Ruthless

Chapter 3

RED

March 2 7

Wednesday morning

By the timeI got on the road in my Jeep Cherokee, a steady burn of fury had settled in, replacing some of the shock. It had been all I could do to keep from punching my speed to a hundred from Southie to Portland Street.

The guilt was still there, but whoever had taken out Randolph was going to pay. The bastard was as good as dead.

My personal cell phone vibrated in its clip at my waist as I pulled up to a stoplight. I drew the cell out and answered it without looking at the display. “Steele,” I said, my voice unintentionally harsh.

A pause, then “Something’s wrong, isn’t it, pet,” my mother stated in her strong Boston Irish accent.

“Mama.” I took a deep breath. “Everything’s okay.”

“It’s not, but you’ll tell me if you have a mind to.” She hardly paused for breath. “You’ll be here for Sunday dinner?”

Sunday. Dinner.

Talking with my mother—I could use a few moments of normalcy.

Every Wednesday morning she called to make sure I’d be there on Sunday because I couldn’t always—sometimes work kept me away when I was undercover. Otherwise, I wouldn’t miss a Sunday of getting together with the lot of us unless I didn’t have a choice. The time I’d been in the Army and had to miss Sundays with my family was hard, but it was nothing compared to the nightmare my life had been as an assassin.

During those two years, being with my family and sharing every Sunday with them had been nothing but a dream. FAS barely allowed me enough leeway to contact my family to let them know I was alive. As far as they knew I was traveling throughout Europe in my new career as an interpreter after leaving the Army.

Yes, talking about normal things unrelated to the harsh realities of my career was what I needed right now. Like a day with my family.

“Dublin coddle?” I asked with a hopeful note in my voice. Mama made such wicked good coddle.

I put my black Jeep Cherokee into gear and headed through the light after it turned green.

“And wild mushroom soup. Apple crumble for dessert.” The pleasure in her voice was clear when she added, “Ryan will be home and I’ll have to make enough for the lot of those boys.”

I’d forgotten one of my four older brothers, Ryan, would be home on leave from the Marines. I also have a younger brother and sister. I couldn’t help but smile. “And you’d better make enough for me. Don’t worry about Rori. She doesn’t eat, anyway.”

“Lord above knows that girl needs to.” Mama gave an exasperated huff. “Is that boyfriend of yours coming? I’ll need to make another lot for him. Eats as much as your brothers.”

I guided the Cherokee through traffic, checking my rearview mirrors. “Gary eats even more than Sean.”

Mama laughed, knowing it was true, that my twelve-year-old brother could out eat my four big, brawny older brothers.

“Yeah, Gary will be there.” Note to self: call Gary to remind him. “He won’t want to miss your coddle or crumble.”

“Are you sure, pet, that you don’t want to tell me what’s bothering you?” she asked.

I sighed, her question slamming me back to reality. “It’s just starting out to be a rough day.” Of course I couldn’t tell her about Randolph. It was for my family’s and my friends’ safety that I kept up the illusion that I was an interpreter. Not only did RED require me to keep my career a secret, no way in hell was I going to endanger them.

The only exceptions to my friends and family who knew were one of my older brothers, Zane, and my best friend, Georgina, both of whom worked for RED, too.

Mama was a no-nonsense mother who’d raised seven children and she always knew when something deeper was happening. “It’s not good to keep as many secrets as you do.”

“What secrets?” I tried really hard to put a smile in my voice. “How could anyone keep a secret from you?”

She humphed. “See you Sunday, pet.”

“Dinner is already calling,” I said before I told her I loved her and clicked the phone shut.

Fourteen minutes after Oxford’s phone call, I guided the Jeep, my personal vehicle, into RED’s parking garage. I stomped on my brakes harder than I should have and jerked back and forth in my seat as I took my space between my government-issue dark blue Trailblazer and the red Mercedes sports car.

The Trailblazer was registered in one of my undercover names, Alexi McGrath. The second I got into the dark blue Trailblazer, I’d carry my McGrath ID. I used it when I went undercover in a seedier environment.

When I climbed into the red Mercedes, I’d be Alexi Adams, a socialite with a hell of a lot of money and clout that I wouldn’t mind really having.

I was going undercover soon as Adams in just three days. I’d be one of the elite young Bostonian crowd, a socialite who just happened to be into kink. I’d work my way into a small group of BDSM players who were suspected of kidnapping and selling young women.

