No Good Deed

Chapter 25

The noise was short and persistent. Three long buzzes, then silence, followed by three more long buzzes. It came over and over again, refusing to die.

Daniels pulled a pillow over her head, and tried to block the noise out. She was exhausted, and had crashed on the bed in her room at the Marriott still fully dressed. Sleep had come instantly, and her thoughts had drifted far, far away.

Then the noise had started. It was still pitch dark, and she’d refused to fully awaken, but had forced herself back to sleep. She wasn’t like Jon, who could run on five cylinders without sleep for days at a time. Her body needed rest; without it, she was nothing more than a zombie.

The noise didn’t care. It invaded her dreams, first posing as a yellow jacket banging against a screen door, and then as a dentist’s drill bit. She was allergic to bee stings and hated going to the dentist, and the dreams had felt like punishment.

At six a.m. she caved, and opened her eyes. Her hotel room was dark, the blinds tightly shut, the digital clock’s face the room’s only light. The sound was gone, and she tried to gather her thoughts, and figure out where it had come from. It wasn’t a fire alarm, nor was it emanating from her laptop. What the hell.

She heard it again. This time, it was accompanied by vibration. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and she shifted her head on her pillow. Her cell phone was doing a little dance on the night table. She’d muted the volume, but not the vibrator. Someone had been texting her, and when she hadn’t responded, had kept at it. This was the sound that had plagued her all night.

She fumbled to turn on the bedside light. The only messages that were delivered at night were bad ones. Something horrible had happened while she’d been sleeping, and she could only guess what it was.

She wasn’t ready to deal with bad news just yet, and fixed a pot of coffee in the machine supplied by the hotel. While it brewed, she stood in front of the bathroom sink, brushed her teeth, and then ran a wet washcloth over her face, the water good and cold. Only when she felt connected to the real world did she sit down on the bed, and sip the scalding brew.

The coffee brought her around. When the cup was empty, she picked up her cell phone and had a look. She’d gotten sixteen text messages during the night. No wonder she’d had such a hard time sleeping.

She punched the “Message” icon with her finger, and entered the area where the messages were displayed. They’d all come from her boss, J. T.

“Jesus Christ,” she said aloud.

She started with the first message, which had come in right after she’d gone to bed. J. T. was asking if she’d seen the news, and for her to call him right away. J. T. had always been good about respecting her privacy, and she guessed that something truly horrific had taken place last night.

She scrolled through the rest of the texts. The messages were similar to the first, with J. T. asking her to call immediately.

This had disaster written all over it. It would have helped if J. T. had sent her a link to the news story that had prompted his first message, instead of leaving her in the dark. She had no idea what she was stepping into, and that was never good.

She pulled up the blinds, and let the early-morning sunlight wash over her. It gave her strength, and she pulled up her boss’s private number and placed the call while staring at the parking lot. It rang four times before being patched into voice mail.

“This is Special Agent Joseph Hacker with the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” the prerecorded message said. “I’m away from the phone at the moment. Leave a brief message along with your phone number, and I’ll return your call upon my return.”

A long beep filled her ear.

“J. T., this is Beth. I was asleep when your text messages came in. I didn’t see the news, and don’t know what’s going on. Call me when you can.”

She ended the call. The room had a workstation on which her laptop sat. She got on the internet and searched the different news sites, hoping to find the story that J. T. was referring to. Plenty of things had happened since she’d gone to bed, with most of the stories posted in the last hour. She read through them, but found nothing relative.

She shut down her laptop in disgust. That was the maddening thing about the internet. A hot story might be replaced by another story so quickly that the original one became lost and forgotten. The old expression, here today, gone tomorrow, was no longer relevant. Now it was here today, gone in a second.

She placed another call to her boss’s private number. It was not like J. T. not to immediately call back. The prerecorded message played. The beep that followed was longer than the previous one, which meant that J. T. hadn’t picked up her message.

She hung up.

She poured herself more coffee. When you were in law enforcement, there was nothing worse than being in the dark, especially when working a case. She needed to find out what was going on, quickly.

There were two types of agents within the FBI. Early risers, and night owls. She was a night owl, while many of her peers worked better in the morning. On the hunch that one of them was now at work, she called the main switchboard, and tried different extensions.

On her first five attempts, she struck out. Number six was the charm.

“This is Special Agent McDonald,” a female voice said. “May I help you?”

“Karen, this is Beth Daniels,” she said. “I’m down in Florida working a case, and need to get ahold of J. T. He isn’t answering his phone, and I’m worried about him. Do you know how I can reach him?”

“Hey, Beth, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but J. T. collapsed this morning and was rushed to the hospital. They think he had a stroke.”

“Oh my God. Do you know his condition?”

“He’s critical. J. T.’s been under a lot of stress lately.”

McDonald’s voice trembled. Daniels wanted to console her, but stifled the urge. They were soldiers in a war, and were expected to deal with adversity without flinching. It was hard when one of their own went down during the fight, but those were the breaks. “Would you shoot me a text when you get an update?” Daniels asked.

“I’d be happy to. Should I use this number?” McDonald said.

“Please. Keep the faith.”

“I will. I said a prayer for J. T. earlier. It felt like the least I could do.”

Daniels didn’t believe in God, but she feared him greatly. She ended the connection and said a prayer for her boss as well.

A hot shower helped clear her head. As she was toweling off, she had an unsettling thought. If J. T. didn’t pull through, she might never learn the meaning behind his text messages.

She took her time dressing. Whoever fought monsters often paid the price for their service. Insomnia, weight loss, and depression were not uncommon among people in law enforcement whose daily jobs brought them face-to-face with evil. Alcohol abuse was rampant, and so were broken marriages. Evil was corrosive, not only for the criminals, whose souls it burned away, but also for agents of the law whose psyches became singed each time they were forced to stare into the abyss of human depravity.

J. T. had paid the price. Over the course of his career, he’d apprehended his share of serial killers and mass murderers, and seen more bad things than most soldiers on the battlefield. It had worn him down. He drank more than was healthy and still smoked. His home life was no picnic either. After his kids had gone to college, he and his wife had divorced, then reconciled, and tried to piece things together. He’d joked to Daniels that a six-month sabbatical would have saved his marriage the first time, only the bureau wasn’t in the habit of giving those.

And now he’d had a stroke. Everyone had seen it coming, but they were powerless to do anything about it. They were trapped in a war without end, and the only way out was to retire, or to be felled by one’s own health.

Next to the front desk was an alcove that sold cold drinks and snacks. If a customer didn’t see what they needed, they could leave a list with the manager on duty, and it would be there in the morning.

“Daniels, room 237. I put an order in last night,” she said.

The manager handed her a paper bag. She crossed the lobby to be out of range of the TV, and ate her breakfast of grapefruit juice, a banana, and plain yogurt sprinkled with granola. As she finished, her cell phone rang. She took it from her purse, hoping it was McDonald with news about J. T. To her surprise, it was her niece, Nicki. They hadn’t spoken in a while, and she wasn’t in the right frame of mind to talk about teenage girl stuff. Better to wait until the weekend to engage in that kind of conversation.

Then she had a thought. Nicki and her classmates were doing sleuthing for Jon, trying to help him break the case. Maybe Nicki was calling to share their findings. Daniels needed all the help she could get, and decided to take her niece’s call.

“Good morning. How’s my favorite niece?” she said.

“I’m okay. I know you’re working a case, but I had to call,” Nicki said.

Her niece was breathing hard, betraying her anxiety.

“Is something wrong?” Daniels asked.

“I guess that depends on what your definition of wrong is.”

“Come again?”

“Something tells me you haven’t seen the video that was posted on YouTube last night. It’s already gotten three hundred thousand views.”

Daniels sat up straight in her chair. Was this what J. T. had been referring to when he’d texted Daniels, and asked her if she’d seen the news? The timing was right, and the video had obviously caused a sensation to generate that many views.

“No, I haven’t seen the video,” Daniels said. “But something tells me you have. What’s on it?”

“Jon takes on a gang of bikers,” Nicki said. “It’s epic.”

Chapter 26

Lancaster’s cell phone had also woken him up early in the morning. Not many people had his number, and as a result, he didn’t get many calls, so he rarely muted the volume before hitting the sack.

His cell phone was plugged in on the other side of his hotel room. By the time he’d switched on the night light and climbed out of bed, the ringing had stopped.

He checked the call directory. The last call had a 305 area code, which was Dade and Monroe County, but otherwise was unfamiliar, and he chalked it up to a wrong number.

Although he’d slept only a few hours, he felt rested. The Hawker had touched down at the Sarasota Airport at two a.m., and he’d checked out the pilot’s credentials before allowing Echo and her baby to board. He’d heard stories of victims disappearing while in transit because they’d mistakenly gotten on the wrong plane, and he’d vowed that would never happen on his watch.

It was the right pilot, so everything was good. But then a bad thing had happened. Echo had experienced a meltdown, and began hysterically crying while standing on the tarmac, which had caused her son to also cry. She was going to a strange place with strange people, and the thought terrified her.

He couldn’t let Echo leave in such a bad state. So he’d led her into a building that had restrooms and vending machines, and asked her to sit in a stiff plastic chair. He sat down beside her, and showed her a short video stored on his cell phone of the farm that he’d taken during his last visit. It was a slice of heaven, and he’d turned up the volume so she could hear the birds singing in the background, and the content voices of the people living on the farm as they groomed horses as they stood in cross ties. When the video was over, she’d asked to see it again. After the second viewing, she took a deep breath and visibly relaxed.

“My new home,” she whispered.

“Yes, your new home,” he’d said.

They went back outside, and this time, she boarded without crying. But before she did, she hugged him so fiercely that he thought his rib cage might break. As the Hawker took off, he stood on the tarmac and watched it ascend into the heavens, not willing to leave until the private jet had disappeared from view.

While he was brushing his teeth, his phone pinged, indicating his caller had left a message. Intrigued, he went into voice mail and keyed in his password. The raucous laughter of his friend Beecher Martin, who he was supposed to be partying with in the Keys, came out of the phone.

“Hey, Jon, it’s your old buddy Beech. Like a dumb shit, I dropped a bag with all our cell phones in the water, so I have to call you from a pay phone at the motel we’re staying at. Clive and Ray also say hello.”

Clive’s and Ray’s drunken voices chorused in the background.

“We just closed down an after-hours bar,” Beech said proudly. “Right when we were paying the tab, there was a video on a TV of a guy I swear was you. The guy’s wearing a Yankees baseball cap and shooting up a bunch of bikers in a parking lot. Clive and Ray think the guy in the video is somebody else, so we made a little wager. A hundred bucks says I’m right, the guy is you. I’ll call you back later to confirm. Be safe, my friend.”

He erased the message. This complicated things, and he brewed himself a pot of coffee, then drank a cup while thinking back to the shootout at Echo’s apartment. He was good at taking in his surroundings. He hadn’t noticed any surveillance cameras at the building earlier in the evening, and he’d assumed the owners were too cheap to install them. Had he spotted cameras, he would have shot out their lenses, which had been standard operating procedure when he was a SEAL. The Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and other terrorist organizations were fond of sacrificing innocent women and children while secretly filming American soldiers as they mistakenly shot these people to death. The videos were posted on social media and used as recruiting tools. To stop the practice, the SEALs were trained to disable any surveillance cameras they discovered during a mission.

Had someone filmed him from inside the apartment building? That was a distinct possibility, especially considering the quality of videos that could be shot on smartphones.

There was only one way to find out. The best place to start was the news organizations. Opening his laptop, he got on the internet, and first checked CNN, then Fox News, and finally MSNBC. The video wasn’t on the home pages of any of those sites, which made him feel better, if only for a short while.

Next stop was YouTube. He typed the words motorcycle gang shootout into the search engine. This produced a hundred videos of crazed bikers firing at each other in such towns as Waco, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, and the South Side of Chicago. He decided to add the word Florida to his search to see what happened.

He hit the jackpot. A video of the shootout from Echo’s apartment had been posted at around midnight the night before. The video was in color, and had been taken from inside the building on an upper floor. Although up for only a few hours, it had already gone viral, and garnered three hundred thousand views.

On the video, the Outlaws could be seen riding in circles around the apartment parking lot. He hadn’t been able to accurately count how many there were earlier in the evening, but did so now. There was an even dozen in all. There was enough light in the lot to reflect their faces, and they all looked good and drunk.

After completing several loops, one of the bikers got bored, and popped a wheelie. The biker did the wheelie in a straight line, then brought the front wheel down, braked, turned around, and popped another wheelie and drove back in the same direction. He had a glazed expression on his face, and was howling at the moon.

The other bikers started doing wheelies with their buddy. The video had audio, and he could faintly hear the bikers’ hoots and hollers beneath the engines’ mighty roars.

In the lower left-hand corner of the screen, he saw himself exit the building with Echo and Hector. They walked down the path to the edge of the parking lot and halted. His Yankees ball cap was pulled down low, the brim hiding his face from the camera.

So far, so good.

On the video, he watched himself raise his gun, and shoot out the bikers’ back tires as they flew past. The resulting mayhem was nothing short of spectacular. Three bikes on the edge of the pack flew over the trunks of parked cars, while those in the middle hurtled into each other, and sent their riders crashing to the pavement. It was a shame they weren’t wearing helmets.

Twelve bikes, and they all went down hard. He couldn’t have planned it better if he’d scripted it. He paused the video and stared at the screen. He was a shadowy figure, and nothing more. No wonder Clive and Ray didn’t think it was him.

But why did Beech?

He resumed the video. Three of the bikers had untangled themselves from their damaged machines and were marching toward him, ready to do battle. On the screen, he turned to confront them. The air caught in his throat. If the camera caught his face — even for an instant — he was screwed. There were dozens of photographs of him on the internet from his police days, including a YouTube video that showed him shooting two guys to death who’d been trying to kidnap a little girl, and it would be easy for someone to make a match.

The fight was short and sweet. He knocked two bikers out cold, while Echo immobilized the third with Mace. Adversaries often let their guard down because of his pot belly. The truth be known, a guy could be of average height and have a gut, and still be absolutely lethal. Only, the average schmuck didn’t know that.

His face wasn’t caught by the camera due to the parking lot’s dim lighting, and partly due to luck. On the screen, he escorted Echo and her baby to his car, and made a hasty getaway.

He paused the video again, and tried to see if the license plate on his car was visible. The numbers and letters were hidden, again by the poor lighting. He was home free, and broke into a smile.

Or was he? Beech had been willing to bet a hundred bucks that it was him on the video, even though his face wasn’t clearly identifiable. What exactly had Beech seen that made him feel it was his old buddy Jon? And would other people see it as well?

He didn’t know. All he could do was deny that it was him, and hope for the best.

He decided to go for a run. The rear of the hotel was connected to a running path, and he needed to clear his head. As he laced up his sneakers, Beth called. The timing wasn’t good, and he guessed she’d seen the video as well.

“Good morning,” he answered cheerfully.

“You are one crazy son of a bitch,” she said.

Chapter 27

Daniels was in her hotel room staring at her laptop, the shootout video having just finished playing. She’d watched it three times, just to be certain the cowboy on the screen was Jon. When she’d decided it was him, she’d made the call.

“What did I do?” he asked innocently.

“You know exactly what you did,” she said, unable to hide the anger in her voice.

“No, I don’t. Please illuminate me.”

“Stop playing games. You opened fire on a motorcycle gang in the parking lot of an apartment complex in New Port Richey last night. A renter in the building filmed the encounter, and posted it on YouTube. The god damn thing has gone viral.”

“It wasn’t me.”

“Oh, come on! I knew the moment I saw the video that it was you. Same build, same cocky attitude, and deadly with a handgun. The fact that the shooter’s face is hidden by a Yankees baseball cap doesn’t hide who it was. You did it.”

“It wasn’t me. I hate the Yankees.”

“Are you trying to be cute? Because it’s not working.”

“Your case is flimsy, to use your favorite expression. Lots of guys look like me, and I’m sure plenty know how to handle a firearm. I didn’t shoot up a gang of bikers.”

“No? Well, then let me add this to my argument. The gang that got shot up was the same guys we confronted in the clubhouse in Saint Pete.”

“What a coincidence.”

“The local newspaper posted a story a little while ago. Every single biker suffered a major injury because of what you did. The paper said the gang sustained three broken arms, four broken legs, two concussions, two broken backs, a broken jaw, a crushed pelvis, and a broken neck, not to mention a whole bunch of broken ribs. It’s a miracle that you didn’t kill any of them.”

“That’s sad. I hope they had insurance.”

“You’re saying it wasn’t you, is that what you want me to believe?”

“Correct. Until someone proves otherwise, please stop saying I’m to blame.”

“What about the girl with the baby in the video? That’s the stripper from the club that you talked to, isn’t it? What if she steps forward, and says it was you? How do you plan to wiggle your way out of that?”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“You’re saying that she’s gone in the wind?”

Jon said nothing, confirming her suspicion. Every person that broke the law screwed up, even the smart ones. She wasn’t ready to let go just yet.

“The video has over three hundred thousand views,” she said. “A viewer is going to notice the way you beat those guys up. You knocked out one with a knee to the jaw, and the second by sweeping out his legs from under him. You told me that’s part of your SEAL training. Don’t use your fists because it’s too easy to break your hand. Better to use your head, or an elbow, or a knee. This is going to come back and bite you, Jon.”

“Not using your fists is part of most martial arts training.” He paused. “The guy in the video could have been anyone. Stop saying it was me, or I’ll hang up.”

“You are something else.”

“My turn. Last night, you told me that your boss told you to take me off the case, and that we couldn’t talk anymore. What changed?”

“Nothing changed. I just had to call you.”

“I hope it doesn’t lead to trouble.”

There was real compassion in his voice, and she realized that he meant it. That was the thing about Jon; she could dress him down, call him terrible names, and it didn’t seem to diminish his feelings toward her.

“Nor do I,” she said.

She heard a click, indicating another call had come in. She pulled her cell phone away from her face and stared at the screen. It was Karen McDonald calling, perhaps with an update on J. T.’s condition. Bringing the phone back to her face, she said, “I’ve got another call from a colleague. I’ll call you later. Please try and stay out of trouble.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

She disconnected and picked up Karen’s call.

“Hey, Karen. Any news?”

