by Matt Lincoln
“Agent Marston.” Emily’s dad stood and walked over to the small group. “I have a few orders of business before this excursion of yours.”
Emily groaned and started to say something, but her dad signaled her to hold up. Ethan’s partner, the tall blond named Holm, snorted and went to join Mike and the other agents as they went inside, but Muñoz and Luci stayed in the lanai, away from the mosquitoes.
“Emily knows how I feel about her going with you on this mission,” he told Ethan. “That’s never stopped her before and won’t now. All I ask is that you keep those monsters away from her.”
“She won’t be anywhere near them,” Ethan answered. “Her background with counseling trafficking victims makes her an ideal companion for Luci.” Ethan looked over to Luci, and she nodded. “Emily’s knowledge of the island's trafficking history is another help.”
“I want those monsters put out of business,” Emily said with clenched teeth. “Besides, Dad, I told them I’m going even if I have to go buy a ticket at the airport.”
Emily’s dad nodded. “I believe you. After all, you are your mother’s daughter.” He hugged her and then turned to Ethan. “Before Officer Pepper gets too impatient to leave, there’s another matter. I learned more about your coins last night and was meaning to discuss it with you. May as well now.”
The two men excused themselves, and Emily joined Luci and Muñoz in the lanai. They spoke in rapid-fire Spanish that Emily couldn’t begin to follow with her limited skills. She felt out of place until Holm came outside and beckoned her in to join the other agents. They had gathered around a cherry hardwood dining table. She traced her fingers over pale marine inlays that ran along the edges of the top. Dolphins, turtles, sharks, and various fish silhouettes played down the surface as if they had no cares.
“How are you coping?” Holm asked as he offered her a seat.
She blinked and accepted the chair with gratitude. “Other than a total breakdown at home, I’m fine.” She looked around and saw that she was the new center of attention. That was a feeling she could do without. “My dad seems mild, but he’s strong, and I get that from him. Besides, I wasn’t hurt.” She touched the small cut on her scalp and tried to hide the movement.
Muñoz and Luci wandered in and joined them. Mike emerged from the kitchen with drinks in each hand and set them before Emily and Lucy.
“You are twenty-one, right?” he asked Luci.
“Twenty-three.” Luci sniffed at the drink and smiled. “Thank you.”
Mike brought out beers and snacks and started chatting with the agents. Emily saw they had a comfortable vibe with the man. She supposed a bar would benefit from a generous sort like Mike, but she was glad to be somewhere smaller, quieter. Emily looked down and turned to Luci.
“I am so sorry we couldn’t stop them from taking you,” she said in a quiet voice.
Luci raised her brows and shook her head. “You did all you could. I will never forget this.” Luci took Emily’s hands and gave a soft squeeze. “We will be friends for a very long time, I think.”
Ethan rejoined them with a dazed expression. Emily’s dad trailed with a satisfied grin. Apparently, the updated value on the coins was good news.
“It was nice to meet everyone,” her dad announced, “but I am old and haven’t kept late hours in decades. I will keep you all in my prayers while you are on your mission.” His eyes turned steely in a way Emily had never seen. “Take care of Emily and Luci. They are both capable and strong, but they aren’t you. Remember that.”
“Yessir.” Holm stood and shook her dad’s hand.
“Yes, sir.” Birn saluted.
“Of course,” Muñoz promised.
Ethan took a long look at Luci, Emily, and then at Emily’s dad.
“I won’t let anyone hurt them,” Ethan swore. “They’ll have private guards the entire time.”
This was news to Emily, but her dad’s obvious relief held her in check. It was an issue they could discuss the next day. Emily walked her dad to the door and gave him one last hug.
“Come back to me after this adventure, Emily Jada Meyer.” He stressed her mother’s part of the name the way he did whenever he worried. “You still owe me shifts before the fall semester begins.”
Emily leaned close to ensure no one else would hear. “I’ll be back before you know it. Don’t forget to stop by my place and feed Chewie.”
