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“That’s unsettling,” I admitted and I wasn’t alone scowling at the information I’d scattered.
“Maybe they are all guilty. Maybe some are only guilty by association. Maybe some are just—covering their own ass.” She sighed and picked up another photo. It was of a woman, she was a student from Bulgaria supposedly studying in the UK. She’d been missing for more than eighteen months and there was barely even a blip for her via law enforcement.
Unscrewing a water bottle, I downed about half of it before I carried my mug back to the table. “According to the dates, every few weeks, they host another ‘gathering.’ Another sale. They rotate countries, cities, and ‘hosts.’ Our twelve big buyers all serve as traveling hosts or have, but they aren’t the only ones.”
“So Monte Carlo wasn’t a chokepoint.” All emotion drained out of Bones’ voice.
“It was,” I assured him. “The hit they took there, at the secondary event with O’Rourke, and even with what we took here, they are going to feel it.”
“But they aren’t going to just curl up and die.” Lunchbox flipped pancakes as he stared at the stove. “Even if we shove a bomb up their asses and blow it.”
“No,” I said with a sigh. “We kill this arm, another will pop up. Probably two based on what I’ve pulled apart so far. There are other ‘organizations’ involved. One in Eastern Europe, Russian, another in Singapore, probably something for Australia and we know the U.S. is in there.”
“Central and South America,” Bones added both items like ticking a box.
“Definitely, but that gets us into cartel land and there are some we don’t want to start a fight with,” Voodoo murmured.
“Not right now,” I agreed with him. “We’ve already got a lot on the board.”
Grace hadn’t said a word since she asked if there was a way to be certain if the blackmail list clients were guilty or not.
“I’ve run every tag and ID through facial recognition. No hits on Amorette,” I said softly. “I have another program running descriptions, keywords that could apply to either of you and some that would only apply to her.”
Grace didn’t react. Not visibly.
“She’s not in this cluster,” I continued “I don’t think this was her pipeline.” I hated telling her that. Hated telling her that while this had been her destination, it wasn’t her sister’s.
“So we keep looking. Right?” Lunchbox had the pan off the stove and he flicked a look at each of us.
“It’s not our only option,” Voodoo said slowly, but I could hear the dislike he chewed over with each word.
Grace turned to face him. For his part, he focused on her and not us.
“We could turn this over,” Voodoo continued. “Interpol, a contact in MI6 I trust, maybe even leak it. It’d go wide fast. Public. Big splash, lot of heat.” It was what she’d wanted to do for herself, only then it was FBI or Homeland.
“But no control.” Bones shook his head, despite his neutral tone. Again, facts, but even he seemed to find impartiality a challenge. “Once it’s out, we don’t get to decide how or when it ends.”
“Wemightget Amorette’s name in the noise,” I added, because we couldn’t afford tonottake all the acts into account. “But she’ll be just that. Noise.”
The room fell still. Lunchbox shut off the stove and joined us in studying Grace. The food smelled good but none of us were going to eat with this hanging out there.
“Your sister’s not in there. But you are.” Bones braced his knuckles on the table, his gaze fixed on her. “Every risk we take now—it circles back to you. So... it’s your call.”
“We keep hunting,” Lunchbox added his vote “Or we light this fuse and walk away.” He clearly had no interest in walking away, but I was with him on lighting the fuse. We might not ever burn it all down, but it had to go.
“Any way you want to do it,” Voodoo summed up. “We back your play.”
Bones folded his arms. “You’re not the mission anymore. You’re the center of it.”
I damn near wanted to cheer. Never thought I’d see the day Cap took the stick out, but he cared and itshowed.
She didn’t answer us, not immediately. Instead, she studied the files, the papers, the notes I’d cobbled together.
“Then we go after the rest,” she murmured, touching another picture, one of a girl who couldn’t have been fourteen when it was taken. She’d vanished into that system four or five years earlier.
“Even if Amorette’s not part of this?” Bones met her gaze. He wasn’t doubting or testing her, he was verifying.
“Especiallyif she isn’t,” Grace said. “Because that means the system is bigger. And I want it to choke on everything it tried to take from me. From her.”