“The hospital just released a statement,” her colleague said. “There’s good news and bad news. The good news is that J. T.’s a strong son of a bitch, and is going to live. The bad news is, the stroke occurred on the left side of his brain, so the right side of his body was affected. He has partial paralysis and can’t speak. With therapy, the doctors think he’s going to be okay, but it’s going to take time.”

Daniels realized she was crying. Wiping away the tears, she said, “J. T. not able to speak? I can’t imagine that.”

“You and me both.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Keep praying. I’ll call you with any updates.”

“I will. Thanks, Karen.”

Ending the call, she went into the bathroom and washed her face. J. T. wasn’t the easiest boss, and had always pressed her to do better. But he’d always had her back, and like a safety net, he had been there to catch her when she’d screwed up.

She thought back to their last conversation. J. T. had flown to Tampa for the express purpose of telling her to pull Jon off the case. In hindsight, she realized how unusual that was. When an FBI director issued an order, it was done in memo form, which was emailed to the agent, with a copy put in the agent’s file. That way, if the agent did not comply, there was documented evidence that could lead to the agent being punished or dismissed.

But J. T. hadn’t sent a memo. Or had he? She got dozens of emails a day, and there was the chance that J. T.’s memo had escaped her notice. She needed to check, so she got on her laptop and loaded her email, where she found sixty-five messages waiting in her inbox.

She read every single one. None were from J. T. There was no evidence of him telling her to pull Jon off the case. It was like it had never happened. And with J. T. now in the hospital, unable to speak, she could safely say that it hadn’t happened. Everything was status quo.

She wanted to call Jon back, and relay the good news. But before she did that, there was the matter of the agent on her team who’d betrayed her. She’d never had a knife stuck in her back before, and it hurt like hell.

Her team was buried in work when she entered the basement conference room. A box of freshly baked Dunkin’ Donuts sat on the table, and she peeked inside. They had saved her one. She didn’t believe in beating around the bush, and she crossed her arms and told everyone to stop what they were doing. Closing their laptops, they turned in their swivel chairs to face her.

“As you’ve probably heard, J. T. suffered a stroke and is in the hospital,” she said. “The word from the doctors is he’s going to survive, but his recovery will be slow. Please say a prayer for his speedy recovery.

“Last night, I learned that one of you went behind my back, and contacted J. T. in order to voice your displeasure over the fact that Jon Lancaster was brought into the investigation. I have a problem with that, and I’m going to explain to you why.

“I don’t expect for you to agree with every decision I make, but I do expect you to respect my decisions, nonetheless. If you think I’ve done something wrong, I expect you to come directly to me. Not doing that is a betrayal.

“I handpicked each one of you to be on my team, and would like to believe that I’ve been a pretty good boss. One of you obviously feels otherwise.

“I want to know who did this. I can find out one of two ways. I can confiscate your cell phones and laptops, do a search, and see which one of you contacted J. T. I personally find this approach distasteful, because it means that I have to look at everyone’s communications, and I’m sure you all have things you’d wish I didn’t see.”

Her team shifted uncomfortably in their chairs. Hurting all of them because one had erred wasn’t fair, but she didn’t care. She was going to get to the bottom of this, one way or another.

“The second option is that the guilty agent come forward. By doing that, the rest of the team won’t suffer. There’s a smoking area behind the hotel. I’m going there to wait. If the guilty agent doesn’t come out in five minutes, I’ll confiscate your devices.”

She uncrossed her arms and searched their faces. To say that she’d put the fear of God into them was an understatement, and she hoped it produced the desired result. She took the last doughnut before leaving.

The smoking area was shaded and had a bench. She sat on one end and muted her cell phone. She was betting that the guilty agent was apologizing to the rest of the team for bringing this on them, and would be joining her shortly.

A minute later, Otto West came outside. He was her favorite on the team, and she was saddened by his poor choice. She patted the bench, and he sat on the opposite end.

“It was me,” he said.

She waited for more, and realized that nothing was forthcoming.

“Are you going to apologize, ask me not to fire you?” she asked.

“If I did, I would be lying,” he said.

“So you think I made a bad choice. Why not come to me, and say so? We could have gone for a run, and you could have brought it up, and said what was on your mind. I wouldn’t have had an issue with that.”

West rested his elbows on his knees and looked straight ahead. She always considered it a bad sign when a person wouldn’t look her in the eye during a conversation; it was an indication that a trust had been broken.

“This is different,” he said.

“How is it different?”

“Jon Lancaster is a loose cannon. He does things that would get any of us fired. We all watched a YouTube video of him shooting two guys who kidnapped a little girl. He shot them on the side of the highway, with cars flying by. That’s crazy.” He paused, then added, “I don’t want my career cut short because of him.”

“You should have told me that.”

“Really? You and Lancaster have dated. I think it’s safe to say that you have feelings for him,” he said, still looking straight ahead. “We’ve all noticed it.”

The words were slow to sink in. Was this a group decision, with Otto picking the short straw and being the one to contact J. T.? If that was the case, then she had a much bigger problem on her hands.

“I dated Jon for a month. We had a great time, and I enjoyed his company,” she said. “When J. T. put our team on this case, I stopped communicating with him because I was afraid the distraction would impair my ability to do my job. Just so you know, I rarely talk to my family or friends when I’m working an investigation. It makes for a lousy social life, but that’s my decision.”

“I didn’t know that.” Then he added, “I’m sorry, Beth.”

“If you’d known this, would you still have contacted J. T.?”

“Probably not.”

“There’s more. Would you like to hear it?”

“Please.”

“Months ago, Jon helped me catch a pair of serial killers that had been eluding us for years. I’ll never forget it. I was with Jon in his apartment, and we’d been working the case nonstop for two days. We were poring over a file when I suddenly ran out of gas, and passed out on his couch. Has that ever happened to you before?”

“Sure. The mind says yes, but the body says no.”

“That’s right. The desire is there, but not the physical strength.”

“Happens to the best of us.”

“Not to Jon.”

Otto stared at her. “He doesn’t get tired?”

“Not as quickly as you and I do. It gives him an edge when working a case.”

“I’ll say.”

“Several hours after I fell asleep, Jon woke me up. He’d cracked the case. I remember looking at him, and thinking, ‘How are you still functioning? How does that work?’ I asked him on our first date. He explained that to become a SEAL, each recruit is trained to stay awake for several days at a time. While awake, the recruits have to run mountain courses, detonate explosives, and train underwater in scuba equipment. It’s grueling, and those that can’t do it, flunk out. The navy toughened Jon’s body and also his mind.”

“That’s impressive. You wouldn’t know that to look at him.”

“Looks can be deceiving.”

Otto shifted on the bench to face her. He didn’t seem fully satisfied by what she’d told him, and after a moment he explained why. “Several of the team checked out Lancaster online. Based upon the articles we read, it seems like he never stopped being a SEAL. That’s the part none of us understand.”

“How so?”

“Were you in the military?”

Daniels shook her head.

“My older brother was in Army Special Forces and did two tours of Afghanistan,” Otto said. “When he got out, he came home, got a job, got married, and raised a family. He put on weight, and drank beer with his buddies on the weekend. He started acting like a civilian, and stopped being a soldier. That isn’t the case with Lancaster. He went from being a SEAL to being a cop, and now he’s with Team Adam. He’s always armed and doesn’t run from trouble. If you ask me, he’s fighting his own private war.”

Otto had nailed it. Jon was pushing back against the darkness, just as she was. Her battle had started when she’d been tossed in the trunk of a car by a pair of serial killers while in college, and by a stroke of luck managed to escape. She’d been fighting evil ever since, and felt like she was winning. That was good enough reason to keep going, even if she didn’t have much of a personal life. But she didn’t know much about Jon’s motivation, or what drove him to sacrifice his time to help people he didn’t know.

She rose from the bench. Otto slowly stood up as well.

“Am I fired?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

“Do you want me to resign?”

“I’d like you to stay. Just don’t betray me again.”

They went to the exit that led back inside the hotel. Otto reached to open the door for her, then said, “Are you going to bring Lancaster back on board?”

“I want to, but not at the risk of alienating you and the rest of the team. Something tells me that you’re not the only one who feels this way.”

“Everyone on the team is worried.”

So it was a group sentiment. She needed to handle this right, or risk alienating them. “Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll sit down with Jon, and voice your concerns. If I can rein him in, I’ll bring him back. If not, he’s history. Sound fair?”

“I guess. Do you really think you can control him?” Otto asked.

She stared at her reflection in the door’s glass partition. She didn’t consider herself attractive, yet knew that most men did find her attractive, and would lavish attention on her, if given the opportunity. Jon had made her feel like a princess the times they’d gone out, and she felt certain that she could use that to her advantage.

“Jon will do what I want him to do.” She didn’t believe in loose ends, and wanted to be sure they were on the same page. She put her hand on his sleeve.

“Are we good?” she asked.

“Good as gold,” he said.

Chapter 28

There was no such thing as luck. That had been drilled into Lancaster’s head over and over during his military training. Luck was a by-product of hard work, intense preparation, and showing up. As the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen once said, “Victory awaits him who has everything in order.”

The unexpected phone call came right after he hung up with Daniels. The area code wasn’t familiar, and at first he thought it was a robocall offering him a free line of credit or help dealing with the IRS. He almost didn’t take the call, but an itch in his gut said that it was important, so he answered it.

“Hi, this is Echo.”

“Hey there,” he said, smiling into the phone. “How was your trip? Are you at the farm? Is everything okay?”

“The trip was fine. We arrived about fifteen minutes ago. The farm is more beautiful than I could have imagined. Thank you for making this happen.”

“You’re going to like it there. It’s a very special place.”

“I think you’re right. I have something to share with you. When we boarded the flight, the pilot gave me a bag with snacks. There was a package of Ritz peanut butter crackers. When I saw them, I remembered that was the name of Dexter’s new partner.”

“His partner’s name is Peanut Butter?”

“No, just Butter.”

“So it’s a street name.”

“That’s right. I asked Dexter what it meant, and he said Butter was real slippery. I think they met in prison. Hopefully it will help your investigation.”

He made a fist bump and let out a silent Hooyah.

“It does help. Thank you,” he said.

“It was the least I could do.”

“I have a favor to ask. A video was posted on YouTube of me shooting the tires of the bikers at your apartment complex. You and your baby are in it as well. More than likely, there will be a criminal investigation into what happened.”

“Are you going to get in trouble?”

“That’s what I’m trying to avoid. If a police officer comes to the farm, and asks you about the video, I want you to tell him that it was a stranger who helped you, and that you don’t know the stranger’s name. Will you do that for me?”

“Of course. You saved our lives.”

“Thank you. Send photos after you get settled in.”

“I will. Goodbye, Jon.”

He ended the call and let out another yell. When he’d first become a cop, knowing a suspect’s nickname had been a useless piece of information. Now, because of the information superhighway, it was a powerful tool to tracking down a suspect.

He got on the internet. Because he was a member of Team Adam, he had access to many law enforcement agencies’ criminal databases, including those housed in the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s headquarters in Tallahassee. The FDLE databases were called specialty databases, and included nicknames, descriptions of tattoos, and other identifying features of the 1.7 million citizens who’d been incarcerated in Florida’s prisons.

The nickname database was a powerful tool. Many criminals used aliases, and as a result, made it difficult for the police to track them down, especially if the police only had the criminal’s real name to work with. Nicknames were different. Once a criminal was given a nickname, it usually stayed with him for the rest of his life.

The nickname site had been updated, the colors in patriotic red, white, and blue. He entered the name Butter into the search engine, and hit “Enter.” A second later a mug shot appeared, along with a physical description, criminal history, and last known address.

Devin “Butter” Highnote, five foot eight, 170 pounds, mud-brown eyes, brown hair, a native of Saint Petersburg, Florida, with a rap sheet dating back twenty years, including arrests for armed robbery and attempted murder.

He leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes. The pieces of the puzzle were starting to come together. Dexter Hudson and Devin Highnote were in Saint Petersburg, preparing to abduct another victim. Highnote was also a native of Saint Petersburg, which wasn’t a coincidence. The next victim was connected to Butter through one of his crimes.

He needed help, and called Nicki. She got to school early for band practice, and he hoped to catch her before classes began. Voice mail picked up, and he left a message.

Nicki was as passionate about catching criminals as her aunt, and sixty seconds later, she called back. “Hey, Jon! I saw the YouTube video. You took those bikers to school!”

“It wasn’t me,” he said solemnly.

“Right,” she said, laughing.

“I’m serious, Nicki. It wasn’t me, even though you and I know otherwise. If any of your classmates bring it up, you need to tell them that. Understood?”

“You bet.”

“I have an assignment for your CSI class. If you pull this off, you’ll help me break this case wide open. Think you can talk your teacher into it?”

“Sure. What do you want us to do?”

“I need you to run a background check on an ex-convict named Devin Highnote from Saint Petersburg. Devin was an inmate in Raiford Prison not that long ago. I need your class to find out why he was sent there.”

“That shouldn’t be too hard. Is he one of the kidnappers?”

“I believe he is. Call me once you find something.”

He said goodbye. Having a class of bright high school kids helping him was a real bonus, and he made a mental note to do something special for them once the investigation was over. He put his laptop under his arm and headed for the door.

Going downstairs, he entered the hotel’s business center, and connected the laptop wirelessly to the laser printer that guests could use free of charge. Moments later, two copies of Devin Highnote’s information spit out of the printer. One copy for him, the second for Beth. His cell phone rang, and he saw that it was her.

“I was just thinking of you,” he answered.

“I’m ten minutes from your hotel. Are you still there?”

“I’m in the lobby.”

“Stay there. We need to talk. You’re back on the case.”

“I thought I was persona non grata.”

“Not anymore. My boss had a stroke this morning, and is in the hospital. He never put the order to stay away from you in writing, so I’m home free.”

“Let me return the favor. Dexter Hudson’s new partner is an ex-con named Devin Highnote, and he’s from Saint Petersburg. I’m close to figuring out who their next victim will be. If we get lucky, we might catch them in the act.”

“How can you know who their next victim is?”

“She’s a witness from one of Highnote’s previous crimes. I’ll explain when you get here.”

“Meet me in the valet area in front of the hotel. I need coffee.”

He trotted up the stairwell to his room, and deposited his laptop in the wall safe. Then he ran back downstairs and went outside to wait. His heart was racing, and not just from the exertion. He was about to break the case open. Very soon, the victims he’d seen on the video in Echo’s apartment would be free, and home with their loved ones.

He knew of no greater feeling in the world.

Chapter 29

The tables were taken at the Starbucks near his hotel, so they sat in Daniels’s vehicle and sipped their steaming brews. He’d handed her the sheet of information about Highnote when he’d gotten into the car, and she still hadn’t looked at it. That wasn’t like Beth, and he sensed that something was amiss.

“Am I on the case again, or not?” he asked.

“You are, but first we need some ground rules,” she said.

“And why is that?”

“My team mutinied over my decision to bring you on board the first time. They think you’re a walking time bomb, and that your behavior puts their careers in jeopardy. I can’t let that happen again.”

He sipped his brew and said nothing. Daniels and her team had been spinning their wheels for a month while innocent women were getting snatched all over Florida. So what if he broke the rules every once in a while? When it came to saving people’s lives, the only report card that mattered was getting the victim back alive.

“From now on, I want you talk to me before you make a move,” she said. “You have to be totally transparent. Think you can do that?”

He nearly said no. He’d bent the rules in the navy, as a cop, and as a private investigator, and didn’t see himself changing at this stage in the game. But he needed Beth’s help if he was going to break this open, so he told a lie.

“Of course,” he said.

“Glad to hear it.” The sheet on Highnote lay on the seat between them. She picked it up and started to read. “Tell me how this guy fits in.”

“Devin Highnote is one of Dexter’s recruits from Raiford Prison. The next victim will be connected to him.”

“Connected how?”

“If my theory is correct, the next victim will be someone who testified against Highnote at his trial. That’s the thread that connects the victims. They all witnessed crimes, and testified against the men who committed them. You’ve heard the expression, ‘No good deed goes unpunished’? Well, being abducted is their punishment.”

“So the victims are being punished for being Good Samaritans.”

“That’s right.”

“If your theory is correct, then one of the victims helped send your brother in prison. Do you know which one it was?”

He nodded solemnly. “I do. It was Elsie Tanner. She was visiting Fort Lauderdale and witnessed the robbery Logan was involved in, and she later testified at his trial. I didn’t make the connection at first because her name is actually Lisa Catherine, not Elsie.”

The memory was painful, and she let a moment pass before speaking again.

“Was that Dexter’s recruitment pitch?” she asked. “Join my gang, and I’ll help you get revenge on the person that put you away?”

“That’s part of the pitch.”

“What’s the rest?”

“The gang’s ringleader, Cano, is a drug dealer. Cano’s original gang got arrested, and sent back to Colombia. Cano wants to start peddling drugs again from inside prison and needs to communicate with his suppliers using cell phones and laptops. But he needs a new gang to push the product for him.”

“So they’re being recruited to be drug dealers,” Daniels said. “How does Dexter Hudson fit in?”

“Dexter is Cano’s lieutenant. His job is to recruit inmates who are ready to be released, which he did with my brother. He dangles a carrot in their faces to get them on board.”

“The carrot being revenge and a job.”

“That’s only part of the offer. There’s a third incentive.”

“Which is what?”

“A big chunk of money. Dexter bragged to his biker buddies about the house he was going to buy. My brother, Logan, also was looking to buy a house. Where were they going to get the money? Not from banks.”

Her coffee cup was empty. She squeezed it so hard that it was crushed in her hand. Her light-brown eyes were burning a hole into his soul. “They were going to sell the victims into slavery, and give each of the gang members a portion of the proceeds.”

“That’s what I’m thinking,” he said. “The victims were going to pay for those houses. That was the third incentive, and it was big enough to get Logan and many other inmates to join.”

She tossed her cup to the floor and cursed under her breath. She was kicking herself for not recognizing these clues, and solving the puzzle herself. It happened to the best investigators, but telling her that wasn’t going to change how she felt.

“Are you sure about this, Jon?” she said.

“One hundred percent sure. The video I saw in Echo’s apartment was the clincher,” he said.

“Why was that?”

“The victims looked well cared for. Their clothes were clean, and none of them were sporting visible bruises. They were preparing food in a large kitchen, with each having a different assignment. Their captors were preparing them for slavery.” He paused, then said, “You’ve busted human traffickers. How much is a woman worth?”

