He took a deep breath and answered the call. “Special Agent Pierce Hunt.”
“You know this is exactly why Mom left you, right?” Leila looked out the window of his four-year-old Ford F-150.
No, this isn’t why your mom left me. But he was glad that was what she thought, because the truth would shatter the fragile relationship he was working so hard to rebuild with his only child.
“I’ll make it up to you, Leila, I promise,” Hunt said, slowing at a stop sign.
“You won’t, Pierce, and you know it,” she said, shifting her attention to her vibrating smartphone. “I’m not a child anymore.”
He loathed being called Pierce by his daughter. That meant she was royally pissed. Maybe he shouldn’t have taken the call. He glanced at her, and his eyes caught something he hadn’t expected to see.
“What was that, Leila?”
“What?” she replied, clearly offended by his inquiry. She shut off her phone.
“The picture of a half-naked man I just saw,” he said, his temper rising. “Who the hell was that?”
“It’s nothing. It’s just a picture,” Leila replied. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me,” Hunt said, doing his best to remain calm. He had recently started reading books on how to deal with teenage daughters. The authors were unanimous about one thing: it didn’t serve anyone’s interest to be either judgmental or hostile.
“You won’t understand,” Leila said, once again looking outside and away from him. “And Mom knows about it.”
“She knows about what?” Hunt squeezed the steering wheel so hard his knuckles became white. He hated being kept in the dark. He wished he could put the blame on his ex-wife, but he knew who the real culprit was. He had lost the privilege of knowing what was going on in his daughter’s life long ago.
“My boyfriend sent me a text. That’s all. There’s no need for you to fuss about it.”
Boyfriend. Hunt’s mind had shut off right there. He hadn’t understood any other word. His baby girl was way too young to have a boyfriend.
And Jasmine knows about this? She didn’t care to tell me our fifteen-year-old daughter has a boyfriend?
A boyfriend who had just sent Leila a picture of himself half-naked? Hunt didn’t care anymore what the books said. He was going to find out where this young man lived and tell him to stay far away from his daughter.
Hunt was so lost in his own thoughts that he drove right through another stop sign and barely missed hitting an oncoming car.
“Dad!” Leila yelled at the top of her lungs. Her scream brought him back to the here and now.
Shit!
The red-and-blue lights of a police car appeared in his rearview mirror. Hunt sighed, ashamed he had nearly gotten into an accident while driving with his daughter. He definitely wouldn’t try to badge his way out of this one. He deserved to pay every dollar of the fine.
“Sorry, Leila,” he said. “I really am.”
“You scared the hell out of me.”
Hunt parallel parked and turned off the vehicle. He opened his window and removed the key from the ignition. Through his side mirror he saw the Miami-Dade police officer climb out of his cruiser. Hunt placed his hands on the steering wheel, making sure they were in plain sight.
The officer touched the taillight of Hunt’s pickup truck with his thumb. This safety precaution had been practiced by police officers for decades as a way to leave behind evidence of the encounter. That was a good move that told Hunt the officer took his job seriously. No doubt the officer had also called in the Ford’s license plate and the location of the traffic stop.
“Good afternoon, sir,” the officer said, his right hand on top of his firearm. “Do you know why I pulled you over?” His eyes scanned the rear seats before stopping on Hunt’s daughter in the front passenger seat. “You’re okay, young lady?”
“Thanks for saving my life, Officer,” Leila said without missing a beat. “My father nearly killed us both.”
The officer’s eyes narrowed on Hunt. With the kind of statement Leila had just made, Hunt fully expected the officer to order him out of his vehicle. Just what I need on my first day out of suspension, Hunt thought. I might have to flash my badge after all.
Before the officer could reply to Leila, Hunt took the initiative and told him, “My driver’s license is in my right-side suit jacket pocket, and the registration is in the glove box. I’m with the DEA.”
The officer’s demeanor relaxed ever so slightly.
Hunt handed over his driver’s license and the registration before presenting his DEA credentials.
