“Enough,” Noah said. He rubbed his head. “Sit. Now.”
Barrow sat at his desk and leaned back. “What’s up? You said Siobhan, right? Hot. I mean, we’re not involved-God, no, I mean, I would totally hit her up, but she’s off-limits. But she’s totally cool.” He looked concerned for the first time. Really concerned. “She’s not, like, hurt? You told me she wasn’t hurt or anything. She’s not in trouble, right?”
“Eight months ago you gave Siobhan a tip that one of the girls she was looking for was seen at a brothel in Del Rio,” Noah said. “She took you at your word, but you didn’t give her any real evidence. I want the evidence.”
Barrow stared at him. He might have acted the airhead stoner type, but he was shrewd and calculating.
“I gave Siobhan everything I knew about Marisol and Ana. I’m no saint, but I wouldn’t keep anything from her if it would help.”
“Photos,” Noah said. “You went undercover, you talked to the girls, you took photos. You didn’t get any of Marisol and Ana because the story you told Siobhan was that they’d come and gone by the time you got there.”
“It wasn’t a story. It was the truth. Someone else told me about Siobhan’s lost girls.”
“You published photos of the politicians that used the brothel. You must have taken others. We want them for an active investigation.”
“No.” He crossed his arms.
Lucy stepped forward. “No? Really?”
“They’re not going to help you. You’re fishing for something. I’m not going to let the feds run around through a back door to get dirt on someone who may not be a total shit. My sources trust me that I’m not going to screw them-people I care about, at any rate.”
Noah opened his mouth, but Lucy cut him off. “You are as much of a hypocrite as the people you skewer in the press. We are trying to find not only Marisol and Ana de la Rosa, but also an at-risk pregnant woman who was chained to a bed so she couldn’t escape. We know one or both of the sisters was in Freer last week, and you told Siobhan that they were in Del Rio over eight months ago. You have photos of everyone who came in and out of that brothel for weeks. If the girls are still in the area, they are in danger. I want the pictures and I want your notes, now.”
Barrow opened his mouth, then closed it. He finally said, “Look-”
“No excuses. Either you’re one of us or you’re one of them. There is no middle ground in this war. Those girls are being trafficked, abused, tortured. They trust no one because they were likely abducted in another country and taken far from their homes, their families. Statistics say that they will be dead before they’re thirty, and if you don’t share what you know, you’re as much responsible for their deaths as the bastards who took them.”
Barrow was torn. Lucy saw it in his eyes. He looked at Noah, almost as if to plead with him, but Noah maintained his cold cop stare.
“It’s not that simple,” Barrow said. “You’re not going to know what you’re looking at. These people don’t play in the same pool. The FBI is all domestic shit, these are the international bastards, and really, you can’t trust ICE. Not all of them. That report I did on Salvatore was just the tip of the iceberg.” He smiled. “Hey, that’s good.” He scribbled something on a piece of paper.
“Don’t worry about what we’re looking at,” Noah said. “We have our own resources.”
Barrow grunted. “Right. As soon as you put their faces into your precious database, somebody’s gonna know. You guys just don’t get it. There’s a mole in every fucking office. You think not? Look what just happened in San Antonio this summer! DEA gutted from the inside out by one of its own. Poetic justice.”
Lucy wanted to hit him. “You have no idea what happened in San Antonio.”
“Yeah, I do. A fucking corrupt agent went in and cleaned house. How many in all? Someone in the FBI, couple in the DEA, couple in SAPD, you think they got them all?” He snorted. “Hardly.”
“I’m from the San Antonio office,” Lucy said. “And you know shit.”
“I call them as I see them.”
“Then you’re blind.”
“How do I know you’re not here trying to protect someone? Grab my pictures to protect some fucked agent?”
“Because I told you why we’re here.”
“Why not have Siobhan ask me herself? Maybe you’re just using her like your people use everyone else.”
“Knock the chip off your shoulder, Barrow,” Noah said.
“Then you won’t care if I call her.”
“Go ahead,” Noah said.
Barrow hesitated, just for a moment, then pulled his cell phone from his pocket, scrolled through contacts, and dialed.
“Hey, Siobhan, it’s Eric… all’s well. I’m here with two feds, Armstrong and Kincaid. Know them?” He was silent for well over a minute. “But, don’t you think-” He was quiet again. Then his face paled and he stared at Lucy. “Oh. No, sugar, I just wanted to make sure they were legit. They want some of my photos from Del Rio.” He turned around and mumbled something Lucy couldn’t hear.
Noah stepped closer to her and whispered in her ear, “Want to bet she mentioned that you’re marrying a Rogan?”
“He should help because it’s the right thing to do,” Lucy said.
“Fear is a more powerful motivator.”
“You know I’d do anything for you, Siobhan-you just have to ask. But-you know, it would help if you told him I helped you out. I want in on a raid… I won’t screw him, you know that, scout’s honor… Okay. Thanks.” Barrow hung up. He started typing on his computer, then stuck a CD into one of the drives. “I’m copying all the photos to a disk. It’ll just take a minute.”
“Why the hell do you want in on one of Kane’s raids?” Lucy asked.
Barrow looked like a deer caught in the headlights. “It’d make a good story.”
“You would screw him over in a heartbeat for a story, wouldn’t you?”
“I wouldn’t.”
Lucy didn’t believe him.
“Luce,” Noah said in a low voice.
She walked out.
Five minutes later, Noah joined her. “What was that about? You had him, then you nearly blew it.”
“Because I know exactly what he wants. He wants in so he can expose mercenaries. The good, bad, and ugly.”
“You don’t know-”
“I spent the thirty-minute car ride skimming a dozen articles that he wrote. He hates people like us, and people like Jack and Kane. Jack was a good soldier and a good mercenary. People like Barrow want to make them all out as being corrupt or corruptible. He might be able to play the game for a while, and he might have some redeeming qualities, but I don’t trust him.”
“Do you honestly think that Kane would take him on any of his operations?”
Lucy opened her mouth, then closed it and shook her head.
“Siobhan would know that, too, don’t you think?”
“Probably,” she admitted.
“Your future brother-in-law can take care of himself, especially with a guy like Barrow. Let’s get back to Siobhan’s hotel and look at these pictures, see if there’s anyone we recognize. If not, we’ll send them out.”
“Do you think he’s right about ICE?”
“He could be. I don’t know. But Rick has a few people he trusts that he can go to on the QT, so that’s where I’ll start.”
The drive back to downtown Laredo went faster with commuter traffic easing up, and they made it to Siobhan’s hotel twenty minutes later. Noah was itching to get back to San Antonio, but he wanted to make sure that Siobhan didn’t start investigating on her own. “I don’t care what you have to say to her,” he told Lucy, “but we have to contain her. This is dangerous, and she is friendly with that ass of a reporter.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Lucy said. “We’re coming back tomorrow, right?”