The thought made every muscle in my body tighten even more than they already had been. Girls and women sold to the highest bidder.

After I’d jumped out and locked my Cherokee, my running shoes pounded concrete in the parking garage as I jogged the distance to the elevator. It would take me to the first floor of a five-story building that had an Interpreter Services Company sign outside—RED’s cover.

My faded blue jeans were a little loose, and I was wearing a T-shirt and matching overshirt the same color of green as my eyes. Forest green.

After I got off the parking garage elevator, I went through a set of doors. I gave a nod to the receptionist of the “Interpreter Services Company” and hurried past her to the set of elevators that went up to RED’s upper floors.

Working for RED was practically a dream job. Power with no red tape. After those years of operating under a group’s iron fist, using any means necessary to perform and complete an operation was the kind of freedom that suited me. Hell, we didn’t even have to do everything “by the books.”

Once I passed the receptionist, I headed for the elevators that would take me from the lobby to the upper floors. I placed my hand on the fingerprint scanner and almost immediately the elevator doors opened.

Smells of generic air freshener met me on my way into the elevator and the door closed behind me.

What had gone so wrong? How could Randolph be dead? I watched the digital numbers flash by while I let the fingers of my left hand thump a steady beat-beat, beat-beat against my leg.

Second floor, narcotic and weapons trafficking, along with weapons of mass destruction. Third floor, technology theft. Fourth floor, terrorist activity and organized crime. And finally we reached my floor, human trafficking and sex crimes.

I stepped out of the elevator and onto a black-tiled catwalk above a chrome-and-glass control center. Immediately a wave of climate-controlled air blew away the air freshener and I was hit with smells of technology—that almost indefinable smell of plastic, wiring, electronics.

An overall blue glow from the countless screens and monitors in Command Central below the catwalk, reflected off the shiny glass and chrome surfaces. In front of me, stairs led down to CC, an area designed with the highest technology available—and some technology no one outside of RED even knew existed. Within CC were multiple Team Centers for every operation currently in progress, including Operation Cinderella.

To my left the tile ran past the glass-walled offices for all the Team Supervisors. Not far down that line of glass and chrome was the very spacious office of our Assistant Special Agent in Charge, our ASAC, Karen Oxford.

The woman to whom I owed my life.

Special Agent in Charge Carter, the man who was ultimately responsible for every operation on every floor of RED, was probably playing solitaire on his computer on the administration floor behind those curtained glass walls. No kidding. Our SAC figured he was above us anyway, and let the ASAC of each department handle the “dirty work,” while he sat on his ass taking kudos for our stats.

I glanced to my right, where a conference room door just about to close caught my eye. I’d only caught a glimpse, but a very tall man shut the door behind him. Definitely a back and a tight ass I’d never seen around here before.

We agents are trained to notice everything.

Along the same wall were the doors to several other private conference rooms. The doors broke the flow of smooth black granite. No glass walls there.

I swallowed. Conference room one would be filling with other TSs soon and I needed to be briefed by Oxford first.

Every step I took was like wading through some kind of surreal fog. The consistently cool air felt hot and burned my skin. I tried to figure out what had gone wrong with Randolph and the op as I walked past one glass-walled office after another, each office belonging to a Team Supervisor, a TS.

Lee’s, Taylor’s, mine, an empty office, Kartchner’s, Martinez’s, Armistead’s, Blomstein’s—

Oxford’s.

Darlene, Oxford’s too-serious assistant with the bad bowl haircut, glanced away from her computer monitor and looked over the top of her square black-rimmed plastic eyeglasses at me. I’d been in Oxford’s office a few times for not following protocol, and Darlene had always made it obvious she didn’t approve of me.

So, I’d made a couple of smart-ass remarks to Darlene in the past. Maybe that crack about her salad-bowl haircut making her look like John Lennon hadn’t been a real hot idea. But did that make me such a bad guy?

Darlene gave me the same tight-faced look she always gave me and I doubted she knew about Randolph yet. Oxford would have me make the announcement to the agents first. Darlene had liked Randolph. Everyone had.

Darlene gestured to Oxford’s door. “She wants you in right away,” she said before going back to her computer, and back to pretending I didn’t exist.

I slipped into the office and closed the door behind me. Her glass-walled office overlooked Command Central, where below her agents moved like worker bees in a hive. None of them aware an agent had been murdered.

