The Buried

CHAPTER 31

At 4:23 p.m., Central time, an auction appeared on the darknet. The item being offered was a Caucasian female in her mid-twenties. A list of her physical traits was included, as were several photographs and the name she was currently using: Danielle Chad.

The reserve opening bid price was $1.5 million.

Because the identities of most interested parties were unknown, e-mail alerts were sent to several people and organizations who might or might not care, in hopes that word would get to those who did.

An e-mail arrived in Scott Bennett’s inbox, marked urgent.

This wasn’t unusual. Almost everyone who e-mailed Bennett marked their messages urgent. What made this one stand out, though, was that it had come from one of his superiors in the ultra-secret, America-first organization known as Valor. The first line read:

The second line was a link. And the third a random-looking string of letters, numbers, and symbols.

Bennett copied the last line and clicked on the link. His screen went black for four seconds before an empty text box appeared. After inputting the copied string of characters, he hit RETURN.

The new page was some kind of auction that was already twelve minutes into a two-hour time limit.

His confusion as to why Valor would be interested vanished when he saw the item on the block.

His first move was to send Ricky Orbits a text telling him his services were no longer needed. His second was to put in a bid.

For a ten-minute period, Assistant Trade Attaché Komarov felt like he was nothing more than a glorified switchboard operator. First Schwartz with a message for Moscow, then Moscow with an immediate reply, then Schwartz again, and Moscow, and Schwartz, and finally Moscow.

Whatever was going on was big enough to ignore normal protocols. Komarov had no idea what it could be and was glad for that.

When he passed the last message on, Schwartz told him to stay close for the next hour and a half in case he was needed again.

Komarov didn’t like the sound of that.

Morse stared at the monitor. On it was an auction page, the item for sale one Danielle Chad.

“Can we figure out who sent this?” he asked the tech.

“We’re attempting to trace, but unlikely.”

“What about a location off the photographs?”

“They don’t have any geo-tags and the background’s just a wall, sir. It could be anywhere.”

“There’s nothing that can help us?”

“Nothing yet. We should be able to trace the money once the winning bid is paid. That would give us—”

“That’ll be too late.”

There was one thing they could do, Morse knew, but authorization for that would have to come from above.

“Keep working at it,” he told the tech, and then returned to his office and called Clark.

After Morse laid everything out, the older man said, “It seems we’ve been handed a second chance.”

After red team had been all but wiped out early that morning, the agency had had no choice but to remove itself from the physical chase for the Hayes girl until another team could be freed up.

“It could be a trick,” Morse said. “They might not have her at all.”

“Have you been able to verify her identity in the pictures?”

“Preliminarily, yes. But—”

“Then I say we have no choice.”

“So that’s a green light?”

“Yes.”

“How high can I go?”

“As high as needed.”

The Wolf pushed the button again, and immediately Director Cho arched on the table from the electricity coursing through her body. At the preset time, the shock cut off and Helen dropped back down.

“Another, I think,” The Wolf said, and tapped the button once more.

Cho had just started to arch again when the door opened. Braun stuck his head into the room and motioned to his boss. She acknowledged him with a nod, and then watched Helen finish the latest round.

When the cycle was done, she said, “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back.”

She found Braun in the hallway, holding a laptop.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Someone found the girl.”

She tensed. “Who?”

“It’s not that easy. Look.”

He opened the computer and showed her the screen for the Danielle Chad auction.

After reading through it and studying the pictures, she said, “It looks like her, but are we sure?”

“It’s her,” he said. “The fingerprints are a match.”

The Wolf finally allowed herself to smile. So her dead partner’s daughter had finally been found. Now all she had to do was find out who was behind the auctioning, because there was no way she would let anyone else have the girl. She’d been waiting so long for Danielle Hayes to reappear, and had already borrowed heavily to fund the hunt for her. The secret the girl held rightfully belonged to The Wolf. Not only would it pay off her debts, it would allow her to finally regain the life she’d once had.

She glanced back at the door to the playroom. “I fear Ms. Cho has just become obsolete. Hold her until you hear from me in case this is some kind of scam. If they really do have the girl, eliminate her and thank our host for his hospitality.”