“There’s a scale that traffickers use,” she said. “You would think that pretty young girls fetch the most money, but that’s not the case. Pretty girls are good for sex, and not much else. They usually don’t have any skills, so they sit around all day.

“A middle-aged woman gets more money, especially if she’s educated. Educated women know how to cook, how to clean, and plenty of other useful things.”

“How much would an educated woman go for?”

“The going rate is between three and four hundred thousand dollars. They’re in high demand in Central and South America, which is where most of them end up.”

“Who are the buyers?”

“Wealthy people.”

They fell silent. The conversation had upset her, and he went into the building and purchased a chocolate chunk muffin from the bakery and brought it to her. Sweets were her weakness, and she tore off a piece of muffin and popped it into her mouth.

“Did you get anything for yourself?” she asked.

“I was hoping we could share,” he said.

“Better eat fast. I’m hungry.”

They finished off the muffin in silence. Then he said, “I have another theory for your consideration.”

“Go ahead,” she said.

“I’ve never had experience dealing with human traffickers. Based upon what I’ve read, they’re fairly sophisticated.”

“That would be an understatement. There are several rings that the FBI has been chasing with no success. They use burner phones and always pay in cash. They’re masters at flying under the radar.”

“They sound like real pros.”

“They are. We usually only catch them when they screw up. They don’t make many mistakes.”

“So they’re well trained.”

“Very well trained. So what’s your point?”

“Cano is a drug dealer who got into the kidnapping business in order to lure recruits into his gang. He’s a neophyte when it comes to human trafficking, yet his gang has managed to abduct thirteen women and not get caught. Does that sound right to you?”

There was a spark in Daniels’s eyes that hadn’t been there before. She popped the last crumb into her mouth and stared at him with a burning intensity.

“Finish your thought,” she said.

“Cano isn’t masterminding the abductions. Dexter Hudson is. He got his education when he was running with the Outlaws before he got sent to prison.”

“So you think the Outlaws are the actual traffickers. Can you prove it?”

“I think so. The Outlaws are kidnapping women who dance in strips clubs, and selling them into slavery. A dancer named Lexi is one of their recent victims. I saw her on the YouTube video in Echo’s apartment. Echo told me that other dancers have also disappeared. None of them have families, so people forget about them.”

“So Dexter is the real mastermind.”

“That’s right. It makes sense, when you think about it.”

“How so?”

“It bothered me that Cano used Dexter to recruit for him. Cano is from South America, so it would have made more sense if he asked a Latino. But Cano asked Dexter, who’s a white southern boy. There had to be a reason, don’t you think?”

“You’re saying that Cano asked Dexter because the Outlaws were already running a trafficking ring, and Dexter would know how to hide the victims, and later move them.”

“Yes. The apparatus was already in place. The Outlaws own a building that has sleeping quarters and a large kitchen. The victims are brought there one at a time, then they’re shipped out and sold into slavery. I’m guessing the building is in the Tampa Bay area, because that’s where the gang is.”

“So Cano doesn’t have anything to do with the kidnappings.”

“No. He’s just a low-life drug dealer.”

His cell phone rang. He took it out of his pocket and saw that it was Nicki calling. Daniels saw the screen as well and said, “Is my niece helping you again?”

“She is, indeed.” He hit the answer button. “Hi, Nicki. I’m sitting here with your aunt Beth. Tell me that you have good news.”

“Try great news,” the teenager said excitedly.

Chapter 30

When it came to sleuthing, there was strength in numbers.

Nicki’s CSI class had twenty-two enthusiastic students, each of whom had a laptop computer with high-speed internet access. To find the name of the person who’d testified against Devin Highnote at his trial, the class had visited a website called RapSheets.org.

Lancaster had told the class about this site during his visit. RapSheets.org was the largest crime statistic website in the world, and contained millions of arrest records, along with a local jail inmate search, which he often utilized to see if a suspect was already behind bars.

The site’s arrest records were broken out by state and county. Nicki’s class had gone to the Florida section, and chosen Pinellas County, where Saint Petersburg was located. They’d entered Devin Highnote’s name and done a search that produced his rap sheet. Highnote was not a common last name, and only one felon matched in the database.

Seven years ago, Highnote had been arrested for rape, prosecuted, found guilty, and sent away to prison. The mug shot showed an unshaven brute with soulless eyes and a lump on his temple, which he’d probably gotten during his arrest.

The site had not contained any details from his trial. To get those transcripts would have required a trip to the Pinellas County courthouse, where a formal records request would have to be submitted to a records clerk. If the transcripts were not digitalized, it might take the clerk several days to produce them.

Undaunted, Nicki’s class had gone onto Google and entered the words Devin Highnote rapist Saint Petersburg FL into the search engine. This had produced a short newspaper article from the Saint Petersburg Times that had focused on the officers who’d tracked Highnote down. There was no mention of any witnesses at the trial.

The class had hit a dead end. The teacher, whose name was Ms. Edie Bachman, had gone around the room, and posed a question to each student: “If this was your case, how would you move it forward, knowing that time is of the essence?”

One student had suggested hiring a private plane and flying to Saint Petersburg. Several others had taken a pass. Then a student named Sasha Clarke served up an idea. Her uncle Albert was a reporter for the Tampa Bay Times, which was what the newspaper was now called. Sasha offered to call her uncle, and ask him if he knew the reporter who’d written the Highnote article.

Ms. Bachman liked the idea, and told Sasha to do it. Sasha made the call, and spoke to her uncle. Her uncle knew the reporter quite well, their cubicles being a few feet apart. Sasha’s call was transferred to the reporter, whose name was Ernie Ross.

Ernie Ross had no trouble recalling the details of the Highnote trial. He’d called Devin Highnote a monster, and said that the woman who’d testified against him deserved a medal for bravery. Her name was Rachel Baye, and she lived in Saint Pete Beach.

Had Lancaster been in the same room with Nicki, he would have given her a hug. Instead, he promised to return to her school and give another talk. He thanked her and ended the call.

“She’s a natural,” he said.

“It drives my sister crazy that she’s so into police work,” Daniels said.

“Think she’ll grow out of it?”

“I sure hope so. Can’t have two of us in the family.”

“Maybe she’ll join the FBI, and you’ll report to her someday.”

“That’s not funny.”

They were still parked at the Starbucks with the engine running. Daniels retrieved her briefcase off the back seat and took out her laptop. The FBI was famous for tracking down suspects, and had access to driver’s license information in every state, as well as access to the databases of every major credit card company. Using the two pieces of information that they had — the name Rachel Baye and the city of Saint Pete Beach — she was able to pull up an address in under a minute.

Using his cell phone, he pulled up Google Maps and entered the address. An automated voice said that Baye’s home was forty minutes away by car in light traffic. The voice continued to give directions as Daniels weaved through traffic.

He did a background check on Baye without breaking his connection to Google. She was on Facebook with a profile photo that showed an athletic woman doing yoga on the beach. She was originally from Cleveland, and had studied holistic medicine at Ohio University. She listed her profession as yoga instructor.

He did a search of her address. A link to the real estate site Zillow appeared. Baye lived in a four-bedroom house a block from the ocean with an estimated value of $2.1 million, the property taxes more than thirty grand a year.

“You’re way too quiet,” Daniels said.

“Rachel Baye lives in a two-million-dollar house,” he said.

“Is that a problem?”

“In my experience, wealthy people don’t testify at criminal trials.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“I think they’re afraid of retribution.”

“Maybe she isn’t wealthy, and rents a room.”

They made good time, and Daniels parked at the curb. They got out and had a look around. Not that long ago, Saint Pete Beach had been a wasteland of flophouses and the homeless, the area barely scraping by. The area had gone through a renaissance, with new construction on every block. The place looked alive again.

They walked up the front path. The house was a McMansion and dwarfed the other homes around it. Daniels pinned her badge to her jacket and rang the bell. The door opened, and a well-dressed older woman stuck her head out, scowling.

“Did you see the sign when you drove down the street? No solicitors.” Her eyes fell on the badge. “Oh! My mistake. May I help you?”

“I’m Special Agent Daniels with the FBI,” Daniels said. “This gentleman is Jon Lancaster. Are you Rachel Baye?”

The woman brought her hand to her mouth. “No, I’m not. Has something happened to poor Rachel?”

“Please let me ask the questions. What is your name?”

“Harriet Ward. I told Rachel she needed to move away, for her safety.”

“May we please come in?”

“I don’t know. Do you like dogs?”

“So long as they don’t bite.”

“My babies won’t bite you.”

Ward ushered them inside. The interior reeked of money. The lobby had a checkered marble floor and a glistening chandelier, and that was just the entranceway. A pack of well-groomed dogs stood at rapt attention a few feet inside. They ranged in size from teacup to small pony, and had the alertness of circus animals.

“My husband passed away several years ago, and I went to the pound to get a new friend. This is what I came home with,” Ward said with a smile.

“I own two rescues myself,” Daniels said. “Now, I need to ask you some questions. Does Rachel Baye currently live here?”

Ward knelt down. The pooches surrounded her, and she petted them while they licked her face. “Not anymore. Rachel rented the apartment above the garage. She was a wonderful tenant, used to help me walk the dogs. A few months back, she started being threatened by that horrible man. He sent her emails, then called her. She went to the police for help, but there wasn’t much they could do.”

“Do you know his name?”

“He never said who he was. Rachel was sure that it was a man she’d helped send to prison. I believe his name was Devin. Rachel was running on the beach one night years ago, and saw this monster raping a teenager. She called the police, and they arrested him. She was the only witness at his trial.”

“Was his name Devin Highnote?”

“That sounds right.”

“Do you know where she moved to? We need to get in contact with her. Her life may be in danger.”

“Rachel didn’t give me a forwarding address. I think she’s still living near the beach. She’s having her mail sent to a post office box.”

“Do you have her cell phone number?”

“It’s in the contacts in my cell phone. Let me go get it. May I offer you and your friend something cold to drink?”

“We’re fine,” Daniels said.

Ward retreated into the back of the house. The pack followed her, except for a Saint Bernard that tipped the scales at two hundred pounds. He parked himself in front of them and lay down. Resting his head on his paws, he gave them a hostile stare.

“He doesn’t like you,” Daniels said.

“He’s looking at you, not me,” Lancaster said.

Ward returned with her cell phone and two bottled waters, which she handed to them. “You both look thirsty. I have two numbers for Rachel, work and personal. Would you like both?”

“Please.” Daniels wrote down the numbers on a small notepad. Flipping it shut, she said, “Would you mind giving Rachel a call? I’m afraid she won’t answer my call, since it’s a strange number. But she might answer yours.”

“I’d be more than happy to,” Ward said.

Ward called the personal number, and got voice mail. Then she called the yoga studio where Rachel worked. She got a live person this time, and asked for Rachel. A moment later, her face crashed. She thanked the other person, and ended the call.

“Rachel called the owner this morning, said she was stopping at the mall before she got to work,” Ward said. “She asked the owner if he wanted a smoothie, and he told her to bring him one. She never came in. I hope to God nothing has happened to her.”

“Is Rachel a responsible person?” Daniels asked.

“She is. She house-sat for me many times, and was very conscientious.”

Daniels looked at Lancaster and frowned. They were thinking the same thought: Baye had been abducted by Dexter Hudson and Devin Highnote while at the mall. Unless her abductors had left telltale clues — which so far, they hadn’t done — their chances of finding her weren’t great. But that didn’t mean they weren’t going to try.

“Which mall would Rachel have gone to?” Daniels asked.

“Tyrone Square,” Ward said. “It’s not far.”

“Any idea where she might have bought her smoothies?”

“She liked the Smoothie King,” Ward said. “It’s on the main level.”

Chapter 31

Retail malls were dying, and Tyrone Square was no exception, the parking lot so empty that it felt like the entrance to a ghost town.

Daniels parked by the main entrance, and they went inside. A directory showed Smoothie King on the other end of the mall, and they started walking. Being inside a mall, looking for clues to a kidnapping, felt like déjà vu all over again.

Dexter Hudson had tailed Elsie Tanner at the Citrus Park Mall before following her home. He’d never figured out how Dexter had tracked Elsie to the mall, or known which stores she’d be shopping in. And now Dexter had done it again, tracking down Rachel Baye, who was trying to keep her whereabouts unknown.

A wall plaque that said PROPERTY SERVICES/SECURITY caught his eye. He stopped walking, and Daniels halted as well. She shot him a questioning look.

“We’re not going to learn anything new in the smoothie store,” he said. “But we might catch a break watching the mall’s surveillance videos.”

“What are you expecting to find?”

“Dexter is hunting his victims in shopping malls. How does he know they’re there? Maybe the mall videos will tell us. It’s worth a quick look.”

“I think we should speak to the manager at Smoothie King. Want to split up?”

“Not really. Mall security won’t do what I ask them. But they will do what you ask them.”

“All right, we’ll do mall security first.”

The security office was a cavern with a wall of ancient video monitors. Daniels introduced herself and asked to see the videos taken outside the Smoothie King earlier that morning. The videos were retrieved and played. A line of at least twenty customers stood outside the Smoothie King, which had yet to open. The time stamp said that the video had been taken at 8:35 that morning.

“The mall doesn’t open until nine, but management started opening the south entrance early because the owner of the Smoothie King was complaining he was losing business,” the security guard in charge said.

“What time does the Smoothie King open?” Daniels asked.

“Eight thirty. A lot of people place their orders online. Is there someone in particular you’re looking for?”

Lancaster retrieved Baye’s Facebook page and showed it to the guard. “Her name’s Rachel, and she works in a yoga studio. She’s blonde and athletic.”

The guard enlarged the images on the screen. They both leaned in.

“I see her. She’s the thirteenth person in line,” Lancaster said.

“How unlucky for her,” Daniels said under her breath.

The minutes slipped by. At 8:40 a.m., a man wearing a black Stetson appeared on the video. The man was not in line, but seemed preoccupied with looking at the customers who were. The man stepped backward and disappeared.

“That looked like Dexter.” To the guard, he said, “Where do you think the guy wearing the cowboy hat went?”

“Probably to the south parking lot,” the guard said. “Should I pull up the videos?”

“Yes,” they both said.

A video of the south parking lot appeared. It was shaded, the vehicles easy to make out. A man wearing a black Stetson hustled out of the mall and made a straight line to a parked car. The car was caked in dirt and missing a hub cap.

The driver’s window came down, and a man stuck his head out.

“Please freeze the frame,” Daniels said.

The guard froze the frame.

“Now, blow it up,” she said.

The guard enlarged the frame so the man’s face became visible. The brutish features were easily identifiable, even sporting a scruffy beard. It was Highnote.

“Okay, start the video again,” she said.

The video resumed playing. Dexter knelt down, and Highnote passed him a pack of smokes and a lighter. He lit up, and the two men began to talk. The conversation became heated, the disagreement almost palpable.

“What’s this about?” Daniels asked.

“It looks like Highnote wanted to bail, only Dexter wouldn’t let him,” Lancaster said.

“Do you think Highnote got cold feet?”

“Uh-huh. He’s fresh out of prison, and doesn’t want to go back.”

The two men came to an agreement, and Highnote rolled up his window. Dexter came around the car and climbed into the passenger seat.

“Looks like Dexter won the argument,” Daniels said.

She asked him to advance the video sixty seconds. The guard did as told, then hit play. They watched Baye exit the mall holding a cardboard tray with four smoothies, which she balanced on one hand, her cell phone and car keys in the other. She hopped into a pink Toyota Prius and drove away. She was talking on her cell phone without a care in the world. Highnote and Dexter followed her out of the lot.

“Those guys look like trouble,” the guard said.

“They are trouble,” Daniels said. “I need a copy of the two videos we just watched. Can you email them to me?”

Daniels gave him a business card, and the guard agreed to send her the videos. Taking out her notepad, she took down the guard’s name, title, and email address.

Lancaster stared into space. Based upon what he’d seen, Highnote had gotten cold feet and tried to bail on Dexter, which meant he still had a conscience. Most criminals didn’t have consciences, but there were exceptions. But Highnote was weak, and had let Dexter talk him into staying.

It made him think of Logan. His brother and Highnote were alike in several ways. Logan had also been weak, and had let some guys talk him into driving the getaway car for a botched heist. Then, in prison, he’d let Dexter talk him into joining his gang. Both were bad decisions that had cost his brother dearly.

But Logan still had a conscience, and had saved his life at the Jayhawk Motel. Logan had been talked into the bad things that he’d done, while the goods things had come from the heart. Logan had been corrupted, the same as Highnote. Neither would have gone down these roads had Dexter not talked them into it. Lancaster told himself that he was going to pay the bastard back if it was the last thing he did.

“Jon? You coming?”

Daniels stood at the door, ready to depart. He followed her out.

Daniels’s car was baking, and she rolled down the windows to let the bubble of hot air escape. She started the engine and said, “Put your seat belt on.”

“Not yet,” he said. “We need to talk about this.”

She threw the car into park and waited.

“Echo told me that Dexter could track anyone by knowing their email address. I’m starting to believe there’s some validity to this,” he said.

“How does it work?”

“It’s somehow connected to the victim’s cell phone. Just about everyone has a smartphone, and can send and receive emails. Dexter is sending his victims an email and then tracking their location from their cell phone.”

“That technology doesn’t exist. Try again.”

He blew out his cheeks. “We know that two of the victims were out shopping before they were abducted. Baye was also at a mall. All she had in her possession were her car keys, and a cell phone. Dexter used the signal on Baye’s phone to track her down. It’s the only logical explanation.”

“And he did this by sending Baye an email.”

“I know it’s flimsy, but how else could he know her location?”

“I don’t know. Now, put on your seat belt.”

Instead of complying, he continued talking. “Yesterday you told me about a company in Tampa called Phantom Communications that manufactured the encrypted cell phone that my brother had. You said that they might be connected to this. Maybe they’ve developed a technology to track cell phones using emails.”

“Maybe they have. But right now, they’re off limits.”

“I thought you were getting a search warrant and were going to raid the place.”

“The judge turned us down. We didn’t show sufficient probable cause.”

“But they’re connected to this. They have to be.”

“I’m sorry, Jon, but we lost in court. Now, would you put your seat belt on?”

