“You getting this, Marz?” Shane asked.
“Affirmative,” came his voice, tight with concentration.
For a few minutes, the two obvious leaders—Church and whoever the number one was from the boat—exchanged social small talk about one another’s family and business. From his position on the barge, Shane could hear much of what they were saying. Finally, the newcomer’s leader said, “Have you got what I need?” American English, no accent.
Church gave a curt nod. “Of course. I can assume the same from you?”
“As always,” the man said. Tall, Caucasian, dark hair, nothing about him seemed familiar or noteworthy. But the best operatives often perfected coming across as unmemorable.
Church signaled with his hand, and the box truck’s engine started. The vehicle backed toward the dock’s edge nearest the boats, stopping less than ten feet away. Church’s men congregated on either side as some of the newcomers returned to the decks of the boats.
“Who’s got a good visual on the back of that truck?” Marz asked. “I’m dark, now.”
“I have a partial,” Beckett said from his ground-level location behind the trailer.
“I got it,” Shane said. “I’ll get some pics.” As the only other team member holding an elevated position, Shane had come prepared with a high-powered digital point-and-shoot, just in case. He fished it out of his pocket and eyed the scene through the viewfinder.
Luggage appeared from the hull of one of the boats—two wheeled suitcases. As he shot a stream of stills, Shane burned for them to open the cases and see if the contents could provide more information.
Bingo.
The men laid the cases on the ground and unzipped them. Church crouched down and retrieved one of what appeared to be maybe two dozen plastic-wrapped kilo bricks of product. He slit one open with a knife and tested it. Nodded. The underlings closed the cases again. Shane couldn’t be sure what was in those bricks—meth, cocaine, heroin, all of them could be transported that way. But given that Afghanistan accounted for at least 90 percent of the world’s heroin, a potential connection to their fubar of a situation remained.
Church rose and stepped to the side, then Bruno knocked twice on the back of the truck and lifted the door. It rolled up with a clatter. Bruno removed four black suitcases from the truck’s bed and set them in front of the boatmen’s subordinates. Shane captured the whole exchange with the camera.
“Nice,” Nondescript Man said with a smile. “It was a good shipment, then.”
“Very,” Church said. “You keep delivering such pure product, and I can get top dollar.”
So then Church’s cases likely held cash. Basic drug deal. Shane focused on close-ups of a few more faces, then lowered the camera.
“Okay, hand ’em down,” Bruno called, standing at the back of the truck. Six of Church’s men lined up, guns facing outward, and formed a human gauntlet from the end of the vehicle to the edge of the pier.
What the fuck is this? Shane thought, shooting the scene again.
Prickles rose on Shane’s scalp, then he went ice-cold to the core. Two men who had apparently been inside the truck’s cargo area took turns passing the bodies of unconscious women into the arms of the remaining Churchmen, who passed them off to the boatmen.
“Aw, Jesus Christ,” Shane whispered, not fully realizing he’d said it out loud until Nick asked what was going on. Oh, no. Oh, no.
“They’re pulling bodies out of the back of that truck,” Beckett explained. “Women.” Shane was glad for the explanatory assistance, because if he opened his mouth right now, he was likely to vent the inferno of rage erupting inside him.
“We gotta do something,” Shane finally managed, as the third woman—a blond—was passed down the line. Shane’s throat went tight. Is this what had happened to Molly? Had this been her fate?
“Stand down, Shane,” Nick said. “That is an order.”
A fourth. Short, dark hair. “We can’t just let them . . .”
“Shane, listen to me,” Nick came again. “We don’t have the manpower. We don’t have the guns. We’re not in the right position to intervene.”
Shane’s chest squeezed. “Nick—”
“No. We’ll get them and us killed,” Nick said, the calm gone from his voice. Shane heard the anger and the reason and the fear—and he knew the latter was all about whether Shane would lose his shit and go rogue.
One by one, the boatmen carried the women belowdecks. Hands shaking, heart jackrabbiting inside his chest, Shane shot every one with the camera. But he felt raw and ragged, like he’d been torn in two, because part of him was dying inside for the inability to stop what he was silently witnessing—an assembly line of human trafficking that deposited nine women total into the bowels of the boats.
None with red hair. And goddamnit all to hell and back, he loathed himself for caring about that, because Crystal’s safety in this instance held his heart intact but didn’t at all negate the loss that nine fucking families were in the midst of feeling right this very second.
And Shane was intimately familiar with that feeling. He’d carried it with him for sixteen long years.
The two men who’d apparently guarded the truck’s human cargo jumped out and secured the door, and one turned toward Shane’s position and stepped into the light.
Shane did a double take, totally gobsmacked to see a familiar face among the Churchmen. He shot a series of images. “You won’t believe this shit, but I’m looking at Manny Garza right now,” Shane said, forcing normalcy into his voice. Garza had been Army Special Forces, too, and Shane, Nick, and Beckett had crossed paths with him on a couple of ops in Afghanistan at least three years before the ambush. Last Shane had heard, Garza had washed out.
So what the hell was he doing here?
“Sonofafuck,” Nick bit out. “Are you sure?”
Shane watched the guy move. His wavy hair was longer, but his light brown skin color, facial expressions, and body movements were completely recognizable as the soldier he’d known. “Affirmative.”
And now Shane’s rage brewed for another reason. Afuckingnother of their own was on the dirty side of this situation. First Merritt, now Garza. How far into their own ranks did this shit extend?
Shane didn’t think he was imagining the tension radiating from the rest of his team. They might’ve been hidden from his sight, but he was well enough in tune with all of them to know he wouldn’t be alone in his reactions to the night’s turn of events.
“You got a source for your other needs?” Nondescript Man asked. “Because I’ve got a recommendation if you want it.”
Church shook his head. “Appreciate the offer, but I prefer to keep this business separate from that business. You understand.” This business was clearly the drugs and the women, but what the hell did Church mean by that business? Guns, maybe? That was the remaining cornerstone of the criminal business trifecta.
“Entirely. Well—” The boatmen’s leader extended his hand, and Church returned the shake. “A pleasure, as always.” The man’s underlings retreated to the boats.
“Indeed,” Church said with a nod. “Go with God.” The Messiah turned and beat feet for one of the Suburbans, Bruno and another linebacker type flanking him on either side.
“You staying, G?” Nondescript Man asked.
Garza hung back from the rest of the Churchmen. “Yeah.” He clasped hands with the man, and the familiarity between them was clear and deep. “We got another delivery Friday night. You know he wants me to keep an eye on everything over here. Prefer to be with you guys, though.”
He? He who? Church? This Azziz person? Someone else entirely? Was Garza with Church or the boatmen? Or was he an emissary from one to the other? Shane’s brain rattled off a stream of unanswerable questions. And hadn’t this whole thing been that way—every time they managed to cut the head off one mystery, three others sprouted.