The officer looked at the driver’s license, his eyes widening, and then at Hunt. “You’re Pierce Hunt? The Pierce Hunt?”
“Depends what you mean by that.” Hunt shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
“You’re the DEA agent who shoved that asshole reporter to the ground—”
“He actually tripped over his own feet, but yeah, that’s me,” Hunt said, smiling nervously. He didn’t want the conversation to go any further. Not with Leila next to him. She had made it abundantly clear that his actions toward the reporter hadn’t impressed her.
“Shit. The guys back at the station won’t believe it,” the officer said, shaking his head.
Hunt smiled politely. Moore’s video of the raid on the Black Tosca’s cartel warehouse—and particularly, his confrontation with Hunt—had made headlines around the country and had amassed over five million views on YouTube.
“Did you really put your gun against his head in the warehouse?” the officer asked, clearly excited.
“Not my proudest moment,” Hunt said.
“Way I heard it, the guy caused the deaths of those women and one of your agents. He deserved it, if you ask me.”
“Still cost me six months’ salary.” And he got a two-and-a-half-million-dollar confidential settlement from the DEA, Hunt thought. For tripping over his own damn feet!
“Anyway, it’s a real honor to meet you. Sorry for what happened to your guy.”
“Same here, Officer, and thank you.” Hunt shook the man’s outstretched hand.
“Here you go,” the officer said, handing the driver’s license and registration back to Hunt. “Stay safe.”
“All right, I will,” Hunt promised.
Once they were on their way, Leila said, “So these officers think you’re cool because you killed two drug dealers and beat up a reporter on live video?” She seemed disgusted.
“Listen, baby,” he started, swearing to himself he wouldn’t get upset. “First of all, I didn’t beat up anyone. Second, I don’t know what they teach you at school, but you need to understand that I didn’t have any choice—”
“You always have a choice,” Leila said, the emotion in her voice rising. “You taught me that, remember?”
Here we go. She was using his words—taken out of context—against him. There was so much of her mother in her. Jasmine had never liked what he did for a living. She loved him, but he always felt she never knew for sure if he was the good guy or not. Sometimes he wasn’t so sure either.
Especially after what he’d done in Gaza.
“Not this time, I’m afraid,” he said, careful about his word choice. “It was either them or us.”
Leila started to sob. “Do you know what it feels like to watch your father kill two men in cold blood?”
It wasn’t in cold blood, he wanted to say. But he didn’t. Instead he said, “No, I don’t. Tell me.”
“It’s awful, Pierce, okay? It’s, it’s . . .” She looked for the right word. Tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Horrific? Sickening?” Hunt did his very best to offer a sympathetic ear to his daughter’s plea. “I know, and I’m sorry.”
“And I can’t even talk about it to anyone but Mom because you’re some kind of spy or whatever,” she continued.
“I’m no spy. I’m a DEA agent,” he tried to explain, knowing this wasn’t what his daughter needed to
hear. God, I wish I was better at this. “I know it’s unfair that you can’t talk about it, but, believe me, it’s for your own security.”
“Whatever.”
It broke his heart to see her cry. A father’s job was to protect his daughter. And clearly he had failed.
“I have nightmares. Did Mom tell you? Did she tell you how I still wet my bed like a two-year-old?”
Hunt stopped in a parking lot. He unbuckled his seat belt and walked around the truck. He opened the passenger door and pulled his daughter close to him. Her defenses faded away. He wrapped his arms around her, and she held him. He felt her warm tears on his neck.
“I’m sorry, Leila,” he whispered. “I’m truly sorry you had to see that, but I can’t apologize for doing the right thing. People trust me to protect their lives, and I took an oath to do just that. It’s my job.”
His daughter wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “You know what my nightmares are about?”
Hunt shook his head, angry he couldn’t do more for his daughter.
“That it’s you instead of them . . . that it’s you who dies . . . who gets shot and bleeds out alone in the street,” she said, fighting through her emotions. “Why couldn’t you be a football player or something like that?”
