.” Oliver looked him in the eye. “This is where you come in, Jack.”

Jack didn’t blink, didn’t say a word.

“McMillan has a daughter at the Palace. She’s about to be forcibly married to the son of the boss of a massive trafficking ring that operates out of Florida but has lately been doing work in south Belize. At least that’s what McMillan thinks.” Oliver pulled three oversized photos from his folder. “This is McMillan’s daughter. Her name is Eliza Ann Lawrence. Apparently Anders gave the girl an alias so no one outside the Palace would know he was her father. Unless the connection worked in McMillan’s favor.” He handed the pictures to Jack. “She’s nineteen. She’ll be twenty in a few days.”