Without a word, he opened his door and climbed out. He walked back toward the entrance of the mall and got in the shade before pulling up an app on his cell phone. Daniels pulled the car around to the entrance and rolled down her window.

“What are you doing?” she said angrily.

“Calling an Uber,” he said. “You and I need to part ways.”

The words stung, and for a moment she couldn’t reply.

“You’re ditching me?” she said.

“Afraid so,” he replied.

“And exactly why are you doing that?”

“Because I’m not going to let a stupid judge stop me from visiting Phantom Communications and finding out how Dexter is doing this. And since this involves breaking the law, I assumed you won’t want to come.”

“What are you going to do, shove a gun in someone’s face?”

“What do I look like, a thug?”

“Then what?”

“Let’s just say that I’m going to pull a ruse that I’ve used before. It’s a great way to get people to open up, and talk.”

“What if your ruse backfires? You could get arrested and go to jail.”

“It hasn’t failed me so far.” He looked at the screen on his cell phone. “My ride is two minutes away. I’ll let you know how things turn out.”

She threw the vehicle into drive and pulled out with a squeal of rubber. Her journey lasted less than a hundred yards. Hitting the brakes hard, she went into reverse, and returned to her original spot, glaring at him through her open window.

“Get in the car. I’m going with you,” she said.

“But I’m going to break the law.”

“I heard you the first time. Get in the damn car, before I change my mind.”

She nearly hit his Uber driver on the way out of the parking lot.

Chapter 32

Daniels made record time to his hotel. Going to his car, he popped the trunk, and from a metal strongbox removed two phony search warrants, each of which had the words UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT/CENTRAL DISTRICT OF FLORIDA printed across the top, along with an official seal.

He’d first read about the use of fake documentation in a newspaper article. The New Orleans DA’s office had been caught issuing fake subpoenas to a witness in a murder trial in an effort to subvert his testimony. The article had gotten him thinking what a great tool this would be when dealing with a witness who refused to cooperate.

He got back into Daniels’s vehicle and, using his cell phone, found the address for Phantom Communications. He placed one of the search warrants on the dashboard and filled it out with a ballpoint pen.

“For the love of Christ, where did you get those?” Daniels asked.

“Off the internet,” he said.

“Be serious.”

“I am being serious. There are online companies that generate fake documents for a fee. You can buy search warrants, subpoenas, even deportation notices. For a few extra bucks, they’ll customize them. They’re a great negotiating tool.”

“Sounds like you’ve used them before.”

“Only once. A twelve-year-old girl went missing. Her neighbor was the last to see her, but he wouldn’t talk to me. I decided to gamble, and went to his place with a fake search warrant. He let me in, and there was a marijuana tree growing in the living room. I made a deal with him. I’d give him a pass on the tree if he opened up about the girl.”

“Did he?”

“Yes. The neighbor said that he thought the stepfather was molesting the girl. I tipped off the police, and they searched the property. They found the girl locked up in a toolshed.”

“You broke all sorts of laws doing that.”

“Her family sent me a crystal paperweight with a thank-you note. It sits on the desk in my study. I’ll show it to you the next time you come over.”

“It was still wrong.”

“You can pull out, I won’t hold it against you.”

“Not on your life. Get me directions off your phone.”

Soon they were on familiar roads, heading to Tampa. When he was finished with the warrant, he checked his spelling, and caught a mistake. The company was on North Rocky Point Drive, only he’d spelled it Pinte. He tore up the document and started over.

“Is that why you brought two? In case you made a mistake?” Daniels asked.

“Yeah. When I was a SEAL, we sometimes used fake documents inside foreign countries. One time in Libya, our commanding officer made a mistake on a form, and had to abort the mission.”

“So now you always bring two.”

“Always.”

Phantom Communications was located in a sleek office building called The Pointe. True to its name, the building jutted out on a narrow landfill that overlooked the Gulf of Mexico’s sparkling waters. The guard at the reception desk was reading a section of the paper that contained the day’s races at Tampa Bay Downs.

“What can I do for you?” the guard asked.

Daniels placed her wallet on the desk. The guard took his job seriously, and studied her badge and photo ID. Satisfied, he slid the wallet back to her.

“Sorry, but I’ve never met an FBI agent before,” he said.

“No need to apologize,” she said. “We’re here to see a company called Phantom Communications. I need to know which floor they’re on.”

The guard flipped through the three-ring binder on his desk. “Phantom is on the eighth floor, suite #812C. I need to let them know you’re coming.”

“I’d prefer that you not do that.”

“Our insurance company requires it. Otherwise, I’ll get in trouble.”

She took the search warrant out of Lancaster’s hand and waved it in the guard’s face. “We need to search their offices. If you tell them we’re here, they may destroy important information. There are lives at stake here. Am I making myself clear?”

The guard’s face reddened, and he nodded.

“I didn’t hear you,” Daniels said.

“Crystal clear. I won’t call them.”

“Good answer. Do you know how many people work there? I’d like to know what I’m dealing with before we serve them.”

“I honestly don’t,” the guard replied. “The C suites are pretty small. I can’t imagine there are more than a couple of people working there.”

Daniels rapped the counter in appreciation. They took an elevator to the eighth floor and walked down a carpeted hallway to the very last door.

“Let me do the talking,” she said.

“You’re starting to sound like a willing coconspirator,” he said.

“Shut up.”

She twisted the knob, and they entered. Suite 812 was broken into three offices distinguished by the letters A, B, and C. A and B were vacant, and hadn’t been used in a while. C had a lone occupant, a skinny guy with shoulder-length hair and a ring in his nose. He was listening to music on a pair of headphones while staring at his computer screen. The music owned him, and he acted like he was on another planet.

He looked up as they approached, then pointed at his incredibly messy desk.

“Just leave it there,” he said.

Daniels stuck her badge in his face. It brought him back to earth, and he ripped off his headphones and tried to speak. She cut him off.

“Back away from the computer, and keep your hands where I can see them.”

His face turned white, and he rose from his desk. It was almost comical how scared he looked. Like he knew he’d been breaking the law, and had been worried that it might catch up with him. Judgment day had arrived, and he didn’t look the least bit ready.

“What’s your name, and what do you do?” Daniels said.

“Garret Oldham. My friends call me Gar. I’m a programmer.”

“Does anyone else work here?”

“There was a girl named Wendy, but she quit last week.”

Lancaster was standing to Daniels’s right. He wanted to see what was on Gar’s computer, and he stepped between them, using his hand to swivel the PC so the screen was facing him. Gar tried to object, and Lancaster showed him the fake warrant.

“Do you know what this is?” he asked.

The remaining blood in Gar’s face drained away, and he sank back into his chair and shut his eyes. Daniels grabbed his wrist and checked his pulse.

“He’s passed out. You really scared him.”

“Take a look at this.”

Daniels turned her attention to the PC. On its screen was an aerial map of the Tampa area with dozens of pulsating dots of light. The dots were different colors and expanded and collapsed like heartbeats. Suddenly, one of the dots darted across the map like a player in a video game, and left the picture.

“What are we looking at?” Daniels asked.

“I think he’s following people,” he said.

“On their cell phones?”

“That would be my guess.”

The program’s operating system was Microsoft Windows, and there were multiple open folders displayed on the bottom of the screen. He dragged the mouse over the first folder and clicked on it. An aerial map of Saint Petersburg appeared, also with pulsating dots of lights. Examination of the other folders showed maps of several cities in Florida.

Gar’s desk was cluttered with papers, and Lancaster sifted through them, hoping they might shed some light on the images. They turned out to be overdraft statements from Gar’s bank and dunning notices from creditors, and they painted a picture of a man up to his eyeballs in debt. Gar began to stir, and mumbled under his breath.

“He’s coming to. What do you want to do?” Daniels asked.

“I want to grill him. You okay with that?”

“Sure, but no rough stuff.”

“I just want to scare him.”

He went to the door and locked it. Returning, he borrowed Daniels’s handcuffs, and slapped one of the cuffs onto Gar’s wrist, then locked the other to the arm of his chair. Daniels shot him a disapproving look, but said nothing.

A bottled water sat on the desk. He unscrewed it, and poured the contents onto Gar’s head, soaking his neck and shirt. The programmer awoke with a start, and tried to stand. Seeing that he was a prisoner of the chair, he howled. “Let me go!”

“You’re in lots of trouble. Don’t make it worse,” Lancaster said.

Gar rattled the handcuff. “Is this necessary?”

“That’s entirely up to you. Are you going to cooperate?”

He blinked, thinking hard. “Define cooperate.”

“We want you to explain the work that you do.”

“I do lots of different work. Which campaign are you talking about?”

“Tell us how you’re tracking people’s cell phones.”

“I want a lawyer.”

“You sure about that?”

Gar smiled, thinking he had the upper hand. “Damn straight.”

Gar was being cute, believing that a lawyer would bail him out of jail, and that he’d walk away unscathed. His eyes needed to be opened, and Lancaster decided to play his hand. “The company you work for is in trouble. They willingly sold encrypted cell phones to a drug dealer, which is a third-degree felony, and could get you sent to prison. You got any priors?”

“What?”

“Prior arrests.”

Gar swallowed hard. “I got busted for pot once.”

“You’ll do five years. You’ll make a lot of new friends.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with those phones,” the programmer protested.

“Good luck proving that in court. Meanwhile, Special Agent Daniels will tell the judge you’re a flight risk, and ask him to post a high bail, which you won’t be able to meet. You’ll have to plot your defense behind bars, which isn’t easy. Think about it.”

Gar fell back in his chair. “They’ll kill me if they find out I squealed,” he said.

“Who’s going to kill you?” Daniels asked.

“My employer, the bikers,” he said.

“You mean the Outlaws,” Lancaster said.

“That’s right, the Outlaws. They’d cut my heart out if they found out I betrayed them. I’ll take my chances in prison, thank you very much.”

It wasn’t the response Lancaster was expecting. He shot Daniels a glance, needing her help. She took his cue, and placed her hand on Gar’s sleeve.

“If you help us, I’ll get you put into the government’s witness protection program,” she said. “You’ll get a new identity, and a new life. We’ll relocate you to another part of the country where the Outlaws don’t have a presence. You’ll be home free.”

“You’re not screwing with me, are you?”

“I’ll put it in writing, if you want me to.”

“What about my girlfriend?” he asked.

“What about her?”

“Can she come with me?”

“I don’t see why not.”

Gar wasn’t sold. His eyes fell on the stack of unfriendly mail littering his desk. Were those obligations going to follow him as well? Daniels picked up on his vibe.

“I can take care of those as well,” she said.

“You’ve got yourself a deal,” the programmer said.

Chapter 33

Once he was uncuffed, Gar’s attitude changed for the better. He grabbed a soda from a small fridge and offered them drinks as well. He wasn’t a bad guy, just a guy who’d gotten himself caught up in a bad situation. If given a second chance, he would probably walk the straight and narrow for the rest of his life.

“How did you come to work for the Outlaws?” Daniels asked.

“It didn’t start out that way,” Gar said. “When I went to work for Phantom, they were a legitimate marketing company who specialized in mobile advertising campaigns. Our motto was, Data won’t change the world without the right people to understand it. We did ten million in sales our first year.”

“Out of this office?” Daniels asked.

“I wish. The company started in Miami, then branched out, and opened satellite offices in Orlando and Tampa, which is when I joined. We used to have thirty employees, with four working here.”

“Did you sell encrypted cell phones?” Daniels asked.

“No, I did not,” he said emphatically. “That was a side business out of Miami that I wasn’t involved with.”

“What exactly did you do in this office?”

“We did three things for our clients: mobile advertising campaigns, location measurement — which is analyzing GPS location data of a client’s customers through their smartphones — and business intelligence, which is a fancy name for statistical analysis.”

“Sounds like a good business model,” Daniels said. “What happened?”

“Google happened,” he said. “They offered the same services for less money, and wiped us off the map. The company shrank down to six employees, with just me and Wendy in Tampa. One day the owner called me, and said he was having cash flow problems. He asked me to start paying the office bills on my credit cards.”

“Did you?”

“Yeah. He promised to pay me back once things got worked out.”

Something dropped in the pit of Lancaster’s stomach, and he pointed at the letters on the desk. “Is that where those came from?”

“Afraid so,” Gar said.

“Why did you go along with this?” Daniels asked him.

“Maybe this sounds naive, but I believed him when he said he’d get things worked out. This is the best job I’ve ever had, and I didn’t want it to end.”

“When did the Outlaws enter the picture?” Daniels asked.

“Three months ago. The owner said he had a new backer, and he’d be coming by with a check. That was music to my ears, because I was about to get thrown out of my apartment. That afternoon, a biker appeared in the lobby. The guard refused to let him in, and called me. I called the owner, and was told this was our new partner.”

“So you let him upstairs,” Daniels said.

“I didn’t have much choice,” Gar said.

“Describe him,” Lancaster said.

“He was a mean hombre, and wore all black,” Gar said. “He said his name was Dexter. I never got his last name.”

“What happened then?” Daniels asked.

“Dexter gave me a money order for five grand, which he called an installment,” Gar said. “He had a job for me, and said that he’d give me five grand every two weeks until it was done. I was fifty grand in debt, so I couldn’t say no.”

“So you had reservations about working for him,” Lancaster said.

“You bet. He made my skin crawl.”

“What was the job?” Daniels asked.

Gar took a swallow of his soda and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. A guilty look spread across his face, and he spent a moment gathering his thoughts.

“He wanted me to track people,” the programmer confessed.

“On their cell phones?” Lancaster said.

“That’s right. You know about this?”

“We don’t know how it works. Explain it to us,” Daniels said.

“In mobile advertising, there’s a metric called location measurement, which lets retailers track cross-channel advertising campaigns to see if the ads are influencing foot traffic in stores. All the major brands do this.”

“What’s a cross-channel campaign?” Daniels asked.

“It’s a campaign that runs on three channels,” he said. “Personal computer is the first channel. The second channel is tablets, like iPads. The third channel is mobile phones. That’s cross-channel.”

“Got it. How does location measurement work?”

“Okay. Let’s say you’re Nike, and you want to promote a new line of sneakers. Your goal is to drive customers into your stores, which are located inside shopping malls. So you run a cross-channel video campaign that is targeted against consumers who meet your profile and live in zip codes that are located within a ten-mile radius of your stores.”

“You can do that?” Daniels asked.

“Piece of cake. Nikes sends us a video, and we wrap it with a tag. When a viewer watches the video, the tag recognizes the viewer’s IP address, and stores it. We then use a software program to find the mobile phone tied to your IP address.”

“Let me be sure I’ve got this straight,” Daniels said. “If I watch a Nike video on my laptop, your company can determine where my mobile phone is?”

“That’s right. The software program is called a device graph, and it lets us determine the mobile phones tied to the IP address the campaign is delivered to. We then partner with hundreds of apps that track your location, which lets us know where your mobile phone is. It’s fairly easy to find you, once we’ve served you an ad.”

“That can’t be legal.”

“It’s perfectly legal. Have you downloaded an app recently? Before it becomes functional, you’re asked to accept the terms of use. No one reads what those terms are. If they did, they’d see that they’re permitting the app’s designer to track their location, and sell that information. The industry has a name for this. We call it terms of abuse.”

“How long does it take your technology to do this?”

“Nanoseconds.”

He shook his head. Corporations were monitoring his movements every day, and he hadn’t known it. He glanced at Daniels, hoping she’d take over.

“Okay, so Dexter paid you a visit, and said he had a job for you,” she said. “What exactly did he want you to do?”

“Dexter wanted me to track a specific person using location measurement,” Gar said. “The idea was that we’d bombard this person with a tagged video ad, and start monitoring her location when she went shopping.”

“Can you track specific people?”

“I didn’t think we could,” Gar admitted. “But Dexter said that the Miami and Orlando offices had done it, so I was wrong.”

“Your other offices tracked people for Dexter,” Daniels said.

“Yeah. Tracking is supposed to be anonymous, meaning we don’t know the identities of the people we’re tracking. But it isn’t hard to attach a name to an IP address, and track a specific person.”

“And you did this for him.”

“Yes, regrettably.”

“You knew it was wrong.”

“I did. But I also knew that if I didn’t go along, I’d be living out of my car. So I agreed to do what Dexter wanted.”

Something wasn’t adding up, and Lancaster jumped in. “Dexter’s full name is Dexter Hudson, and he spent the last fifteen years in prison. How did he suddenly get tech savvy, and know about location measurement?”

“That bothered me too,” Gar said. “How does a guy who rides in a biker gang know about mobile device tracking? The second time Dexter visited my office, I asked him. He said that one of his biker buddies was on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, and got run down and arrested. His buddy’s lawyer made the prosecutor reveal how his client was found. There’s some legal name for this.”

“Discovery,” Daniels said.

“That’s it, discovery. So the FBI had to reveal how they found Dexter’s buddy. It turned out that they used location measurement.”

Lancaster shook his head in disbelief. If a criminal defense attorney had asked him how he’d tracked down a client, he would have invented an answer and not tipped his hand, knowing that criminal attorneys were sometimes in cahoots with their clients. But the FBI did things by the book, and had given the Outlaws a valuable tool.

“So you tracked specific people for Dexter, and sent their whereabouts to him,” Lancaster said.

“Not exactly,” Gar said. “The Miami office created video ads, which they emailed to me. I wrapped the ads in tags, and bombarded the people Dexter wanted to find. Then I let Dexter do the tracking. I wanted no part of that.”

“How did Dexter track them?”

“He used an app on his mobile phone that I gave him,” Gar said. “I told him that wasn’t the app’s purpose, but he didn’t care. I told him that it was wrong, but he didn’t care.”

Daniels started to ask a question, but was drowned out by a roar of motorcycles coming from outside. Gar said, “That doesn’t sound good.” They rose from their chairs and went to the window. Down in the parking lot, four leather-clad bikers had parked by the entrance. They were banged up, leading Lancaster to believe they’d been part of the gang at Echo’s complex the night before. Dexter Hudson was not among them, which was a shame, because he was looking forward to confronting him.

“What’s this about?” Lancaster asked.

“Must be payback time,” Gar said.

“You did something to the Outlaws that warranted payback?”

“The last time Dexter was here, he threatened to beat me up if I talked to anyone about this,” Gar said. “It bothered me, so I decided to file a police report. Since I didn’t know Dexter’s last name, I filed the report against his company, which is called One Percent Solutions. Those guys must be his partners.”

