CHAPTER 3
Josie
The coffee is not helping.
I’m at my desk on the Jameson operations floor at seven forty-five in the morning, which is forty-five minutes later than when I usually start. The coffee in my hand is the second one I’ve made since I sat down, and I expect I’ll need another after that before I feel human.
I’m operating on less than two hours of sleep for the night and those hours were disjointed at best.
The mysterious Finn Marlowe and his captain, who he only introduced as Marcus, did me a solid and took me all the way to Mukilteo on the mainland rather than Whidbey Island.
Then Finn sort of rescued me again.
It was only when I stepped out onto the public marina dock in my wet clothes and no shoes did I realize it was two a.m., dark and I had no phone. It was in my jacket, which is now deep underwater. I had no way to call for a ride.
Finn gallantly ordered an Uber from his phone and I thought to decline only because that would mean he’d have my address, but in the end, I accepted.
It wasn’t because I was too tired, wet and cold to argue, but really…
he seemed like a trustworthy guy. I mean…
the man took on Russian human traffickers who have no problem killing people. He didn’t have to do that.
I almost cried when my house came into view in the wee morning hours and my fingers shook as I entered the code on my keypad lock to let myself in.
I peeled off the rest of my wet clothes and stood under a hot shower until I stopped trembling.
From there I fell into bed, but the sleep was not restorative in any way.
I take a swallow of coffee and push my chair back. It’s time to face the music.
Malik Fournier’s office is at the south end of the main floor of the Jameson building.
Glass walls with sage-green trim and full of morning light, his office is subtly masculine with minimal decorations.
He has a small bookcase behind his desk and it’s loaded with family pictures.
The largest is his wife Anna holding their daughter Avery.
There’s another large one of Malik and his siblings.
His brothers, Lucas and Max, are both professional hockey players with the Carolina Cold Fury, and his sister, Simone, whose husband is a former player and now coaches for the new expansion team, the Portland Wildfire.
The door is open so I knock on the frame to announce myself. “Got a minute?”
Malik doesn’t look up from his laptop screen but makes a quick motion of his hand, waving me in.
I close the door behind me and when he hears the click, his head lifts.
Malik’s an incredibly handsome man with dark hair down to his collar and piercing hazel eyes.
His brothers and sister all have the same striking color combination but only Malik has a distant haunted look in his eyes.
Like everyone here at Jameson, Malik did his service to our country.
He was a combat marine, but it wasn’t until he was an agent at Jameson that he was taken as a prisoner of war.
He spent five months in a hole in the Syrian desert before the company was able to rescue him, and I don’t know that he’ll ever lose that look.
It’s a potent reminder—not that I need it after last night—that this job is dangerous.
“I don’t know what you’re about to tell me, but I can tell by looking at you it’s not good,” he says, motioning to the chair across from his desk.
I take a breath as I lower myself down. “It’s not good. I went to Anacortes alone. And well… it went south.”
Malik straightens up, concern etched in his brow. He gives me a once-over, cataloging my body for signs of physical injury. His gaze lingers on my face, and I know he’s taking in the look of exhaustion. “But you’re okay?”
“I’m okay, but… I almost wasn’t.”
Another second or two of concern, but then his features harden into a man needing the cold, hard details. “Start at the beginning.”
“As you know, BOB had flagged a potential transfer point that Anatoli Voronin might use to facilitate a transfer of women out of British Columbia.” Malik nods, not impatiently, and I know that information is irrelevant.
Malik knows every single mission inside and out.
“At any rate, the math gave us seventy-three percent on a four-hour window between twenty-three hundred and oh-three hundred. I had the data. I wanted eyes on it.”
“I know this. You were supposed to go with Reid.”
“But Reid got pulled off—”
“And you were specifically told not to go alone.”
“Because I’m a woman?” I ask, not able to help myself.
I would expect my temerity to piss him off, but his tone is calm and even. “Because we always go in pairs for safety, whether you’re a man or a woman.”
My shoulders sag. “I know. I really know, and my goal was only to put eyeballs on the area. Snap some pictures. It was supposed to be safe.”
“Come on, Josie. Don’t drag this out anymore and tell me what happened.”
I suck in a quavering breath. I tell him about the boat coming in, the Russians, the women being marched off with no more care than if they were boxes of illegal drugs.