He kissed her on the forehead and went out to where Officer Pepper waited in the squad car. Emily returned to the table, but her heart didn’t know where to land.
21
Muñoz offered to stay the night at my houseboat to accompany Luci and Emily, but they promised that they felt safe in my presence. I knew Luci needed more time before she could even be around me without support, but this was definitely an improvement.
We loaded Emily’s two small suitcases into my trunk and then piled into the Charger. They both sat in the rear seat which made me feel more like a chauffeur than a guardian. By the time we reached the marina, Emily and Luci chatted like they’d known each other for years.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go to the store for some pajamas, Luci?” I asked. “It’s not far, and I want you to be as comfortable as possible.”
“I will be fine for tonight, Agent Jackass,” Luci answered with a straight face.
“I’m never going to live that down, am I?”
Emily shook her head. “Nope. And don’t worry about clothes. Sylvia and I are going to handle that.”
Putting those women together had to be one of the biggest mistakes I’d ever made… or one of my best moves. They had a natural chemistry much like when Holm and I met in the Navy.
“You live here?” Emily asked as we got out of the car. “I mean, you said something about a boat…”
I pointed in the general direction of the houseboat.
“You’ll see when we get down there,” I told them. “My grandfather left it to me when he passed.”
I led them down to where my home was docked. The Mariah Jean was a Boatel 50, and the main level was the size of a small, two-bedroom apartment. The upper deck was designed for entertaining, something I only did on occasion. The bunk bed in the guest bedroom was about all I had to offer for accommodations. Fortunately, it was more than enough.
“Thank you, Ethan.” Emily took her bags and sat them on the dusty dresser. “Muñoz said she’d be here around nine, after your daily briefing.”
I nodded. “Sounds about right. We have another agent who’ll hang out until she gets here.” I checked the schedule on my phone. “Agent Abbie Stark. I think you’ll like her.”
Stark was a young agent with red hair and feisty green eyes. She was quite the go-getter set on becoming a special agent, and I knew Emily and Luci would be safe for the two or three hours before Muñoz got there.
I wasn’t about to tell Emily or Luci about the one-eighty Muñoz took from wanting nothing to do with them once we got to Barbados to being their personal security force.
“Sleep well. You know where to find me.”
The door almost hit me on the ass when one of them damned near slammed it. I chuckled. The downtime would serve them well. We only had one more day of prep before the mission.
I lay awake most of the night, long after the voices in the next room drifted off. It irritated me to no end that we didn’t get the people who were on that helicopter. They shouldn’t have been able to get in and out of there without Homestead picking them up on radar. Cyber and the Air Force were checking into their systems to see if they got hacked. If so, that worried me as much as anything. That was high-level shit.
When I wasn’t thinking about the case, it was the coins. William Meyer’s news was about two of the coins. They were an ultra-rare pair of King Charles I Triple Unites, dated 1643. Triple Unites were hammered by hand, which made each one unique. There were less than three hundred of these coins known to survive. Individually, each one might sell at auction for over a hundred grand.
The fact that this was a matched set made them worth far more.
William told me about more of the coins, but that was all I could remember. Whatever forces kept those coins hidden for centuries also kept them well preserved. I was a lucky bastard. A good night’s sleep would’ve made me feel that much luckier.
I drifted off at some point during the predawn hours. Next thing I knew, one of the girls was knocking on my bedroom door asking if I was going into the office or not. I checked my phone and rolled off the bed with enough clatter to cover a small circus.
“Are you okay?” Emily pounded on the door. “It sounded like you fell.”
“I’m fine,” I called out. My blanket had wrapped around my face, which muffled my voice. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
Emily didn’t hear me. She barged into the room as I got untangled from my covers and stood up in nothing but my boxers. We both froze.
“OhmygodIamsosorry!”
She backed out of my room and vanished but not before slamming the door behind her.
Yep. That was dignified.