“We need to get out of here,” Daniels said. “You’re not coming back, so grab whatever belongings you want to keep.”

Gar scooped his laptop off the desk. From a desk drawer he grabbed several personal belongings and shoved them in his pockets.

“Ready when you are,” the programmer said.

They took the stairwell to the floor directly below, went into the hallway, and stood by the elevators. The LED display showed that one of the cars was coming up.

Lancaster drew his SIG and aimed at the door, in case the bikers decided to stop at this floor for some reason. Daniels drew her sidearm as well.

“Jesus Christ,” Gar said. “Are you going to shoot them?”

Lancaster nearly said, Yes, I’m going to put a bullet into each one of their hearts as payback for the pain and suffering they’ve caused, but bit his lip instead.

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come down to that,” Daniels said.

The elevator didn’t stop, but instead went to the next floor. After a few moments, Daniels pressed the down button, and the car descended to their level. It was empty, and they put their weapons away. Reaching the lobby, they got out.

“We need to blow out of here,” Daniels said. “Once your friends see that you’re gone, they’ll come downstairs. We don’t want to be here when that happens.”

“One second,” Gar said. “I want to ask the guard why he let those guys come up. He’s supposed to call with every visitor.”

The guard was not at his post. A quick search revealed him inside a storage room with a bump on his forehead. The guard was awake, and in the act of dialing 911.

“Those goons attacked me,” the guard said.

“Sorry to hear that,” Daniels said. “We need to get this gentleman to a safe place. Lock this door behind you when we leave, and don’t come out until the police arrive.”

“I’ll do that,” the guard said.

The door clicked behind them. Crossing the lobby, Lancaster glanced at the elevators, and saw that a car was descending and would soon be in the lobby. Drawing his SIG, he backed out of the building with Daniels and Gar by his side. He didn’t want the bikers running them down, and he went to where their motorcycles were parked and gave the one on the end a good kick, toppling it over, and taking the others down with it.

“Aren’t we clever,” Daniels said.

Chapter 34

They drove to Gar’s apartment so he could pack a suitcase and then drove to the Marriott on State Road 54, where Daniels arranged for Gar to be put into a room on the same floor that her team was staying on. The hotel was nearly sold out, and the manager had to shuffle some reservations to see if he could accommodate her.

Gar was looking pale as the reality of his situation sank in, and Lancaster asked if he wanted a drink. His offer was received with an enthusiastic yes, and Lancaster told Daniels that he was going to take Gar across the street and buy him a beer.

“Make sure nothing happens to him,” she said.

“Not on my watch,” he said.

There were several options to get a drink, and he picked Glory Days because of its dark interior. It was quiet, and he chose a booth near the bar.

“What’s your pleasure?” Lancaster asked.

“I’d like an IPA on draft, and a glass of water,” Gar said. “That scene at work was scary. I’m glad you guys showed up.”

“So am I. I’ll be right back.”

Happy hour ran all afternoon, and Lancaster delivered four pints of beer to their table, along with two tall glasses of water, which required three trips to the bar. When he was done, he slid into the booth, and they clinked glasses. Gar polished off his beer and went to work on his second pint. It relaxed him, and when he spoke, his voice was subdued. “Do you know what the most difficult part of being a programmer is?”

Lancaster had not expected this to become a confession. He sipped his beer and said, “I have no idea. Staying up to date on new technology?”

“The most difficult part is not breaking the law. The ability to monitor people is so refined that there isn’t any privacy anymore. None. Zero. Zip.”

“But people can turn off their devices if they want to,” he said. “No one’s forcing them to leave them on.”

“You’re right, no one is forcing them. Yet the average cell phone user keeps their phone within five feet of their body, twenty-four hours a day. And that allows people like me to monitor their behavior and location all the time.”

Lancaster thought about his own cell phone habits. He didn’t have a landline where he lived, and relied on his cell phone for business and personal calls. He kept the phone powered up all day, and carried it in his pocket. At night, his cell phone sat on his night table getting charged and wasn’t turned off. He didn’t think of his behavior as being predictable, yet obviously it was.

“It sounds like an addiction,” he said.

“It is an addiction. And you can blame the designers. They created phones that used intermittent reinforcement to keep their users hooked. Just like slot machines.”

“My cell phone isn’t a slot machine. There’s no payout.”

“Yes, there is. Your cell phone can receive emails, texts, and voice messages. If it rings, you look at the screen. If it makes a doorbell sound, you check your email. If it vibrates, you look to see who texted you.”

“But I don’t have to do any of those things. I can just leave it in my pocket.”

“But you don’t. If your phone makes a noise, you look, because you’re hoping that the caller or message is important, or a person you care about. That’s the payout.”

Lancaster wasn’t sure that he bought into what Gar was saying. Then his cell phone rang. He wanted to leave it in his pocket, just to prove Gar wrong, but there was a chance that it was Beth calling with some piece of news.

It was her. He said, “Hey. We’re across the street at Glory Days.”

“And I’m still trying to get our friend a room on the same floor with my team,” she said. “I had no idea this was going to take an Act of Congress to get done.”

“Want me to come over, and straighten them out?”

“Very funny. I’ll join you once I’m done.”

He put his cell phone away. Gar had polished off his second pint and was smiling. IPAs were popular because of their unique taste and high alcohol content, and it took only a couple to get a buzz. Lancaster sensed that Gar had something he wanted to get off his chest, and he slid one of his beers across the table.

“Drink up,” he said.

“Thanks. I’m telling you this stuff for a reason,” Gar said. “You may not believe this, but I have ethics. Violating a person’s privacy is wrong, and I’ve never intentionally done that.”

“Then what were all those dots on your computer screen?”

“They were just that — dots. There weren’t names attached to them. Those people were served a tagged video ad, and I tracked them when they entered a store that sold the product in that ad.”

“And since it was anonymous, you weren’t invading their privacy.”

“That’s right. All the campaigns I worked on were anonymous. I wouldn’t have had it any other way. That’s not true for other programmers I know.”

The confession was starting to feel more like an apology. He didn’t like that, and said, “But what about the work you did for One Percent Solutions? That sure as hell wasn’t anonymous. You were tracking individual people.”

“All I did was serve those people video ads, and then Dexter tracked them on his cell phone with an app I gave him.”

“That’s a cop-out.”

“No, it’s not.”

“You’re complicit.”

“To a certain degree, I am. Like I told you before, I needed the money to live. But I told Dexter what the rules were, and that he’d get in trouble if he broke them.”

“Afraid it didn’t work.”

“Let me finish. I also told Dexter that if I found out he broke the law, I’d turn him over to the police. That’s why he threatened me.”

“So you covered your ass. Big deal.”

“I meant what I said. If Dexter broke the law using the technology I gave him, I’d turn him over, which I’m still prepared to do. If not to the police, then to you and Special Agent Daniels.”

Gar was offering up Dexter, which sounded like a bunch of nonsense, considering that the programmer hadn’t even known Dexter’s last name.

“How do you plan to turn him over? Do you know where he lives?”

“Afraid not.”

“Then how are you going to do it?”

“Before I answer that, will you answer my question?”

“Which is what?”

“What laws has Dexter broken, besides threatening me?”

He counted them off on the fingers of his hand. “He’s responsible for multiple kidnappings and two murders. He’s also running a human trafficking ring with his biker buddies, and selling his victims into slavery. Now, how do you plan to do this?”

Gar opened an app on his cell phone and gave it to him. On the screen was an aerial map of the Tampa Bay area that covered from Saint Petersburg to New Port Richey. In the area between Dunedin and Tarpon Springs pulsated a single purple dot. The dot was moving in a southerly direction in a straight line.

“Use your finger to enlarge the screen,” Gar said.

He did as told and zoomed in. Major roads appeared on the map, and he saw that the dot was traveling south on Alternate US 19.

“That’s Dexter,” Gar said proudly. “The app that he’s using to track his victims sends out a signal every few seconds, which lets me track him by GPS. It’s a special feature I built, in case I needed to turn him in.”

His opinion of Gar changed. This was the right thing to do.

“Could Dexter know that you’re tracking him?” he asked.

“I can’t see how. The signal eats up the battery, but that’s true for most apps.”

“I want one of these.”

“You got it. It’s stored in my laptop. I’ll send one to you, and walk you through the installation. Special Agent Daniels can have one too.”

“I’m sure she’ll appreciate that.”

The purple dot turned off Alternate US 19 and drove down an unmarked road that ended at the gulf, then came to a stop. He guessed it was either private or a dirt road. The nearest landmark was the Sherwood Forest RV Resort, which was due south.

Daniels entered the restaurant, got an iced tea at the bar, and slid into the booth. He mumbled hello without looking up from Gar’s phone. The purple dot had stopped moving, and he wondered if that was Dexter’s hideout.

“What are you looking at?” she asked.

“Our killer,” he said.

Chapter 35

Lancaster had always despised people who walked around in public staring like zombies at their cell phones. These people were everywhere — in movie theaters, malls, and especially restaurants. Instead of engaging in normal conversations with their friends, they chose to be slaves to their iPhones and Droids.

And now, he was one of them.

His cell phone clutched in his hand, he rode shotgun while Daniels burned down State Road 54 toward Tarpon Springs. She drove like a hot-rodding teenager, and jockeyed between cars without slowing down. Behind them, four members of Daniels’s team were packed in an SUV, armed to the teeth. On his phone, the purple dot that was Dexter Hudson had not moved in the past twenty minutes.

“Why do you think he did it?” Daniels asked.

Lancaster shook his head, not understanding.

“Why did Gar give Dexter an app that could be traced?”

They had just left Gar at the Marriott with the remaining two members of the team. Before leaving, Gar had gone on his laptop, and sent each of them an app that would allow them to track Dexter. That app now resided on both their cell phones.

“I guess he wanted to go to heaven,” he said.

“You’re saying Gar has a conscience,” she said.

“I think so. Gar sensed that Dexter was up to no good, so he made the app traceable, in case Dexter broke the law.”

“How noble.”

“You’re not impressed.”

“I think Gar is complicit in Dexter’s crimes.”

“In what way was Gar complicit? He didn’t know that Dexter planned to abduct the people he was tracing, and sell them into slavery. For all Gar knew, Dexter was a private investigator trying to track someone down. Nothing illegal there.”

“I think you’re being way too nice here.”

He laughed under his breath. He couldn’t remember anyone ever accusing him of being nice, and he said, “Cyber technology is the Wild West, and there aren’t many rules. Most programmers know that cell phone technology is dangerous in the wrong hands. Give Gar some credit for hedging his bets.”

“I still think he’s a snake.”

“A snake who just helped us.”

“That doesn’t change a damn thing.”

State Road 54 ended at US 19. Daniels took a left on a yellow traffic light, forcing her team to run the light when it was red. Lancaster looked over his shoulder to see if there was a police cruiser lurking about, fearing they might get pulled over.

“Stop being so paranoid,” she said.

“You drive too fast. You’re going to cause an accident.”

She laughed. “Says the man who shoots out the tires of motorcycles and sends people to hospitals, that’s funny.”

He didn’t have an answer for that, and said nothing. US 19 was a collection of ragtag strip shopping centers and failed restaurants, which in a few years would be torn down and replaced by new strip centers and restaurants. A road sign announced Tampa Road ahead, and he told Daniels to put on her indicator, so her team wouldn’t be caught by surprise when she turned.

“You really have issues with my driving, don’t you?” she said.

“It could be improved,” he suggested.

“Coming from you, that’s absurd.”

“I’m not going to apologize for what I did to those bikers last night. But I didn’t put anyone else’s safety at risk. The way you drive, everyone on the road is in danger.”

“I have a clean driving record.”

“So far.”

Tampa Road bisected neighborhoods with upscale homes and plushly landscaped yards. As Daniels raced down it, the purple dot on his cell phone disappeared.

“Shit,” he swore. “Dexter just went dark.”

“Meaning what?”

“The app on his phone has stopped transmitting.”

“Why would that happen?”

“Gar said the app on Dexter’s phone would stop sending a signal if Dexter turned his cell phone off, or if the battery died.”

“So what do we do? Drive around, hoping we spot him?”

“That’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. Dexter turned down an unmarked road north of the Sherwood Forest RV park, and stayed there for forty-five minutes. Let’s see if we can find where he was.”

“You think it’s his hideout?”

“Could be. We won’t know until we look.”

“He might still be there. Just because his phone died, doesn’t mean he left.”

“From your lips to God’s ears,” he said.

Reaching Alternate US 19, Daniels turned right and crawled down the highway, allowing Lancaster to visually inspect each turn and gravel path wide enough to accommodate a car. A quarter mile later, he spotted a dirt road with a blue sign that said RICHJO LANE. The road was privately owned, which was why it hadn’t shown up on Google Maps. Daniels made the turn, as did her team’s SUV.

The road was filled with potholes that made for a rocky drive. Lining the sides were cinder block structures best described as shacks. Residents had dumped sofas and rusted barbecues in their front yards, as if expecting some invisible force to cart them away. It gave the place an air of desperation and lost hope.

At the road’s end was a single-story building with a thatched roof and a gravel parking area. It had been a business once, either a bar or snack shop. The grounds were overgrown and filled with junk.

Daniels hit her brakes. “What do you think?”

“I think it warrants a closer look.”

She parked in the lot, as did the SUV. Her team got out with weapons drawn and did a sweep of the property. Lancaster hopped out of the car, drew his SIG, and took a quick look around. There were picnic tables and a garbage can overflowing with beer bottles. On the side of the building hung a faded sign that said EARL’S BBQ.

He went to a window and stuck his face to the glass. The interior was clean and filled with Formica-topped tables and chairs. Running along a wall was a bar with stools and a TV set mounted to the ceiling. Movement caught his eye, and he spied a cigarette butt in an ashtray on a table, a curl of smoke rising off its tip. Next to it was the stub of a cigar, also still lit. He’d just missed Dexter, and he silently cursed.

He twisted the knob to the front door. It was locked, and he contemplated kicking it in, and having a look around. That would draw Beth’s wrath, and he returned to the lot, where he found her inspecting fresh tire tracks.

“We just missed them,” she said. “You think this is his hideout?”

“I think it’s more of a hangout. There are tables and chairs inside, and they look pretty clean. I’m guessing the Outlaws use this place as a gathering spot. It’s off the beaten path, and I don’t think the neighbors are going to call 911 when they get too rowdy. We need to find out who owns the place.”

“Want me to do a records search?”

“That would be a good start.”

The team reappeared and announced the grounds were clear. It was early afternoon, and Daniels wondered aloud if Dexter had gone to get something to eat. If that was the case, he would be returning soon. She told the team to park on the other side of Alternate 19, and to call her if they saw a vehicle pull down the road. Her team got into the SUV and left.

While they sat in her vehicle, Daniels did a search on her laptop of Earl’s BBQ in Palm Harbor. She found an old listing on Yelp with reviews that raved about the great baby back ribs and homemade potato salad. The reviews were several years old, and a note on the page said that Earl’s was no longer in business.

“That didn’t get me anywhere,” she said.

“Try Manta.com. It’s a business site for companies,” he suggested. “Maybe the corporate name is something different.”

She gave it a shot and used her credit card to pull up the information. “Good call. The site says Earl’s BBQ was owned by a limited liability corporation called Down Home Cooking in Safety Harbor. Is that near here?”

“It’s right around the corner.”

She did a search of Down Home Cooking and discovered that it was owned by a man named Earl Casselberry, that the company’s annual revenues were $250,000, and that it had four employees.

“This is a dead end,” she said.

“Go back to Yelp, and see if there’s an address listed for Earl’s BBQ,” he said.

“What good is that going to do?”

“I think Earl Casselberry sold his restaurant to the Outlaws, and they use it for meetings that they don’t want to have at their clubhouse.”

“You think the Outlaws own this place?”

He nodded. “I think Dexter has a key to the front door. People that have keys are usually owners.”

“Your reasoning is a little weak.”

“If you’ve got any better ideas, fire away.”

She found the restaurant’s address on Yelp and typed it into Google, and a listing came up on Zillow that showed the property’s history and estimated value. Earl’s BBQ had been sold two years ago. The current owner was listed as One Percent Solutions.

“You’re right. The Outlaws own this place,” she said.

“You sound surprised.”

“Call it professional jealousy. You said that the Outlaws are holding secret meetings here. Why would they do that?”

“We know they sell speed to truckers, and are involved in human trafficking,” he said. “My guess is, they come here to pay off their people. They don’t want to engage in that activity at their clubhouse, because too many cars parked in the street would draw suspicion. This is a much better meeting place.”

“That makes sense. Dexter and his boys have done their job, and now they want to be compensated.”

As a cop, he had busted pimps and pushers, and learned the business side of drug dealing and prostitution. In those operations, the criminals got their money as the services were rendered. He’d never heard of criminals being paid up front.

“Traffickers get paid in advance? How does that work?” he asked.

“It’s similar to adoptions. A couple wants a baby, so they hire an adoption attorney. The attorney acts like a broker, and gets his money up front before he delivers the child. People involved in human trafficking work the same way. Brokers advertise on the dark web, and negotiate deals to secure slaves for wealthy buyers. The buyer specifies the type of slave they want, and the broker contacts his sources, and asks for bids. Once the broker has a bid, he contacts the buyer, and a deal is worked out. The buyer is required to put the money up front, just like an adoption.”

“How does the broker know the trafficker won’t take the money and disappear?”

“The trafficker has to submit proof to the broker that he has the slave. This is usually done with a videotape, or a live conference call. Brokers that deal in volume often send reps to check out the slaves before the money is handed over.”

“Check out how?”

“The reps give the slaves medical exams to make sure they’re in good health. They also make sure the slaves haven’t been physically harmed.”

“Do you think there’s a rep involved here?”

“Based upon my experience, I’d say yes. There are now fourteen victims when you add in Rachel Baye, which is a big number. The broker probably sent a rep to inspect the merchandise.”

He thought back to the cigarette and cigar stubs in the ashtray. Had Dexter met the rep in the restaurant, and taken him to inspect the merchandise? If that was the case, there would soon be a large amount of cash changing hands, and fourteen innocent women would be whisked away, never to be seen again.

Daniels took a call on her cell phone. Hanging up, she said, “That was my team. A delivery truck just turned down RichJo Lane, and is heading our way.”

“Should we leave?”

