Breaking Creed

54

“Trevor Bagley and his wife were doing more than running drugs for Choque Azul,” Agent McCoy told them. He looked at O’Dell. “I understand you found a piece of child’s clothing in the woods.”

“That’s right. It looked like it was bloodstained.”

“We suspected that the Bagleys were keeping several children against their will.”

“And yet you didn’t do anything about it.”

“We were building a case.”

“While they were trafficking children.”

“Wait.” Senator Delanor was sitting on the edge of her chair. “What are you talking about? There were children involved?”

“Choque Azul’s newest business venture.”

“George would never be involved in something like that.”

“Really?” Agent McCoy stood up from his seat on Kunze’s desk so he could stand in front of the senator. “This is exactly what George is making sure that his people cover up. Because his precious trial is coming up and he doesn’t want any evidence connecting him to human trafficking. So his Iceman is eliminating the evidence.”

“I don’t believe this. Why haven’t I heard about it?” Senator Delanor asked.

“We’ve been trying to keep it under wraps.”

“While you build a case,” O’Dell interrupted. “Who cares if a few kids die in the meantime, as long as you build a strong case.”

This time she was surprised that Kunze didn’t reprimand her. She glanced at him, expecting it, but when he met her eyes she realized he hadn’t signed on for something like this. McCoy, on the other hand, was glaring at her, no longer amused and unable to contain his anger.

“You have no clue what it is that you stepped into, Agent O’Dell,” he told her.

“If it wasn’t for me, it sounds like you’d still be investigating, while the Iceman takes care of everyone on his list.”

“How do you know, Agent McCoy, that George’s cartel has started trafficking children?” The senator seemed to have regained her composure. “Maybe the Bagley couple were doing something illegal with children on their own?”

In that moment, O’Dell was stunned to realize Senator Delanor was still protective of her ex-husband. O’Dell was there the night they arrested him aboard his houseboat. He had taken their two children with him during a raging thunder-and-lightning storm. If that wasn’t dangerous enough, George Ramos didn’t seem to mind bringing his kids along while he picked up a shipment of cocaine in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.

Now O’Dell wondered if Ramos was delivering messages and packages for his ex-wife because he knew he still had some kind of hold on her. If she was willing to use her political power and influence to ask for help from Assistant Director Kunze, what else was she willing to do?

Agent McCoy, however, wasn’t so willing to appease the senator.

“A week ago, the Coast Guard stopped Captain Robert Díaz’s commercial fishing boat — the Blue Mist—in the Gulf of Mexico,” McCoy continued. “They brought on board a dog and its handler, expecting to sniff out cocaine under the full load of mahi-mahi. You know what they found instead? Five kids — three girls, two boys — all under the age of thirteen. American kids, from the States.”

“But the Bagleys—?”

“For the past year Trevor Bagley has been working as a fisherman off and on, independently contracted to the Blue Mist.”

O’Dell listened to Agent McCoy and couldn’t help thinking he was enjoying making Senator Delanor squirm a bit as he dealt out information piece by piece. She wondered what their past relationship was.

“So potentially everyone who was involved in this raid on the fishing boat could be on Choque Azul’s hit list? Is that correct?” O’Dell asked, but there was only one person she was concerned about. Agent McCoy had mentioned a dog handler. Somehow she knew it had to be Ryder Creed.

“Yes, we think that’s a possibility.”

“Tell me something, Agent McCoy. On the Bagley property there was evidence found that children may have been kidnapped and held against their will.”

“We believe so, yes. In one of the outbuildings there are signs that they may have been keeping several people against their will.”

“Your team that’s taken over — have they found any drugs?”

“Drugs? No, I don’t believe so.”

O’Dell looked at Kunze. “Sir, with all due respect, this isn’t a case for the DEA. This sounds like something the FBI should be in charge of.”

“What?” McCoy asked.

“Actually, Agent O’Dell is right.”

“Sir, I’d like to go back down and finish what I started.”