Oxford’s desk lamp cast a glow on her skin that was as smooth as bronze silk. Only the fine lines at the corners of her eyes gave away the fact that she wasn’t in her thirties anymore and had the experience to go along with her forty-something years.

Usually, I followed a certain protocol with my ASAC. I waited until she invited me to sit—she didn’t always. And I’d let her speak first.

Not this time. I was pissed. Had been since I got her call.

I didn’t wait for an invitation and sat in one of the low-backed chairs in front of her desk, my spine straight and stiff. It took me a moment to realize I was gripping the armrests so hard my fingers dug into the black leather.

“Tell me everything,” I said.

Oxford’s dark eyes met mine. Professional, emotionless eyes. “Your target organization caught on.”

A sick feeling curdled in my belly and I wanted to hug my arms tight around my midsection. This was Randolph, one of my agents, we were talking about.

“Boston PD found her floating in the harbor early this morning,” Oxford continued. “Randolph’s undercover ID popped on our grid the moment a BPD officer relayed the information, and we stepped in. An expedited exam showed she was raped before her throat was slit.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger. “Damn.” I raised my head. “I shouldn’t have let her do this last op.”

“Never second-guess your decisions, Steele.” Oxford held a pen in her left hand but, like usual, didn’t make any agitated or nervous movements. A pad was on her desk with notes scribbled across it in handwriting worse than any doctor’s.

“The other TSs should be waiting for you now. Every available resource is yours to catch Agent Randolph’s murderers.” Oxford’s voice and eyes did turn hard now and I finally realized how angry she was. “Get the bastards and deal with them using any means necessary.”

Any cop or soldier took it seriously when one of their own was taken out. Everyone on my team had just been given a hell of a lot of motivation to take these bastards down. And I would see to it personally.

Oxford went back to jotting down notes, and I knew she had as good as excused me. I pushed myself up from the chair and left Oxford’s office.

When I reached Conference Room One, I restrained myself from jerking the door open. I entered and let the door slip behind me with an almost imperceptible swish.

I stood behind the chair at the head of the table and faced the other six TSs. The seventh TS had just moved to another RED HQ, in San Francisco.

It took everything I had to hold back my emotions. The only thing I let show was the fury burning inside me. I propped my hands on my hips, pushing aside the shirt that I wore over my T-shirt. I braced my right hand beside my Glock and my left hand next to my RED cell phone and my personal cell.

“Agent Stacy Randolph has been murdered.” I met each one of their shocked gazes. “An op went bad and the killers raped her then slit her throat before dumping her in the harbor.”

Randolph had been spunky, determined, friendly, and down-to-earth. I don’t think she had a single enemy in our division. Or anywhere within RED for that matter.

“We’re going to get the fuckers and we’re going to take them down,” I said, a definite growl in my voice. “After we’ve neutered each and every sick son of a bitch in that operation.”

When I was finished, my fellow supervisors expressed rage that almost matched mine. Then Martinez, Taylor, Blomstein, Kartchner, Lee, and Armistead all filed past me. Each wore expressions of anger and determination. You bet the SOBs who killed Randolph would be history.

The next part was harder, as we each went to our individual teams and told them the news.

After going down the stairs to CC, following the other TSs, I headed to the Team Center for Operation Cinderella. I had built OC from the bottom up.

The constant hum of voices and technology was usually white noise, but right now the sounds added to the buzz and haze of anger in my head.

I glanced around CC and saw the other TSs reach their teams about the same time I reached mine.

“Listen up,” I said, raising my voice enough that everyone on my team could hear me. My three lead agents, David Takamoto, Rick Smithe, and Marti Jensen looked at me over their shoulders. They’d been studying a series of monitors on one giant flat screen. All of the agents on comms stopped what they were doing and gave me their full attention.

My skin prickled as the entire CC went silent at the same time. No white noise, only the hum of technology. The air crackled as if every single one of them instantly knew something bad had gone down.

I stood next to my team leaders and met each team member’s eyes as I spoke to the group. These men and women had worked closely with Randolph. A lot of them were her friends.

My throat worked as I swallowed. I couldn’t completely act the cool, detached Team Supervisor. I was so angry I still almost couldn’t see straight.

“Agent Stacy Randolph,” I swallowed hard again before I continued, “was murdered while undercover.”