“Let’s stay put, and see what they want.”

A truck backed into the lot and parked next to the restaurant. It was painted blue and said, CRYSTAL ICE, SERVING PINELLAS COUNTY FOR 50 YEARS. Two uniformed men worked with admirable efficiency unloading and transferring bags of ice by dollies to a large ice machine on the side of the building. One of the men opened the padlock on the machine with a combination, then relocked it when they were done.

His partner came over to Daniels’s vehicle holding a receipt in his hand.

“He must think we’re the owners,” she said.

“Let’s not disappoint him,” he said.

He hopped out and engaged the man. He was handed a pen, and scribbled his name on the line acknowledging the order of ice had been received. The truck left, and he got back into the passenger seat and handed Daniels the receipt.

“Two hundred pounds of ice,” he said. “Looks like they’re having a party.”

Daniels burned down RichJo Lane and crossed the road to where her team was parked. They huddled up, and she explained to them what needed to be done. They were going to set up a surveillance of the area that would allow them to monitor every vehicle that went into, and pulled out of, RichJo Lane. This would include surveillance equipment mounted on vehicles and parked in strategic locations, plus satellite monitoring of the neighborhood. Then, she placed a call into the FBI’s Tampa office, and requested a team of additional agents to help with the bust.

Lancaster stayed in the car, content to be a fly on the wall. This was Beth’s show, and he did not want to give the perception of interfering. Beth’s team didn’t trust him, and the best thing he could do was keep a low profile.

He decided to open Gar’s app to see if the blinking purple dot had returned. To his surprise, the dot was there, blinking away. It appeared to be fairly close. Was Dexter right around the corner, and they’d somehow missed him?

Staring at the cell phone’s screen, he saw what the problem was. The dot was in the ocean, moving away from land.

Chapter 36

Holding his cell phone, he managed to pull Beth away from her team. The purple dot was continuing to cross the water, and she stared at it, then at him.

“He’s in a boat,” she said.

“If we’re lucky, we might be able to spot him.”

“I’ll drive.”

He used his cell phone to find the nearest marina. It was in a town due south of Palm Harbor called Ozona, and Beth ran two red lights getting there. The marina shared parking with a popular restaurant, and the lot was overflowing with vehicles. She parked on the shoulder of the road, and they got out.

“Let’s find the manager,” she said. “Maybe he has a boat we can use.”

The ponytailed hippie who ran the marina was named Chuck. Chuck looked like he smoked his breakfast and drank his lunch. Seeing Daniels’s badge, he sobered up in a hurry. “Sorry, but all of our rental boats are out right now,” he said. “If you like, I can take you out on my fishing boat. I know the waters around here pretty well.”

They accepted his offer and soon were racing across Saint Joseph Sound in a thirty-foot Boston Whaler. A mile from shore, the waters became crowded, with dozens of pleasure boats out for an enjoyable excursion. The purple dot on Lancaster’s phone had stopped moving, and he realized that one of these rigs contained Dexter and his broker friend.

“Is it always this crowded?” Daniels shouted.

“This is nothing. You should see the weekends,” Chuck shouted back.

“What happens on the weekends?”

Chuck killed the engine so they could talk. He came to the front of the boat, where Daniels was sitting, and pointed at the body of land to the west. It looked like a tropical paradise with sandy white beaches and towering palm trees. It appeared big enough to accommodate people, yet had only a handful of structures.

“See that little piece of heaven over there?” Chuck said. “It’s called Honeymoon Island, and it’s rated one of the top beaches in the world. Mankind hasn’t ruined it yet, which is why tourists are so eager to see it.”

Lancaster continued to stare at his phone. The dot was close to the shore of Honeymoon Island, but so were a lot of vessels, and it made him wonder if Dexter had brought his guest here to do some sightseeing.

Daniels was also studying Gar’s app on her cell phone. Lancaster joined her at the front of the boat and said, “This is strange, don’t you think?”

“They’re doing business,” she said.

“You think so? They could be fishing, for all we know.”

“I’ve dealt with slave brokers before, and they’re all business. They show up, pay for the merchandise, and leave. Dexter must be keeping the victims somewhere nearby.” She called to Chuck, who stood on the other side of the boat. “Does Honeymoon Island have houses for rent?”

“Afraid not,” Chuck replied. “It’s a state park, and stuff like that isn’t allowed. The only buildings are the gift shop and a snack bar.”

“So much for that idea,” she said.

She had Chuck drive the boat around, hoping to get lucky. They made visual contact with people in several boats, but none of them resembled Dexter.

“We’re just getting a sunburn,” Beth said. “Let’s go back to the marina. I need to coordinate with the FBI agents that are being sent by the Tampa office.”

It wasn’t Lancaster’s show, so he said nothing. Chuck pulled the boat into the marina twenty minutes later and tied up. When Daniels offered to compensate him for his time, the marine manager politely declined.

“I don’t know what this is all about, but I’m sure it’s for a good cause,” he said. “Good luck with whomever you’re trying to find.”

There was a science to conducting a surveillance operation that required law enforcement to keep its presence a secret or risk having the operation blow up in its face. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms had found this out the hard way after a resident in the town of Waco had alerted the leader of the Branch Davidians that their compound was about to be raided. This had resulted in the deaths of four government agents, and the eventual deaths of eighty-two members of the cult.

The director of the FBI’s Tampa office did not want something similar happening to his agents when they raided the Outlaws’ hideout, so he had set up headquarters in a spacious suite at the Beso Del Sol Resort in Dunedin, a ten-minute drive away.

Lancaster counted twelve agents as he entered the suite. Daniels’s entire team was present, the rest Tampa based. An aerial map of Palm Harbor was pinned to the wall, and they were deciding the best way to conduct their raid.

The Tampa director stood by the window on his cell phone. His name was Special Agent Christopher Baldini, and he had ex-military written all over him: short haircut, ramrod-straight posture, steely gaze. He folded his phone and came toward them.

“Special Agent Daniels,” he said. “Chris Baldini.”

They briskly shook hands. As Daniels started to introduce Lancaster, Baldini cut her short. “I know who your friend is,” he said.

“You know each other?” Daniels said.

“I didn’t say that.” He shot Lancaster a disapproving look. “You’re the crazy bastard that likes to shoot out motorcycle tires and cause accidents.”

“Jon Lancaster. Nice to meet you,” he said.

“Are you trying to be funny? Because you’re not. It’s people like you that give law enforcement a bad name,” Baldini said, seething.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re not the guy in the YouTube video that was posted last night?”

“What guy?”

“The guy wearing the Yankees baseball cap that shot up a biker gang.”

“Not me. I hate the Yankees.”

Baldini made a noise that sounded like a growl. The other agents had their backs to them and were pretending not to be eavesdropping, only it was obvious they were hanging on every word. Had one of Daniels’s team told Baldini about him?

“I already don’t like you,” Baldini said.

“I’m an acquired taste,” Lancaster said.

“Jon is a retired detective who works for Team Adam,” Daniels said, jumping in. “He’s been incredibly helpful with this investigation, and I’d like you to treat him with respect.”

Baldini was having none of it and glared at Lancaster. “Would you mind stepping outside? I need to have a private conversation with Special Agent Daniels,” he said.

Lancaster knew when he wasn’t wanted, and moved to the door.

“I’ll be in the car if you need me,” he said.

The truth be known, he actually liked the Yankees. It hadn’t started out that way. Having been raised in the south, he’d grown up believing that the Yankees were nothing more than a team from the Northeast with an arrogant owner who was willing to buy his way to a championship. They were the team to root against, not for.

One day, he’d driven to Port Saint Lucie to watch a spring training game pitting the Mets against the Yankees. His reason for going was to see if Tim Tebow — the greatest college football player that Florida had ever produced — could play baseball. Tebow had signed a minor league contract with the Mets, and was scheduled to start.

Tebow’s outing that day had been regrettable, with three strikeouts and a fielding error. Worse, he’d gotten into a heated argument with the umpire over a called strike, and had to be pulled back to the dugout by his teammates. It was not Tim’s finest hour.

But the trip hadn’t been a waste. He’d gotten to see the Yankees play, and learn about their history. The Yankees had won more championships than any other team, and made their players adhere to a strict set of rules, including short haircuts, no beards, and uniforms that didn’t have the players’ names stitched across the back. The emphasis was on the team, and not the individual, and he’d liked that.

Daniels appeared and got into the car. He plumbed her face and saw sadness.

“Are you kicking me off the investigation?” he asked.

“Not me. Baldini.”

“Same difference.”

“I’m sorry, Jon.”

“Did one of your team tell that asshole I was a liability?”

“Actually, it was my boss. J. T. is supposed to be resting, but he won’t stop doing his job. He emailed Baldini, and told him all about you.”

He held up his cell phone and pointed at the purple dot. It was moving south, probably preparing to dock at the marina that it had disembarked from. “Did you explain to Baldini that if it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have gotten a bead on Dexter?”

“I most certainly did.”

“What did he say?”

“Baldini asked me to thank you for your contribution to the investigation. He also told me to tell you that if he sees you snooping around, he’ll personally handcuff you, and take you down to the nearest police station. He wasn’t kidding, Jon.”

“He’s ex-military, isn’t he?”

“He was in the marines. Is it that easy to tell?”

He pulled up the Uber app on his phone and booked a ride back to the Holiday Inn in Oldsmar where he was staying. The app informed him that his ride would be arriving in five minutes. He hoped that was enough time for him to say what needed to be said.

“I want to give you some advice,” he said. “Under no circumstances should you let this idiot take over this case. He’s a bull in a china shop, and will only screw things up. Am I making myself clear, Beth?”

“Baldini is a veteran agent. He—”

“I don’t care if he’s the second coming of Christ,” he interrupted. “That guy has no emotional investment in the victims. That’s the only thing that’s important here — the victims. They are somewhere close by, and you need to bring them home. Those women, and their families, are counting on you.”

“Damn it, Jon, don’t you think I know that?”

“I’m sure you do. But Baldini doesn’t, or if he does, he doesn’t care. His first priority is busting Dexter and his gang, and claiming the scalp. Rescuing Dexter’s victims is his second priority.”

“How can you know that, meeting him just once?”

“If Baldini cared about the victims, he would have sat me down, and pulled every piece of information out of me that he could. Then he would have given me the boot. Instead, he called me an asshole, and had you fire me.”

Daniels processed his argument, and could not come up with a response.

“When I was in the military, my team’s missions were in hostile countries,” he said. “The kidnappers hated us, and would execute their hostages before letting them be saved. We took that into account on every mission.”

“You think Dexter will kill his victims to spite us?” she said.

“Absolutely. He’s a one percenter, and hates authority. If he thinks the FBI is going to bust him, he’ll give the order for the victims to be killed.”

“You need to come back inside, and tell Baldini this.”

“Fuck Baldini.”

“Jon, please. Do this, for me.”

“You heard me. You couldn’t have picked a worse person to help you.”

He got a call from the Uber driver. His ride was right around the corner, and he started to get out of the car. Daniels stopped him.

“God damn it, Jon. Why are you acting like this?”

“That little bastard threatened to handcuff me,” he said. “What if I walk in there, and he makes good on his promise? I’m not going to risk that, Beth.”

“Risk what?”

His driver’s ride was a silver Prius. A vehicle matching that description pulled into the parking lot. He gave her a look and opened his door.

“You’re going to continue working the case, aren’t you?” she said.

“Whatever gave you that idea?” he said.

Chapter 37

His room hadn’t been cleaned, and he hung the DO NOT DISTURB sign before going in. He’d never been kicked off an investigation before, and didn’t like the way it made him feel. He decided to take a hot shower and wash the feeling away.

He emptied his pockets while undressing. Today’s plunder was relatively light — some loose change, and the receipt from the ice delivery to Earl’s BBQ. He started to crumble it into a ball, but his eye caught something he hadn’t seen earlier. One Percent Solutions, the Outlaws’ shell company, was called OPS LLC on the receipt.

The shower could wait. He opened his laptop and did a search of OPS on a website called Manta, which compiled information about small businesses and charged a fee to download the reports.

He typed his credit card information into the checkout, and soon was reading the report on OPS. It had been formed as a limited liability corporation in 2010, and listed the Outlaws’ clubhouse in Saint Petersburg as its main address. It also did business under the names Rebel Soul, West Coast Renegades, and Hurry Sunrise.

He stared into space. Criminals often hid their financial activities through shell companies, and he guessed that was the case here. He’d been working off the assumption that the gang’s victims were being kept in a building the gang owned. If that was true, then there would be a record of the building’s purchase, perhaps under one of these company names.

The three companies needed to be checked out. If he could find the listing of a sale, it might lead him to where the victims were being held. If it did pan out, he’d go rescue them with the help of the local police, and keep the FBI out of the picture. It would piss Beth off, but at this point, he didn’t care.

He needed a jolt of caffeine. As he fixed a cup, he got a call from Lauren Gamble, and he answered hoping she had a lead for him.

“Hey, Lauren. What have you got for me?” he greeted her.

“Nothing, I’m afraid. But I need to talk to you,” she said.

“I’m up to my eyeballs right now. Can it wait?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’m finishing my piece on you, and I found something in your past that I wanted to discuss.”

Your past. She made it sound ominous. He didn’t want to hear what it was, and tried to sidestep her. “No one wants to read about me. I’m retired, remember?”

“I think our readers would be interested to know why you chose to cancel a vacation to the Keys, and came to Tampa to help with the investigation.”

“I came because I was asked to by Team Adam,” he said. “Focus on that, and skip the rest.”

“You told me you volunteered for the job,” she said.

“What difference does it make?”

“There’s a difference between being asked to do a job and volunteering to do a job. You volunteered to come to Tampa, and I think I know why.”

He didn’t like where the conversation was headed, and took a deep breath before replying. “Is that so. Okay, fire away. Why did I come to Tampa?”

“Because you’re obsessed with helping others.”

“That’s news to me.”

“Admit it, you are.”

“I like helping people. I also like Jimmy Buffett music. Neither of those things make me OCD.”

“You interrupted your vacation for a job that didn’t pay anything. That’s not normal.”

“I disagree. I need to run.”

“I know what happened.”

The breath caught in his throat. “Come again?”

“In the Macy’s department store when you were a kid. I know what happened.”

He sat on the edge of the bed, and tried not to panic. “How did you find out?”

“Our intern did. Since you were once a Broward County detective, I had him dig through old newspaper articles about you. The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel recently digitalized their back copies going back to the 1970s, and I was hoping there might be a story that filled in the blanks. He found one that was written before you were a cop. It was published in September 1981, and your mother was quoted extensively in it.”

He touched his brow, and his hand came away covered in sweat. He’d known Gamble was trouble when he’d met her, but he had gone against his better judgment and brought her into his confidence. Stupid him.

“Do you have any idea how painful this is?” he asked. “Do you?”

“I’m sorry, Jon.”

“Really? Then make it go away.”

“It’s too late for that. The intern showed my boss and me the story at the same time, and my boss told me to include it.”

“Tell your boss you won’t do it.”

“He’ll just give my piece to another reporter to finish. I’m afraid there’s no going back on this. I’ve already finished a rough draft. I need to ask you some questions. It shouldn’t take very long.”

He had run out of arguments, and shook his head in defeat.

“Can I see what you’ve written?” he asked.

“I don’t see why not. I’ll send it after we hang up. Call me after you read it.”

“Thank you. I’ll do that.”

He ended the call and threw his cell phone across the room. His past was not an open book for strangers to read and analyze. Nor did he want his friends to see what had happened to him, and the resulting trauma it had caused. If the past couldn’t be buried, how could a person heal?

He got on his laptop. Gamble’s email arrived with an attachment, and he read the story twice. It was factual, yet still wrong. She had made assumptions that she had no earthly right to make. He spent a few minutes calming down before calling her back. They arranged to meet in thirty minutes.

Ending the call, he again threw his cell phone across the room.

Chapter 38

Their meeting spot was a watering hole on the northern tip of Old Tampa Bay called Jack Willie’s Bar, Grill, and Tiki. The building had a thatched roof and outdoor seating overlooking the water, and a live band was blasting out the oldies.

Pulling into the parking lot, he had an idea. The Outlaws’ three shell companies needed to be checked out, and he couldn’t be on his computer while talking to Gamble. He decided to call Nicki, knowing she’d be willing to help. Only this time, the terms were going to be different.

“Hi, Nicki. You doing homework?”

“All done for the day,” the teenager said. “I just read a story on the news about a woman named Rachel Baye disappearing in Saint Petersburg. The police think it may be linked to the other cases. Is it?”

“Afraid so. Would you be interested in doing some cyber sleuthing for me?”

“You bet! Can I ask my classmates to pitch in as well?”

“No, you can’t. This is very sensitive. If one of your friends posted it on social media, innocent people might get hurt. You have to run solo on this one. And you have to promise me you won’t speak to anyone about it.”

“Sure. I won’t speak to anyone about this, so help me God.”

“Do you have something to write with?”

“I’ve got a pen right here.”

“Great. Write down the names of the following companies. Rebel Soul, West Coast Renegades, and Hurry Sunrise. I’m interested in seeing if they’ve purchased any real estate in the past ten years. The two places that are of most interest are Pinellas and Pasco Counties. If you find a sale, get as much information about it as you can.”

“I’ll get to work on it right away. Do you and Aunt Beth know why these women are being targeted? We talked about it in class today, and no one can figure it out.”

He considered telling her the truth. The victims had been targeted because they’d chosen to fight evil instead of hiding from it, and had been punished for their good deeds. Life wasn’t fair, and sometimes, it was downright cruel. But Nicki was young and impressionable, and perhaps that message wasn’t the right one for him to be delivering.

“We’re not certain what the motivation is,” he said. “Call me if you find anything.”

“Will do. Say hi to Aunt Beth for me.”

Many restaurants in Florida pretended to be yesteryear, and hung sepia-toned photos on the walls and wrote fake histories on their menus. Jack Willie’s was the real deal, and had a weather-beaten ambiance that came with age. He found Gamble at the bar nursing a club soda, and ordered a coke and a bowl of pretzels. Drinks in hand, they took an empty table in the back of the restaurant. Although the bandstand was outside, the loud music made conversation impossible.

“They’ll be taking a break in a few minutes,” she said, nearly shouting.