22
Emily absolutely resolved to allow Ethan to forget the Agent Jackass comment ever happened. If she were lucky, he’d allow her to forget the major faux pas she committed after he rolled out of his bed. She’d gone in scared that someone was attacking him. It never occurred to her that a former SEAL might get tangled in his covers and fall out of bed.
Agent Abbie Moore arrived as Ethan shrugged into a lightweight sport jacket that covered his shoulder holster.
“Just… You two stay out of trouble,” he ordered. “I’ll see you later.” He turned to the red-headed agent. “They’re all yours, Moore.”
He looked at Emily, and a little flush had crept into his cheeks. Thankfully, he took off for the MBLIS office.
“That must be embarrassing,” Luci said over her breakfast, while Agent Moore did a perimeter check of the houseboat. “I am happy I missed it.” Her lips quirked. “Well, mostly happy.”
“I can’t face him ever again.” Emily hid her face in her arms. “This is a disaster.”
Luci munched her cereal in response. Emily sat up and regarded the young Venezuelan woman. In some ways, they were similar. Both were educated, smart, and passionate about their interests. In other ways, they couldn’t be more different. Emily never had to worry that her country’s most basic infrastructure was going to crumble beneath unfettered violence. Nor had she faced the modern enslaving systems of human traffickers.
“What do you want to do when this is over?” Emily asked. Luci paused her chewing long enough to frown. “Will you return to Venezuela?”
“I don’t know,” Luci said as she set her spoon down. “I want to think I could be strong, maybe even ruthless. Save people in my country.” She looked at the colorful circles floating in her bowl of milk. “I don’t know if I can be strong like that. Like maybe I was punished and am lucky to be alive.”
Emily admired Luci’s candor. Not many people possessed the self-awareness to evaluate things the way Luci just had. Most went the routes of either engaging in false bravado or covering their fears with excuses.
A sharp knock at the door startled them both. Luci knocked over the bowl, and milk ran across the table and onto Emily’s stockinged feet. Emily held a finger up to her lips, slipped the socks off, and snuck over to the door while staying out of sight from the windows. She got a peek through the dockside windows of the visitor and breathed in relief.
“It’s Muñoz,” she told Luci.
Luci nodded without moving any other part of her body. Emily worried for Luci’s wellbeing, but she wasn’t a trauma expert. Maybe these things needed a lot more time than Emily imagined.
“I’m letting her in now. You okay?” Emily asked of Luci.
“I am sorry. Yes, she should come in.”
Emily unlocked the door and allowed Sylvia in. The petite agent was dressed for a day out with the girls. Her hair was under a ball cap and back in a ponytail, and she wore lightweight, light-color clothes made for the summer’s brutal sunshine, including an oversized button-up shirt she left open over her cami. She carried a large gift bag with a simple bow which she handed off to Luci with all the nonchalance in the world.
“Since I’m ‘only’ your pilot and bodyguard, I got out of today’s chores at headquarters,” she announced. “I’m okay with that. Do you ladies have ideas for today’s agenda?”
23
After the impromptu show in my bedroom, I lit out of the houseboat as soon as I had my clothes on. Even though I grabbed some coffee and a bagel, I got to the office first. That didn’t save me from the pile of paperwork on my desk. I scanned through it and groaned. Holm and I hadn’t filed anything on our previous, tedious assignment that had kept us up two days straight, so now we had to file a report saying that we had no report to file.
Toward the top of the pile, however, was the paperwork regarding the shootout the night before. Under normal circumstances, a law enforcement officer would be on desk duty pending an investigation. These weren’t normal circumstances, and MBLIS wasn’t a normal investigative force. That didn’t absolve us of paperwork. With nothing better to do while waiting, I started my hunt-and-peck maneuver on the department-required ergonomic keyboard.
At least we no longer had to work in triplicate.
“Holy hell.” Diane Ramsey’s voice rang across the otherwise empty room. “Who dragged you in this early, Ethan?”