“Like Chris?” he said, controlling his anger at the thought of Jasmine’s new husband.
“Yeah, like Chris, Dad,” she said, regaining control of herself. “And you don’t have to say his name like that, you know.”
Chris Moon was a Miami Dolphins player. Their star quarterback, to be exact. He and Hunt didn’t get along too well. Moon was younger and taller, drove expensive cars, and had access to a one-hundred-foot Azimut yacht, but those weren’t the things that bothered Hunt—or maybe they did just a tiny bit. What truly pissed him off was that Moon spent more time with Leila than he did.
“I don’t like the guy, Leila. I can’t lie.”
“Well, Mom does, and he’s cool with me.”
“Okay.”
“Okay what?”
“I’ll smile next time I say his name,” Hunt said.
Leila looked doubtful.
“Look, Leila,” he continued, “I’m glad he takes care of you and your mom. I really am. But it’s hard for me too, you know?”
His daughter squeezed his arm. “I know.”
“I wish I could stay with you this weekend and bring you camping or go to the shooting range.”
“Like we used to when I was a kid?”
You’re still a kid, Hunt thought. “Yes, like we used to.”
Leila shrugged. “The last time I went camping, I came back with a bunch of mosquito bites. So no thanks.”
“Maybe we could go to the range another time, then?”
She screwed up her face and pulled away from him. “Ugh. Weren’t you listening, Dad? Guns kill people. Don’t you watch the news? I never want to touch one again. And I’m certainly not interested in going to some outdoor range filled with . . .”
“With what?”
“People like you.”
Her words slapped him in the face.
Before he could recover, his daughter shrugged. “Don’t worry about this weekend. I have plans anyway.”
Hunt wanted to ask what kind of plans, but his words balled up in his throat.
He tried to hug her again, but Leila was stiff and didn’t hug him back. Instead, she patted him on the back.
“Don’t worry, Dad. You and I will catch up another time.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
DEA Miami Field Division
Weston, Florida
Hunt looked at the 130,000-square-foot building housing the Miami Field Division. The DEA had moved there in 2009 after being evicted from its Doral headquarters. Even though the DEA kept outposts in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Weston was where decisions were made. The DEA had invested over $4 million to reconfigure the building, tucked between a small hotel and a medical center, with security features, evidence vaults, interrogation rooms, and holding cells.
Tom Hauer, the DEA acting administrator, had transferred Hunt back to Miami after the fiasco in Chicago. There was no way Hunt could have kept his position as a team leader with the RRT in Virginia. That was fine. He would miss kicking in doors, but he was confident he would see action in Miami. Plus, he had no choice. A six-month suspension wasn’t something his bank account had counted on. Fortunately for him, he had money tucked away. Not a lot, and certainly not enough to go through another suspension, but enough to allow him to pay his bills. Jasmine had offered to help, but it felt wrong to accept money from her knowing it came from her new husband.
But money was just one thing and not the main reason he was pleased to start working again. He missed the job, the camaraderie. He loved the adrenaline rush. He was addicted to it. Unfortunately for him, his suspension had included the strict interdiction against using any DEA facilities, including the shooting ranges. That didn’t mean Hunt had been out of options during the past six months. He’d called his former platoon commander, Martin Riese, now a major and the executive officer for the Airborne and Ranger Training Brigade, headquartered at Fort Benning, Georgia, to ask if Riese could find him something useful to do.
Civilians, even DEA agents, weren’t usually welcome in the close-knit community that was the Seventy-Fifth Ranger Regiment. But not only had Hunt served with the Rangers, he had also earned the Silver Star for valor in combat during the battle for the Haditha Dam in 2003. So it had been with genuine pleasure that Riese invited him to spend a few weeks at Fort Benning. It had been a win-win situation. In exchange for lecturing about the geopolitical implications of the war on drugs that the American government was waging within and outside its borders, Riese had allowed him to join a group of future Rangers during the mountain and swamp phases of Ranger school. Hunt had had a blast and had been pleased to see he still had the stamina necessary to keep up with the younger Rangers. He wondered where he’d be in life if he had decided to stay in the military.