It was an odd choice for a meeting place, and he wondered if Gamble had picked it because she was afraid that their conversation might turn ugly, and wanted the protection of a large crowd if he got out of line.

He ate pretzels while staring at his cell phone. The purple dot had remained stopped near the tip of Honeymoon Island, and he guessed Dexter and his guest had decided to do some fishing. Outside, the band wrapped up their last number to smattering applause. The lead singer announced a short break, and asked everyone to be kind to their waitresses.

“What are the chances I can convince your boss to kill this story?” he asked.

“Zero and none,” she said.

“Then let’s get it over with.”

“You read my story. Were there any mistakes you’d like me to correct?”

“The tone was wrong.”

She stiffened. “How so?”

“You didn’t capture the pain my family went through. It was a different time back then. We were all a lot more innocent.”

“I’m sorry.”

“How old are you, anyway?”

“I’ll be twenty-eight next month.”

He watched the carbonated bubbles rise to the top of his drink. The things Gamble had written about had happened before she’d been born, and it probably wasn’t fair of him to criticize her writing style, or lack of understanding. If he told her his side of things, maybe she’d do a rewrite, and capture what had really happened.

“Back in high school, my English teacher had us read a poem by Dylan Thomas about a girl dying in a fire in London,” he said. “The last line has always stayed with me. ‘After the first death, there is no other.’”

“The loss of innocence,” Gamble said.

“That’s right. The first time you experience death is a life-altering experience. It happened young for me. I was five. The world was different then. We left our doors unlocked, and kids played outside without supervision. There were no AMBER Alerts, or kids on milk boxes, or national databases of missing children. None of that existed. There was no need.

“That changed in the summer of 1981. My family had finished dinner, and we were in the den watching TV when the program got interrupted by a news alert. A kid named Adam Walsh was missing, and his parents were offering a reward.

“I remember how scared my mom and dad got after that. They started locking up the house, and forbade my brother and I to play anywhere but in the backyard, which was fenced in. We became prisoners in our own home, and so did our friends.

“Reward posters started appearing on phone poles and billboards. We went to the airport to pick up a relative, and volunteers were handing out flyers. At church, the pastor said a prayer for Adam’s safety. Everyone had an emotional stake in his return.”

“I had no idea it was that intense,” Gamble said.

“It was the only thing on people’s minds,” he said. “Two weeks later, my mom was in the kitchen, when I heard her crying. I ran in, and my dad was holding her. She had the radio on, and it was saying that a fisherman had found a kid’s head floating in a canal in Vero Beach. The medical examiner had used dental records to confirm that it was Adam Walsh.”

His throat had gone dry, and he took a swallow of his drink before continuing. “I ran into my brother’s room, and told him. Logan had a portable radio, and we sat on his bed, and listened to a local station. It was all they talked about. One of the newscasters said that Adam had been abducted from the Sears in Hollywood, and that freaked us out. A few weeks before, we’d been at the Macy’s in Pembroke Pines, which was a few miles away. A weirdo had tried to lure me into his car, and my brother kicked him in the balls, and I got away. We hadn’t told anyone about it, but decided we’d better tell our parents, considering what had happened.”

“Wait. The newspaper article said you had told your parents.”

“The article was wrong. We were afraid of being punished, so we didn’t tell them. Please change that in your piece.”

“I will.”

“Thank you.” He finished his drink and took a deep breath.

“What made you think he was a weirdo?” Gamble asked.

“While he was trying to get me into his car, my brother kicked him in the groin, and his shirt came out of his pants. He was wearing a purple dress underneath.”

“So he was a cross-dresser.”

“Among other things.”

“How did he lure you out of the store?”

“With candy. Let me finish my story, okay?”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“We went into the kitchen and told my parents,” he said. “My mother cried her eyes out, she got so upset. Then we drove to the police station, and my brother and I told the detectives what had happened. The next day, a police sketch artist came to the house, and drew a composite based upon our description. That should have been the end of it, only somehow it got leaked to the newspaper. A reporter called the house, and wanted to know why we hadn’t come forward earlier. My mother told him that we’d been traumatized, and she didn’t want us hurt any more.”

“So your mother covered for you.”

“That’s right, she covered for her boys. It wasn’t pretty.”

“How so?”

“We got harassing phone calls. People wanted someone to blame, so they took their anger out on my mom. It got so bad that we had our number changed.”

His glass was empty, and he went to the bar to get a refill and more pretzels. When he came back, he saw Gamble fumbling with her cell phone, and he guessed that she was recording their conversation. He’d dealt with reporters enough to know that this was part of their job, and he took no offense.

“Have some pretzels,” he said.

“No, thank you,” she said. “When did your family learn that it was Ottis Toole who’d tried to abduct you?”

“That happened two years later. A drifter named Henry Lee Lucas had gotten arrested in Texas for murder and was facing the electric chair. The police cut a deal with him, and Lucas confessed to killing over two hundred women, which made him the worst serial killer in history. Lucas also said he had a partner.”

“Ottis Toole.”

“The one and only. Toole was in prison in Florida for setting fires, so the police had a chat with him. Toole admitted to killing women with Lucas. Then, he got really emotional, and he confessed to killing Adam Walsh.”

“Why do you think he got emotional?”

“It must have bothered him. I guess even monsters have souls. Soon after that, the police came to our house, and showed us Toole’s photograph. Logan made a positive identification. All I did was cry.”

“Toole was horrible looking, wasn’t he?”

“His eyes weren’t normal. He looked like he was sleepwalking.”

“How did it make you feel, knowing it was him?”

“Horrible. I knew that it could have been me, and not poor Adam. Let’s wrap this up.”

“Just one more question.”

He braced himself. He knew what her question was, and wanted to answer her in such a manner that there would be no doubt in her mind that he was telling the truth about the course that his life had taken as an adult, and the decisions he’d made.

“You became a member of Team Adam after retiring from the police department,” Gamble said. “Did you know at the time that it had been named after Adam Walsh, and that his parents were responsible for it being started?”

“Believe it or not, I didn’t,” he said.

“How is that possible?”

“You don’t believe me?”

“I didn’t say that. It just seems unlikely that you wouldn’t know.”

“I knew who John Walsh was through America’s Most Wanted. But I wasn’t aware of the other things he and his wife had done, like establishing the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and helping start the AMBER Alert program.”

“But you did make the connection.”

“Not right away. When I was asked to join Team Adam, I assumed the name had a biblical connotation. At my first orientation, I was given a handbook with the Team Adam guidelines. Adam’s photo was on the cover. That’s when I knew.”

“Did it give you goose bumps?”

Certain things in life were meant to be, and when they happened, their occurrence almost felt preordained. At that moment, he’d known what he was going to do with the rest of his life, and it had made him feel whole.

“I guess,” he said. “I need to go.”

“One more question.”

“You’ve run out of those.”

“This is a simple one. How did your brother feel when he learned that you’d become a member of Team Adam, and had dedicated yourself to finding missing kids?”

“My brother never found out.”

“Why’s that?”

“He died before I had a chance to tell him.”

“That’s sad. I’m sorry.”

She’d wanted a happy ending, but those were in short supply these days. Her question made him wonder how Logan would have reacted to the news that he was working for the organization founded by the parents of Adam Walsh. His brother would have seen the irony of it, but would Logan have appreciated the rest? Most people spent their lives not knowing why they’d been put on this earth, but a lucky few did, and he was one of those lucky few.

He walked her outside to where her car was parked. She gave him back the handgun he’d given her for protection a few days ago. He said goodbye and started to walk away.

“I’m sure he would have been proud of you,” he heard her say.

Chapter 39

He drove back to his hotel with his phone resting on his leg, the purple dot still parked in the waters north of Honeymoon Island. Dexter and the broker appeared to be bunked down for the night, and he assumed their boat had sleeping quarters.

As he entered his hotel room, he got a call from his favorite teenage sleuth. He wanted her news to be good, and wash away his conversation with Gamble. He kicked off his shoes and sat on the room’s solitary chair before taking her call.

“Hey, Nicki, what’s up?” he asked.

“I got a hit,” the teenager said excitedly. “The Outlaws have another business they’re running on the side, and I found out what it is.”

There was no greater pleasure than cracking a case wide open, the surge of adrenaline better than any drug.

“Are you near your laptop? I just sent you a link,” she said.

He scooted his chair up to the desk and booted up his laptop. It had gone into sleep mode, and was slow coming to life. “Which of the companies was it?”

“Hurry Sunrise,” she said. “The other two were duds.”

Going into his inbox, he opened Nicki’s email, and clicked on the link. Hurry Sunrise was a charter fishing outfit that operated out of the marina that he and Daniels had visited that day. The company had been in business for thirty years, and specialized in taking large groups on three- and four-day excursions. There were photographs of sunburned clients holding trophy fish up to the camera, along with testimonials saying how great the staff were.

He found himself shaking his head. He knew guys who ran charter fishing companies in the Keys, and they barely scraped by. It didn’t seem like the type of business the Outlaws would be involved with, and he wondered if there was something below the surface that he wasn’t seeing.

“Are you sure this is the right Hurry Sunrise?” he asked.

“I’m positive,” Nicki said. “The company has a charter fishing license, which I traced to a Saint Petersburg address that is also the Outlaws’ clubhouse.”

“Huh,” he said in frustration.

“What’s wrong?”

“It just doesn’t sound like a business they’d be involved with.”

“Well, that’s the strange thing, I’m not sure they really are running a business. During one of the talks you gave to my class, you said that a good investigator would run down every lead, and see where it took her. So I took your advice, and called the contact number on their site.”

“You called them? That was nervy.”

“Actually, it was fun. I got an answering machine that said the company wasn’t taking any bookings, and that I should leave a message. When I tried to do that, a recording said the mailbox was full.”

“That’s strange.”

“That’s what I thought. For the heck of it, I called two other charter fishing companies that operate out of the same marina, and told them I was looking to hire a boat for my father’s birthday party. They were more than happy to take my business. I asked them what dates were best, and both companies said their calendars were wide open.”

“So business is slow, except for Hurry Sunrise.”

“I don’t think Hurry Sunrise has any business. You told my class that crooks use legitimate businesses to hide illegal activity. What was the expression you used?”

“A front.”

“That’s right. I think Hurry Sunrise is a front.”

It felt like a dead end. He had hoped that one of the Outlaws’ shell companies had purchased a building to house the gang’s victims, and that Nicki would turn up the real estate transaction, and that would lead him to breaking this open. Instead, she’d found a charter fishing company that had stopped doing business for reasons that weren’t entirely clear.

“Good job,” he said, not wanting to burst her bubble.

“Thanks. What do you think it means?”

“I have no idea. Why would a gang of crooks run a business, but not take any customers? It doesn’t add up.”

“It bothered me too. I wanted to call the previous owner, and ask him, but I didn’t think he’d talk to me.”

“What previous owner?”

“His name is Captain Peyton Lynch. He’s mentioned in the company’s reviews on Yelp. I found his address and phone number on Whitepages.com. He lives in Dunedin, which isn’t far from the marina.”

“How do you know this guy sold the company?”

“A reviewer on Yelp mentioned it, and said he really missed him.”

If Peyton Lynch was local, perhaps he’d know why the Outlaws had decided to stop taking customers after purchasing his business. He needed to call the guy, and see if he could get him talking.

“That’s some excellent detective work. Good job,” he said.

“Thanks. Do you want Captain Lynch’s phone number?”

“Please.”

Dunedin refused to bend to corporate America. Lining Main Street were eclectic shops and restaurants and several microbreweries. The locals had somehow managed to keep out franchise restaurants and chain retail stores, and it gave the place a special feel.

Sea Sea Riders restaurant was housed in a Key West — style cottage just off the main drag. He found Lynch at the bar drinking a rum and coke and chatting with a pretty bartender half his age. A border collie sat by his feet, licking its paws.

“Captain Lynch? My name is Jon Lancaster, and I work with a law enforcement agency called Team Adam,” he introduced himself. “I spoke to your roommate, and he said I might find you here. May I have a few minutes of your time?”

Lynch spent a moment reading his Team Adam business card. His face was a burgundy color, his mop of hair snow white. His hands were the size of small dinner plates, and were scarred from countless cuts and scrapes.

“What’s this about?” Lynch asked.

“I’d like to talk to you about the Outlaws,” he said.

His eyes flickered. “What about them?”

“You sold your charter fishing company to them, is that correct?”

Lynch tossed the card on the bar and frowned. “Yes, I did. I knew something was wrong with those guys, I just couldn’t put a finger on what it was. Sure, I’ll talk. You want something to drink?”

“A club soda would be good.”

“Hey, Amber, get me a refill and my friend here a club soda.”

They went outside for some privacy. The patio was empty, and they took a table beneath a large oak. The border collie dutifully followed, and parked himself at Lynch’s feet. He was rewarded with a dog biscuit, which he happily chewed.

“What’s your pup’s name?” Lancaster asked.

“Ruddy. He’s a rescue. They’re the best kind,” Lynch said.

“I’ve heard people say that. The things I need to ask you must stay confidential.”

“This sounds like trouble.”

He let the comment pass and took a sip of his drink.

“Will my name be kept out of this?” Lynch asked, sounding anxious.

“Of course. I won’t include your name on any of my reports.”

“Fair enough. What do you want to know?”

“How did you come to sell your business to the Outlaws?”

“In the beginning, they were customers,” Lynch said. “They booked a charter trip, and four of them showed up at the marina on their Harleys, so I took them out. We’ve got a lot of bikers around here, most of them lawyers and stockbrokers who ride on the weekends, so I didn’t pay it much attention.

“Everything went fine at first. We threw lines in the water, and my first mate served them beers. I tried to strike up a conversation, but they weren’t in the mood. A lot of my customers are celebrating a birthday or a reunion, but that wasn’t the case here. I thought it was strange, but what was I going to do?

“An hour into the trip, one of them asked for a tour of the boat, so I showed him around. He asked a lot of questions, and I started wondering if he was going into the charter business himself.”

“What kind of questions?”

“He asked about maintenance cost, cost of gas, the licenses I needed, that sort of stuff. He asked if the coast guard ever bothered us, which I found sort of strange.”

“Had they?”

“Nope. The coast guard didn’t hassle us, and had never come on board. I told him I’d been in business a long time, and had a clean reputation.”

“Do other charter captains have bad reputations?”

“Some of them do, sure. They let the partying get out of hand, if you know what I mean. I never let that happen.”

“Did he offer to buy your business then?”

“That happened a few days later. I came to the marina one morning, and the guy was waiting for me. His name was Hawk. He offered to buy my boats, and he also wanted the business name, which is incorporated.”

“So he wanted to buy your reputation.”

Lynch rubbed his chin. “I suppose he did. Never thought of it that way.”

“And you agreed.”

“Not at first, I didn’t. It was obvious that Hawk and his friends didn’t know squat about fishing or running a charter business, so I asked him to his face if he was planning to use my boats to run drugs. Hawk said he’d swear on a stack of Bibles that he wouldn’t use my boats for that, which I found funny as hell.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because that guy hadn’t been near a Bible in his life. Anyway, I was still on the fence, but then he made his offer. The number blew me away.”

“He offered you a lot.”

“That’s right. The recession hit me hard, and I was drowning in debt. I couldn’t say no, even though I had reservations about the guy. We closed the deal a week later, which was another eye-opener.”

“Why was that?”

“Hawk came to the closing with two duffel bags filled with cash. I’d never seen that much money in my life.”

“Would you mind telling me how much money?”

“I’d rather not. I didn’t report all of it on my taxes.”

“This won’t go into my report. I’m just curious.”

“It was over seven figures.”

One of the worst mistakes an investigator could make was to make assumptions, because it often led to false conclusions. He’d assumed Lynch was a small-time operator, which Lynch had just shattered by admitting that he’d made a killing selling his business to the Outlaws. There were boats, and then there were boats, and the vessels that Lynch had sold to the bikers had fetched over $1 million. That was a huge investment, and it made him wonder how big the boats really were.

Lynch had gone back to petting his friend, who’d rolled over on his back. He looked up at his guest and said, “It was a deal with the devil, wasn’t it?”

“You couldn’t have known what they were up to,” he said.

“But I felt it in my gut. They were bad news.”

“If they hadn’t bought your business, they would have bought someone else’s.”

“So I should stop flogging myself, is that what you’re saying?”

“You did nothing wrong. Would you by chance have photographs of the boats you sold to them? It would help in my investigation.”

“I’ve got a few photos on my phone. I look at them sometimes when I get nostalgic. Give me your email, and I’ll send them to you.”

He waited until he was in his car before looking at the photographs. It confirmed his suspicion about why the Outlaws had spent so much money for a business that they hadn’t intended to run, and he spun his wheels leaving the lot.

Chapter 40

Back at his hotel, he killed the engine, and then sipped the double espresso he’d bought from the Starbucks down the road. It snapped back his eyelids, and he became wide awake. That was good, because he didn’t intend to go to bed anytime soon.

Two plans had been forming in his head, each independent of the other. First and foremost, he needed to rescue the gang’s victims. He could let the FBI handle that, but had decided it would be best to do so himself. Rescue missions had been his forte in the military, and the odds of the mission being successful were greater if he was in charge.

The second plan was to pay back Dexter for murdering his brother. Sending Dexter back to prison would not bring him any satisfaction. Dexter needed a bullet put in him, and he had to figure out a way to accomplish that, without being thrown in jail.

Behind the hotel was a courtyard where a fountain spewed colored water. He took an empty bench and sent a text to a dependable ex-SEAL named Carlo, who, along with his partners Mike and Karl, had done jobs for him before. Carlo quickly replied, saying the team was on a hush-hush assignment overseas, and wouldn’t be home for a month.

He decided to take another route. The Navy SEAL program had started in Florida during World War II, and today there was a museum that celebrated this. Located in Fort Pierce, it was called the Navy SEAL Museum, and it resided on the training grounds of the original navy frogmen.

The museum’s mission was to preserve the legacy of a group of soldiers whose missions would forever remain secret. It did this by displaying the amazing seacraft and weaponry that had been developed for the SEALs. This included special boats designed to evade radar and submersibles used to insert soldiers behind enemy lines.

The museum also served another purpose. Its directors, all navy veterans, had established a network of ex-SEALs who were available for hire. This resource was called ETHOS, and while its services didn’t come cheap, its members were in constant demand. Saving pennies was not the objective when human lives were at stake.