“Couldn’t sleep,” I confessed. Diane didn’t need to know the embarrassing start to my morning. “Figured I’d play a little catch-up.”
Birn rolled in about that time. He blinked when he saw me, shook his head, and wandered off toward the kitchenette with craptastic coffee offerings. I sipped at my Dunkin joe with no regrets.
“Cyber got your identities lined up,” Diane informed me. “Get familiar with your backstory sometime before you set down in Bridgetown.”
“Got it.” I took another scalding sip and put on my most innocent expression. “You aren’t worried, are you?”
“Not today, Marston.” She stalked toward her office and unlocked the door. Before she went in, she turned to glare at me. “I approved your passengers. Make damned sure nothing happens to them. My ass is on the line before yours.”
“They’ll have the best of the best protecting them,” I solemnly proclaimed.
Diane blew out a full breath and went into her office. The door didn’t quite slam, but it was close enough that I got the drift.
There was an hour before the mission briefing. I chugged my slightly cooled caffeine and set to the process of proving my actions worthy of a MBLIS special agent.
Holm and Muñoz arrived shortly before the briefing. Diane had packets for each of us traveling to Barbados. Identities, money, and items particular to each person were prepared and ready to go.
I opened my folder and groaned. My fake life was as Benjamin Winters, an investment banker with a summer home in Miami. I was into kale juicers and a devoted member of a local gym that I’d never heard of. If the Trader’s people called, however, they’d get an earful about how I talked about women and almost got kicked out for it.
“I’m Ben Winters, and I’m into investment banking,” I told everyone. “Good to meet you.”
“Carl Stevens.” Holm rolled his eyes. “I’m a personal trainer for wealthy men. I’ve been looking to expand my services by providing escorts.”
Muñoz furrowed her brow. “Tina Santiago. I’m a teacher?”
Diane’s lips twitched. “Since you and Birn are there as back up, neutral identities are the best fit. If you were to work with witnesses or anything like that, I’m sure you wouldn’t want anyone to know your real occupation.”
“Fine,” Muñoz grumbled and gave me a death glare.
“Birn?” I asked. “Tell us about yourself.”
“I’m Jacob Dart, an artist,” he said in a soft tone. “I took time from my day job as a paralegal to seek inspiration from th
e islands.”
I glanced at Diane. A warm smile touched her lips. It looked like she knew something about Birn that I never guessed. Interesting.
The conference room door burst open to admit Bonnie and Clyde. Bonnie carried a plastic box and tablet, and Clyde wore one of those shit-eating grins that rarely ended well for me.
“We’ve narrowed down the range of potential beaches for you to search,” Clyde announced. He gestured to the container Bonnie held, and she set it on the table. “There are only a few greenhouses that might grow the metastelma barbadense. We had to dry the leaves to preserve them, but they’ll help you to identify the plant if you find it.”
Bonnie continued. “We have a list of properties with both greenhouses and beachfronts. All you have to do is find the ones that have the Pride of Barbados growing at beaches with docks.”
“That’s all we have to do, huh?” Holm asked with a wry grin. “Are the property owners going to allow us to walk their properties with no reason, or do we sneak in and hope to avoid security?”
The last time we snuck onto private property was to antagonize a target into seeing us. This time, capture was not the name of the game.
“Of course not,” Diane said. “You could go for a few dives if you run out of options.”
“Unless the beaches are monitored.” I crossed my arms and leaned my elbows on the table. “The Trader isn’t going to leave his backside open.”
“But nobody knows who he is,” Holm said. “If he has security out the wazoo, his neighbors might get suspicious. It’s six of one, half a dozen of the other.”
Muñoz rocked back in her chair. “So we come up with a great cover. If they get caught sneaking onshore, they have a story. Maybe they’re beginners who got lost. You know? First trip to the islands and they got in over their heads.” She smirked at Holm and me. “Can a couple of SEALs pretend to be totally inept?”