‘Egypt is a major hub in the sex trade. Girls pass through on their way to Europe, Asia, and most importantly — at least as far as the CIA was concerned — America. I was brought in for two reasons. First, we needed to figure out how the brokers were moving the girls in and out of the country and, as you know, borders are what I know best. Second, because of my youthful appearance, I could play a specific role: a sister or a friend searching for a missing girl from back home. You’d be amazed how many people will open their doors to an anxious family member. I was able to go places, hear things, and talk to people that other agents couldn’t.’
Cobb was familiar with Sarah’s undercover work, having seen her transformation in their previous mission. She had the ability to look any age from eighteen to forty.
She continued. ‘We recruited Simon to help us determine where the traders were meeting next. He was a local expat who knew the landscape and seemed to have the right connections. Not a player, but someone with his ear to the tracks. As the point man, I was the one who reached out to Simon to bring him on board. Once I made contact, Simon literally walked me around the city. He gave me the guided tour of every place I needed to know and introduced me to everyone I needed to meet.’
‘Hence the “tour guide” title,’ Cobb said.
Sarah stood and started to pace. ‘Other agents assured us that the brokers were gathering in Cairo, so that’s where we concentrated our forces. Simon was the only one who kept insisting that the location was Alexandria. In the end, Simon was correct. Thirty-seven girls got sold here, and we were too late to stop it. We lost them all.’
She hung her head. ‘When it was over, Simon collected the descriptions from all of his sources and gave us everything he could. He even convinced some of them to sit with forensic artists. They worked for hours, directing sketches from memory. They described accents, mannerisms, and anything else they noticed about the brokers.’
‘Did it work?’ Cobb asked.
‘We tracked down five of the sellers and six of the buyers, all because of Simon’s efforts. Eleven convictions because of him, yet he still feels indebted to me. He thinks if he had found something concrete about Alexandria instead of just rumors then we could have saved them all. To this day, he still feels responsible for the girls. He’s been hoping to make it up to me ever since.’
‘He’s been hoping for more than that.’
Sarah looked at him quizzically. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Come on, Sarah, don’t play dumb. You know damn well that Dade’s interest isn’t just professional. He’s got a crush on you. Even I could see that, and I’m about as romantic as a hemorrhoid.’
‘Nice visual,’ she mocked.
Cobb stared at her, unwilling to let her off the hook.
‘What do you want me to say? Of course I know that Simon wants something more. But we aren’t together, and we’re never going to be together. It’s just that when you go through something tragic like we did…’
Sarah didn’t know the right words to finish her thought, but Cobb understood the sentiment. He knew that traumatic events could forge powerful connections.
‘Sarah—’
He was cut off by the ringing of his cell phone.
‘You get that,’ she said. ‘I’m going to step out for a bit.’
Cobb nodded. He could see the toll her story had taken and knew that she would never show her emotions in front of him. If she needed to scream, cry, or punch a wall until her knuckles bled, she would do it in the privacy of her own room.
Cobb waited until the door closed behind her before he answered the call from Florida. As far as he was concerned, the timing couldn’t have been better. He had sent a simple text to Garcia during the trip back to the hotel that consisted of little more than Dade’s name and a request to ‘find everything’.
It wasn’t meant as an insult to Sarah, who was able to provide personal details that wouldn’t turn up in a field report. It was more to uncover what had happened to Dade since they had last worked together. Six years was a very long time — particularly in the cutthroat world of espionage. For Cobb to consider Dade as a potential asset, he needed a lot more than a personal reference. He needed a full workup, the type of deep background that could only be done by a computer hacker.
Thankfully, Cobb had one of those on his team.
‘Simon Philip Dade,’ Garcia began. ‘Born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina. Normal middle-class childhood as far I can tell. In fact, there’s nothing noteworthy about his life until his parents died. That’s when things get interesting.’
‘How’d they die?’ Cobb asked.
‘A boating accident,’ he replied. ‘The honest-to-goodness kind, not the kind of “boating accident” we see in our line of work. His parents spent the night of their fifteenth anniversary on a forty-foot sloop, and there was an electrical fire in the engine compartment. The smoke overwhelmed them during the night. The Coast Guard found the vessel the following day.’
‘That would certainly change a kid.’
‘That, and the culture shock of being transplanted to a new city,’ said Garcia as he scrolled through the information on his laptop. ‘Dade moved from Charleston to Charlestown, as in Boston. His uncle took him in but only to get access to Simon’s trust fund. Looks like the uncle wasn’t exactly parent material — he was more like a drunken piece of shit — which meant Simon had to basically raise himself. His high school transcript has as many suspensions as it does recommendations. Most teachers considered Simon to be a brilliant student, but one who had trouble staying out of trouble.’
‘What kind of trouble?’
‘Shoplifting, vandalism, trespassing. The sort of thing you might expect from a teenager left to fend for himself. When he graduated, he enrolled at a local college. It lasted all of one semester. In January of his freshman year, he spent his winter break in Cairo as part of a school-subsidized trip. He never returned home.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He just decided that he wanted to live in Egypt. The government over there granted him their version of an emergency visa until he could petition for citizenship. The school contacted the state department, and they agreed that he was eighteen and that he had filed all the necessary documentation. They had no authority to force him to return.’
Cobb shook his head. ‘Something doesn’t add up. Why would an American teenager with no ethnic connections to the Middle East want to move to the desert? London, I could understand. Same with Paris. But Egypt? That doesn’t make sense to me.’
‘Me neither.’
‘Unless…’
‘Unless what?’
‘I wonder if there was a girl.’
Garcia studied the information on his screen. ‘None that he married — I know that much. But I’ll take a closer look, see if I can turn up a name or two.’
‘In the meantime, any red flags?’
‘Not really,’ Garcia said. ‘No arrests or citations. Not even a parking ticket. His tax records show him as the sole owner of a lucrative security and surveillance company. Apparently he’s very good at what he does because he has clients throughout the city.’
‘Well, that explains it.’
‘Explains what?’
‘How he kept tabs on us without us noticing. That was bugging the hell out of me. I thought maybe Sarah and I were getting rusty.’
‘No sir, not rusty. He has cameras all over. He probably followed you without leaving his office.’
‘If we needed to, could you tap them for me?’
Garcia laughed. ‘Already have.’
Cobb smiled. He liked working with professionals: people with initiative, people he could count on. It made his job so much easier. ‘Anything else?’
‘Maybe,’ Garcia said, unsure of himself. ‘I hope I’m not stepping out of line by telling you this, but since you’re overseas, I just thought you should know.’