An automated service picked up. He punched in an extension, and was routed to the voice mail of Lieutenant Mark Starkweather, a cover for the ETHOS network. He identified himself, and asked for a call back. Sixty seconds later, he got one.

“This is Jon Lancaster, and I need some help,” he said.

“First things first. What are the passwords?” the operator asked.

“Forged by adversity.”

“Who do you help?”

“Those that cannot help themselves.”

“That works. What are you looking for?”

He explained the mission and the number of men needed to accomplish it. The operator did a quick check of her database, and said that there was a four-man scuba team in the Saint Petersburg area that was available for hire. The ingenuity of the Outlaws operation was that their victims were being held captive in open waters, in plain sight. A group of SEALs wearing scuba equipment could approach in a boat, dive into the water, and stage their mission. The Outlaws would never see them coming.

The operator quoted him a price, which he agreed to. It wasn’t cheap. He would ask Daniels to have the FBI reimburse him, and if they turned him down, he’d ask Team Adam. If they said no, he’d foot the bill himself.

“Where would you like to meet to discuss your mission?” the operator asked.

He gave the operator the name of the marina in Ozona.

“What time would you like to meet?” she asked.

“As soon as possible,” he said.

The restaurant next to the marina was still serving food, and he ate raw oysters at the bar while watching a muted TV. Most of the diners had cleared out, and the bartender was making noises like he wanted to go home.

At 10:25 p.m. he got a text from the scuba team. They had reached the marina, and were about to pull in. He tossed a handful of bills onto the bar to cover his food.

“Keep the change,” he said.

He hustled over to the marina. The main office was locked up, but there was plenty of activity on the boats, with people holding loud parties and carrying on, and his presence didn’t cause any concern. He walked out onto the end of a long dock, and leaned against a piling to wait. The wind had died, and the water reflected the flickering lights of the restaurant and of the full moon. A puttering sound snapped his head. Using his cell phone like a beacon, he watched a vessel motor toward him.

He helped them tie up. Their boat was called a bowrider. The bow had a unique construction, with a swim platform for wakeboarders that was also ideal for scuba divers to get in and out of the water.

The scuba team consisted of four men, ranging in age from late thirties to early fifties. Each wore shorts and a long-sleeve athletic shirt. They shared an easy camaraderie, and looked no different from any other group who’d spent the day fishing.

One of the group was taller than the others, and wore his hair slicked back. He joined Lancaster on the dock and offered his hand.

“I’m Trent,” he said. “Sorry it took us so long to get here. We had to fill up several of the tanks with air, and it took a while.”

“No need to apologize. I appreciate you taking the job on short notice.”

“Anything to help a brother SEAL.”

Lancaster had not put his cell phone away. He pulled up the photograph of the charter fishing vessel that Peyton Lynch had sent him, and passed the cell phone to Trent. Trent studied the photograph before passing the cell phone to his team.

“This is your target,” Lancaster said. “It was being used as a charter fishing vessel before the Outlaws motorcycle gang bought it. I don’t know how you approached the marina, but you may have passed it on your way in.”

“We came in from the north. The south is too shallow,” Trent said.

“I saw this boat,” one of the team said. “It was huge. There was a guy on the stern with a gun strapped to his side. I waved, but he didn’t wave back.”

“They running drugs?” Trent asked.

“Not drugs,” he said.

Trent stared at him, as did the others. They wanted to know not just because they were curious but also because it was important for them to understand the nature of the mission. In the heart of every SEAL was an unmatched personal ethic. SEALs weren’t just great soldiers, they were also great people, and they lived their lives without compromise or regret. If he had told them that this mission was a personal vendetta, they would have bolted. So he left that part out, and focused on what was truly important.

“They’re slave traders,” he said. “They kidnap women, and ferry them onto the boat, where the women are held as prisoners. When the boat’s full, they set sail.”

“Who in God’s name buys slaves?” Trent said.

“There are brokers who sell slaves to wealthy people in Central and South America. One of those brokers is on the boat right now, inspecting the merchandise.”

“That’s sick.”

“I felt the same way when it was explained to me. This operation has been going on for several years, so it’s safe to say there have been many victims.”

Trent looked away, and Lancaster sensed that he was trying to control his anger. Every one of those victims had a family whose lives had been ruined by the Outlaws. They needed to be stopped, and in the process, shown no remorse.

“How do you want us to handle it?” Trent asked.

“The broker will come back to shore so he can attend a meeting to pay some ex-convicts who assisted in the abductions,” he said. “With him will be a biker named Dexter Hudson. Those guys are not your concern.”

“Who’s dealing with them?”

“The FBI is. They’ve got a team that’s staked out the meeting place. When the broker and Dexter meet the ex-cons, the FBI will swoop in, and make the bust. Once that happens, you will incapacitate the men on the boat who are guarding the victims. Then you’ll call me, and I’ll send the FBI out to bring the victims ashore.”

“Should we greet the FBI when they come out?”

“No. You’ll need to disappear. Unless you want your names put in a report.”

“I think we’d like to avoid that. Okay, guys, any questions?”

The man who’d mentioned seeing the armed guard spoke up. “What if the people on the boat engage us? How should we handle that?”

“The only important people on that boat are the victims,” Lancaster said. “If one of the bikers acts up, put a bullet in his head.”

“That’s murder.”

“Take the body with you, and dump it in the ocean. Anything else?”

The men shook their heads. Trent jumped back in the boat, and they prepared to leave. Lancaster felt like he’d left something out. On every mission he’d ever gone on, the commanding officer had given the team a short bio of the person they were about to rescue. It had given the mission a gravitas that otherwise wouldn’t have been there.

“There’s one more thing you should know,” he said. “These victims all share something in common. Each one of them helped put a bad person in prison. They did a good deed, and got repaid with a bad deed.”

“They’re heroes,” Trent said.

“That’s right. The ex-cons that the FBI are going to arrest tomorrow are the guys these women helped put in prison. It will be fitting when those guys find out that their victims are going home, and they’re heading back to the joint.”

“Sounds like a happy ending to me,” Trent said.

Lancaster untied the boat and tossed Trent the rope. He waited until it had disappeared into the night before departing.

Chapter 41

As a cop, he’d never liked it when civilians took the law into their own hands. It was vigilantism, and often led to innocent people getting hurt.

But there were exceptions to this, and he left the marina believing the victims on the charter fishing boat would be safer if Trent’s team rescued them, as opposed to the FBI. Rescue operations were tricky, and people with military training were better at doing them. He didn’t care if the FBI got their noses bent out of shape because he’d invaded their turf. All he cared about was the victims, and their families.

Traffic was light as he drove north on Alternate US 19. Reaching Palm Harbor, he spotted the street sign for RichJo Lane, and he slowed down. He assumed that the FBI had posted a stakeout in anticipation of conducting a raid when Dexter and the ex-cons met up, and he wanted to see if he could spot them.

Across the street from the entrance to RichJo Lane was a tire store. Parked in the lot was a large camper with multiple antennae on the roof. The camper hadn’t been there earlier in the day, and he assumed it was filled with FBI agents.

He crawled past RichJo Lane. He didn’t spot any other FBI vehicles, but that didn’t mean they weren’t here. When making busts, the FBI liked to use overwhelming force, and he assumed that more agents were nearby.

A pair of headlights appeared in his mirror. A car had pulled out of RichJo Lane, and was also heading north. Earlier that day, he’d seen a number of residences on the street, and guessed it got a fair amount of traffic.

The car gave him an idea.

He had resigned himself to the fact that he probably wasn’t going to pay Dexter back for killing his brother. If he put a bullet into Dexter, he would not only end up in jail but also endanger the bust, as well as put the victims’ lives in jeopardy.

So he couldn’t put Dexter out of his misery. But maybe he could get someone else to do it. It was the next best option, and would taste just as sweet.

A mile down the road he spotted a second camper parked in front of a storage facility. It was identical to the camper up the street, with multiple antennae on the roof. To conduct the raid, the FBI would use armored vehicles, which was standard operating procedure. The storage facility was the right size to hold a pair of such vehicles.

The FBI had the area covered. If he put his plan into action, they might spot him, and that would be bad. Did he want to risk his freedom to pay Dexter back?

He decided he needed a second opinion.

He kept driving until he reached Dunedin. The first business he saw was a craft brewery. It was housed in a snug little building that could have been a concession stand on the beach. There were bike racks in front, and he guessed their brews had such a high alcohol content that locals didn’t risk driving for fear of getting pulled over.

The tasting room had five empty stools. A chalkboard behind the bar announced that day’s selections. The beers had exotic names like Ale of Two Cities, Imaginary Friends, and Control Freak. A female bartender asked his pleasure, and he picked a farmhouse ale called Evil Urges. She placed a pint in front of him.

“Do you want to run a tab?”

He gave her a credit card. There were no TVs or jukeboxes, the only noise the sounds that came out of people’s mouths.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Elizabeth. My friends call me Liz,” she said.

She had a kind face and soulful eyes, and impressed him as the honest type. “My name is Jon. Do you mind if I ask you a question? It’s nothing personal, I’m just a little torn.”

Liz crossed her arms in front of her chest. She’d had guys bend her ear before, and didn’t act as if his request were anything out of the ordinary.

“You break up with your girlfriend?” she asked.

“I wish it was that simple,” he said.

“When is breaking up with your lady simple?”

“Sorry, that didn’t come out right.” He took a sip of his beer, and tried again. “When I was a teenager, my older brother got arrested for being part of a convenience store robbery where the owner got shot and later died. My brother and his partners got arrested, and were put on trial.”

“This is heavy,” she said.

“I can stop if you want,” he said.

Liz put her elbows on the bar, and looked him in the eye. “How long ago was this?”

“Twenty-five years ago.”

“Wow. And it’s still eating you up?”

“Afraid so.”

“Were you part of the robbery?”

“No, I was at home, doing my homework.”

She took a can of soda out of the cooler, popped the top, and clinked it against his glass. “Okay, you’ve hooked me. So what’s your question?”

“My brother wanted me to testify at the trial, and say that he was at home with me during the robbery. The problem was, a witness picked my brother out of a lineup, and there was also a videotape. My brother was guilty, and nothing I was going to say would have changed that.”

“So you didn’t do it.”

He shook his head, and took a long swallow of his beer.

“Did they put him away?”

“Yeah. He got out two months ago. I saw him, and he still held it against me. I’ve been thinking about it ever since. I did the right thing, but also the wrong thing.”

“How so?”

“I spoke the truth when I got up on the stand. That was the right thing. But I didn’t stand up for him, and that was wrong.”

“You couldn’t have done both. So what’s your question?”

“If you were in my shoes, what would you have done?”

The question caught her by surprise. She finished her soda and crushed the empty can between her palms. He had made her feel uncomfortable, which had not been his purpose for coming in. He threw money down for his drink, and told her to keep the change. She retrieved his credit card and slid it toward him.

“Good night. Thanks for listening,” he said.

“You don’t have to leave,” she said.

“Yes, I do. I shouldn’t have bothered you.”

“You’re not bothering me, really.”

It didn’t feel that way. He said good night, and made for the door.

“You really want to know what I would have done?” she said.

He turned around and slowly nodded.

“If it had been me, I would have lied, and said he was home,” she said.

“But lying wouldn’t have changed things,” he said.

“Doesn’t matter. He’s still your brother.”

Not just his brother, but also his hero. And he hadn’t stuck up for him. There was always time to make amends, and he said, “Is there an all-night grocery nearby?”

Chapter 42

Daniels thought she was going to have a heart attack.

She was staked out across the street from RichJo Lane. On the camper’s roof were three high-resolution, infrared digital cameras that allowed her to not only capture the license plate on a car at night but also peer into the car, and get a good look at the driver. These images were sent to a computer whose screen she now stared at. A man that could have been Jon’s twin had just turned down RichJo Lane. The images were being recorded, and she played them back, just to be sure.

The resemblance was uncanny. Same round face and stubble of beard. And the trademark baseball cap, this time one bearing the logo of the Miami Marlins.

She told herself that it couldn’t be him. Baldini had threatened to arrest Jon and throw him in jail if he showed his face, and she couldn’t imagine Jon taking that risk.

She replayed the video. On the passenger seat was a bag of groceries with a loaf of bread sticking out. She remembered Jon once saying how he liked to put groceries in the passenger seat when tailing a suspect. If the suspect happened to look in the mirror, he’d see the groceries, and think it wasn’t a cop on his ass.

She told herself it was a coincidence. Jon wasn’t that dumb.

“Find something?” a voice asked.

She glanced over her shoulder. Three other agents shared the camper, and were drinking coffee. Baldini was with them, and was facing her.

“Just a car,” she said.

“A car,” he repeated.

“Yes, a car. It turned down RichJo Lane. It was nothing.”

His eyes were cold and unfriendly. Baldini hadn’t let her out of his sight, and she felt like she was being stalked. He returned to his conversation.

She switched screens. A satellite shot of RichJo Lane appeared, taken through an infrared lens. The local police used satellite surveillance to catch burglars, and had given the FBI permission to use the satellite for their bust.

The car pulled in front of the building that had once housed Earl’s BBQ. A dark figure got out and disappeared in the building’s shadows. She had convinced herself that it wasn’t Jon. But if it wasn’t Jon, then who was he, and what interest did he have at Earl’s BBQ at this time of night? Out of the corner of her eye, she spied Baldini coming toward her. She touched her mouse, and the screen returned to real time.

Baldini touched her shoulder. He’d done that before, and she’d told him to not do it again. It obviously hadn’t sunk in, and she slid her chair back, catching him in the thigh. He yelped.

“Stop sneaking up on me,” she said.

“Sorry,” he said, rubbing his leg. “What are you looking at?”

“Like I just said, it was nothing.”

“Why do I think you’re hiding something from me?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you don’t like me.”

The other agents feigned conversation among themselves. She slid out of her chair and moved toward the door. “Let’s take this outside. One of you guys needs to take over for me.”

She left the camper before Baldini could reply.

Daniels walked around to the front of the camper, and waited to see if the car came out of RichJo Lane. Baldini edged up beside her. He was breathing on her neck, and it was all she could do not to tell him off.

“You must be looking at something,” he said.

“A car pulled down the street a minute ago, and pulled into the BBQ joint. I think the guy is taking a leak,” she said.

“Should we go check?”

“And blow our cover? That’s a bad idea. If the guy stays too long, I’ll call the sheriff, and have him send a cruiser.”

“That works. So what’s the problem?”

“Who said there was a problem?”

“I did. You’re seething. Are you angry because I yanked Lancaster off the investigation and you guys are in a relationship?”

“Leave our relationship out of this. Jon was conducting an independent investigation, and knows things. You should have interviewed him.”

“My mistake. I assumed he told you everything he knew.”

“Why did you assume that?”

“I assumed you were sleeping with him.”

“Did you now?”

“You’re not?”

It wasn’t easy being a female agent with the FBI. The ratio was one to five, with men getting most of the top jobs. When a female did get promoted, there were the inevitable rumblings about the agent having slept with her boss.

Daniels had gotten ahead, and she hadn’t done it on her back. Instead, she’d outperformed her peers, and earned it. She’d also made it a point to mute her looks, and hadn’t worn a lot of makeup on the job. It was the only way to keep the rumors away.

Baldini would have known this about her, had he asked around. Instead, he’d made an assumption about her, and demeaned her at the same time. It was worse than a stab in the back; it was a stab in the front, and she decided to make him pay for it.

Her right hand went up to the side of his head and pushed, while her left hand grabbed his wrist and pulled. At the same time, the bottom of her right foot swept his leg out from under him.

Push, pull, sweep.

He hit the pavement hard, and banged his head. Groaning, he struggled to rise. She put her foot on his chest, and kept him down.

“Let me up. Someone might come out,” he pleaded.

“Afraid they’ll see you lying on the ground?” she asked.

“I’m sorry. It was a stupid thing to say.”

“Is that what you and the other guys were talking about? How you thought I was screwing Lancaster, and that it was clouding my judgment?”

“It was nothing like that.”

“But you were talking about me, weren’t you?”

“So what? No harm, no foul.”

She dug her heel into his chest and watched him squirm. It shouldn’t have brought her pleasure, but it did. “Let’s be clear about something. I work at headquarters, and see your bosses every day. If I put in a bad word, your career will be over.”

“What kind of bad word?”

“I’ll say that you’re drinking on the job.”

“But that isn’t true!”

“And I’m not sleeping with Jon Lancaster. But you assumed that I was, and told the others. That hurts me, and my reputation. It also hurts my career. Do you see my point?”

A knowing look spread across his face, and he nodded.

“I’ll tell them I was wrong,” he said.

Not an apology, but an admission of guilt. She liked that.

“Is that a promise, Special Agent Baldini?”

“Yes, Special Agent Daniels, it’s a promise.”

She removed her foot from his chest and stepped back. He slowly climbed off the pavement, and dusted himself off. His clothes weren’t torn, and there were no visible bruises or scrapes. It could have been worse, a fact that he seemed to appreciate.

“Was that a judo move you used to take me down?” he asked.

“Muay Thai,” she said. Baldini went inside the camper. As he did, a pair of headlights came down RichJo Lane. She hid behind the front of the camper, and watched the vehicle turn onto Alternate 19 and head south. It was the car with the driver who resembled Jon.

She glanced at her watch. The car had been back there for ten minutes. It could have been a guy having a cigarette and drinking a beer. Or it could have been Jon, up to no good. She needed to find out, and went inside the camper.

The agent warming her chair gave it up. Baldini was not present, and she guessed he was in the bathroom, checking himself out in the mirror. The stupid bastard had no idea how close she’d come to kicking out his front teeth.

“Anything going on?” she asked.

“Nothing much,” the seat warmer said. “I need more coffee. Want some?”

“No, but thanks for asking.”

The agent went into the kitchen in the back of the camper. Now alone, she replayed the tape of the car turning down RichJo Lane. Freezing the frame, she memorized the letters and numbers on the license plate. Then, she made a call. The FBI was wired into the DMV databases in every state, and could run down license plates at warp speed.

Within a minute she had her answer. The vehicle belonged to National Car Rental. The bureau had agreements with the rental car companies, and she made a second call. This time, it took a little longer for her to get an answer.

The car was a 2018 Ford Fusion, and had been rented out of the Tampa International location earlier in the evening. The renter’s name was Jon Lancaster.