The stunned silence in the CC lasted all of five seconds. Then it was like the entire CC burned with a hot wave of fury. Voices filled the center, voices filled with anger and promises of retribution.

Everyone would be out for blood to take down Randolph’s killers.

All agents were professionals, but some of my people couldn’t help the tears they wiped from their eyes and off of their cheeks, even as they tried to maintain composed expressions.

When my team calmed down a bit, I said, “We’ve been given as many resources from as many teams as we can use on this op to find Randolph’s murderers, and to bring the slavers down at the same time.”

I rubbed my hand over my head, no doubt making my dark hair a mess.

“Okay. Best thing to do is go at this with both barrels,” I said. “Tear this thing apart.”

The agents on comms went back to work and I sensed a new fervor to their work. The agents each utilized computer systems while monitoring activity across social media platforms, Internet chat rooms and message boards, e-mail, and phone lines.

Key words were programmed into servers, and as soon as a match popped up we’d get a copy, a recording, video, or a snapshot to review. Any combination of certain words, especially those with “sex” and “slave,” would send the alert.

Slave. Sex slave. Auction. Boston. Nightclubs. Those were just a few of the words that we’d keyed in. We’d included specific nightclubs, and the first and last names of girls who’d been taken while at those establishments.

Usually it turned up nothing because most bad guys were smart enough not to use such obvious lingo, but sometimes we’d get a hit.

We already had Randolph’s undercover name in the database, as well as Deseronto’s, so we’d know if we got a hit there, too.

Takamoto caught my attention as he said, “We screwed up, Steele. The girls are gone.”

“What?” The room nearly echoed with my shout. “They got away?”

Goddamnit! How the hell had we screwed up enough to miss the movement of the girls and not catch the bastards who were holding them?

A new burst of heat burned through me at the thought that we’d let the bastards slip away with the auctioned girls. We would have done anything to stop them if we’d just found their location fast enough. We’d been so damned close to nailing their positions.

Maybe we could even have saved Randolph.

I swore I would blow away every sonofabitch who kidnapped and auctioned off young girls as sex slaves. I glanced to the screen with the dozen or so monitors. “We had solid information. How could the slavers have just gotten away with over a dozen girls while under our watch?”

Smithe rubbed the back of his blond GQ haircut with an uncomfortable expression on his face. “Apparently our intel was bad. They were feeding Randolph the wrong info from the start, which ties in to what happened to her. Looks like she jumped in too fast.”

Probably because she was ready to get out.

“Damn.” I braced my hands on my hips and looked up for a moment at the white ceiling panels before I turned my gaze back to Takamoto, Jensen, and Smithe.

“I want you three to gather what information you can from your snitches.” I turned to Takamoto. “Chancy Yeager is our best source. By this evening I want everything Yeager can give, and I want it on my desk no later than six.”

Yeager was the one who’d gotten us two passes into the exclusive club where I was going undercover Saturday with Agent Perry.

Takamoto was good at schooling his expressions and his emotions. He gave a brief nod. “You’ve got it, Steele.”

Takamoto headed out of the CC as I turned to Smithe. Of course, since I was six to seven inches shorter than him, I had to look up to give him orders. Smithe was a jerk sometimes and I don’t think he liked taking orders from me. But I had to admit he was a good agent.

I gestured to the agents on comms and computers. “Smithe, I want you and your team to expand your searches. Pull as many resources from other teams as you need.”

Before I continued, I took a good look at the vid cams. “Photograph and video everyone coming and going from the clubs Randolph worked. Identify every single one of the patrons. I don’t care if they have a criminal background or not. We’re going deep.”

I hardened my gaze. “I want financial records for the clubs. Find out who owns every damn one of them, annual income, tax records. Just get someone in each club. We’ve got our blanket warrant, so get me all of the info on their hard drives. Whatever it takes.”

Other agencies had to get warrants for every damn thing. Like I said, we could get away with a hell of a lot.

Smithe nodded and turned away without a word.

Jensen was only a couple of inches taller than me when she wasn’t wearing heels. I told her, “I’m going to need help reviewing all of Randolph’s reports, taped conversations, photographs, videos she made while undercover. Get me the intel on who Randolph suspected and what the hierarchy was that Randolph was investigating. Pull whatever resources you need.”

Jensen gave a brief nod. “Done.”

I blew out my breath. “I’ll be in my office.”