“Six women,” I say quietly. “All cuffed and loaded into a panel van. I couldn’t see the plate though.” I clear my throat, force myself to stay focused on him. “There was another man apparently walking perimeter. He found me.”
“Motherfucker,” Malik rumbles low, his fists curling on the desk.
“I’m okay,” I exclaim, holding up my hands. “I’m okay. I promise.”
Malik stares at me, and there’s no doubt he’s pissed. I rush through the rest. The march at gunpoint to the dock, their discussion on how to kill me, to which I notice his knuckles go white, and finally, how I escaped into the water.
Malik blinks in surprise, eyes flaring. “And you, what? Swam to shore somehow?”
“Not quite. They, um… fired at me while I was underwater…” Malik’s eyes flame with fury, prompting me to blurt, “But they missed. Weren’t even close.
” I don’t bother to give him the details of how I was so cold I could barely move, how I thought I was going to die, but move right into my rescue. “I was picked up by another boat.”
“Another boat?” he asks in disbelief.
“Um… yeah. Two guys out fishing.”
“In the dead of night?” he asks suspiciously.
“Yeah… that’s what they said, and frankly, I was so cold and grateful, I didn’t really think it unusual.”
That is an absolute lie. I still pegged Finn as some type of smuggler, and I’m not sure why I keep that to myself. I suppose I’m so grateful he saved me from certain death that I just can’t bring myself to get him in any trouble.
“And what about Voronin’s men? Did they see you get rescued? Did they come after you and this…” and here he uses air-quotes, “‘fisherman’?”
I’m going to walk a fine line, trying not to lie while also trying to keep Malik’s worry to a minimum and really trying to keep suspicions on Finn to a minimum.
“It was dark and they couldn’t see the boat that picked me up.
They were trying to undock to give chase, but my rescuers had a faster boat.
Got out of there and I’m not sure if they ever did give chase as I was below deck. ”
I don’t tell him that Finn fired on them to give us time to escape. Bold lie.
Malik lets out a long breath and rubs the bridge of his nose as if to stave off a headache. “And then what?”
“They took me to Mukilteo. I took an Uber home.”
“And the Jameson vehicle?”
“Still back where I left it.”
I brace for more questions. There are so many holes in what I’ve told him.
But Malik leans back in his chair, drumming his fingers on the armrest. His head tilts and he stares at the ceiling. I want to blurt out a million things to take the heat off me, off what might be coming Finn’s way, but none of it seems right.
“Permission to speak freely, sir.”
His head lifts, eyes pin on me. “Sir? Since when do I require people to call me sir?”
I feel my face heat up. “Sorry… it’s just… I’m feeling very much in trouble here.”
“You are in trouble,” he says softly. I’d rather he yell at me.
“They went into a panel van,” I murmur.
Malik frowns at the abrupt change in subject. “The women?”
“The women,” I say with a miserable nod of my head. “I had ninety seconds, maybe two minutes, where I could have called you, called the police, hell… called someone. I told myself I needed the photos first. I told myself the photos were the evidence and the call was the follow-up.”
Understanding flashes in his expression and it softens slightly. “You couldn’t have stopped it.”
“I could have made the call.”
Malik nods. “You could have made the call. The call would have brought local PD or the Coast Guard to a dock in Anacortes thirty to ninety minutes after the boat tied up. You know that math.”
“I could have engaged. I had my firearm. I could have held them at gunpoint until—”
“No, you couldn’t have. You’d be dead and you know it.”
“But—”
“So the answer to what could you have done differently is the question you actually have to live with, which is should you have been there at all? And you know the answer to that one too.”
I nod, my heart still aching for those women. “I shouldn’t have been there alone.”
“You shouldn’t have been there at all but you’re alive. That’s the first thing. The second thing is that if you ever do something like that again, I will fire you on the spot. Are we clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
Malik arches an eyebrow.
“I mean… yes, Malik. I’m clear.”
“Good. I want you to give a full debrief to Cole sometime today. I want all the details you conveniently left out.”
My mouth sags slightly but he doesn’t see it, instead turning back to his screen. I’m going to have to give up Finn’s name and I know Cole… he’ll nitpick all the details out of me as he’s been trained to do.
Malik starts typing on his laptop and I think for a half second I’m dismissed. I open my mouth to start laying out what I want to put into BOB next—the new data points, the timing patterns.