Hunt took a deep breath and entered the building. He nodded to the security guards and swiped his identification card through the card reader. The light blinked red.
“Can I see your ID, sir?” one of the guards said.
Hunt handed him his credentials. “I’m Special Agent Pierce Hunt. It’s my first day here.”
The guard examined Hunt’s ID. “Who are you here to see?”
“Daniel McMaster, the special agent in charge,” Hunt replied.
“One moment.” The guard placed a call, then turned his back to him. “Yes, sir,” Hunt heard him say, then, “No, sir, the system indicates he’s been dismissed.”
What?
The guard hung up. “You’ll have to wait here, Mr. Hunt. Someone will come down shortly. Please have a seat.”
There was no point arguing with the guard. He was only doing his job. The DEA was a big organization, and Hunt wasn’t surprised his status hadn’t been updated. Still, dismissed ?
Ten minutes later, two men wearing security uniforms appeared and signaled Hunt to follow them. They didn’t say anything, not even a greeting.
They took the elevator to the third floor. The elevator door opened to a sea of cubicles occupied by DEA agents. One of the guards took the lead, and Hunt followed, an uneasy feeling nagging at him. He tried to make eye contact with some of the agents, but none of them looked away from their screens. It was weird. No one was talking, which was unusual. Typically, the bull pen was a noisy place where one sometimes had to yell to be heard by a colleague a few desks away.
He was in the middle of the room when someone shouted, “Ladies and gentlemen, Pierce Hunt!”
The room burst into earsplitting cheers and applause. For a brief moment, Hunt wondered what was going on. Agents were clapping and smiling, some shouting words he didn’t understand. A few walked up to him and shook his hand, thanking him for what he had done to the reporter whose actions had contributed to the death of one of their own.
“
I guess you weren’t expecting such a welcome, Special Agent Hunt,” said Daniel McMaster.
Hunt turned to face him. McMaster was tall—over six feet, maybe six two—with broad shoulders and dark brown hair starting to gray at the temples. A huge smile beneath his thick—and somewhat distracting—mustache put Hunt at ease. The two men shook hands.
“I certainly wasn’t, sir,” Hunt said.
“Glad to have you with us.”
“Thanks. Happy to be here.”
“Let’s talk in my office.” McMaster led the way.
McMaster’s office wasn’t decorated to impress or entertain. The focal point was a dark wood government-issue desk with two large American flags at either end. On the wall behind the desk was a massive DEA seal. A large glass wall separated his space from the bull pen, and Hunt imagined it gave the impression he had his finger on the pulse of his agents.
“Please have a seat, Pierce,” McMaster said. “Coffee?”
“No thanks.” Hunt sat in one of the chairs facing McMaster’s desk. He looked through the glass wall and saw that most of the agents had resumed their seats.
“I’d like to start by telling you that I know you didn’t request this transfer,” McMaster began. “You might not realize it now, Pierce, but you’ve become a legend.”
A legend? For killing two drug dealers and pointing my gun at an unarmed reporter’s head? Oh boy, Leila wouldn’t be impressed.
“I’m not sure this is a good—” Hunt started to reply, but McMaster raised his hand.
“Yes, it is, Pierce. These guys learned about your transfer late last week, and morale has never been higher. Do you realize that you’ve done something many of us have only dreamed about?”
Hunt couldn’t help but smile, wondering if McMaster knew about the cash settlement Moore had received. “Yeah, I’m not naive, sir. But I was almost kicked out for it.”
“But you weren’t. And here you are.”
“And I’m looking forward to starting work.”
McMaster opened his desk drawer and removed a red folder to which Hunt’s picture was stapled. He opened it.
Hunt Them Down (Pierce Hunt Book 1) Page 3