The man was mid thirties. Teeth gnashing. Disbelieving face that looked pained. He sported government-issued attitude and a crew cut. The woman was striking, even from a distance. Brunette. Nice legs. Hair pinned up. Eyes testing. I recognized her.
The man said, “You just committed a felony.”
“And I may commit a few more.”
“You drew a gun on federal agents,” he said. “You could be spending the next twenty years of your life in a federal prison.”
“You look more like a travel agent than a federal agent.”
He started to lower his hand. “Hold ‘em high, pal, and let’s get something straight real fast. You and your girlfriend drew on me first. Got it all right here on cell phone video. The video these phones record is good enough to use on TV news. I have a permit to carry this gun. I’m holding you at bay in self-defense.”
I touched a nerve in the woman. She spoke up. “I’m not his ‘girlfriend.’ I’m FBI Special Agent Lauren Miles, and this is Special Agent Mark Helmer. We didn’t come here to harm or arrest you, Mr. O’Brien.”
“Could have fooled me.”
“My apologies. We actually wanted to talk with you.”
“There are simpler ways than using GPS tracking to stalk me. Maybe at Quantico they didn’t teach you to use the telephone. I’m sure you have my number. I know you visited my boat and my marina friends. If there is anything you needed to know about me that you don’t already know, Special Agent Miles, all you had to do was ask, especially after I fed your bug to the crabs.”
“Would you please lower your gun and your voice?” she asked.
“Show me some ID.” I approached them. They produced their federal IDs, and I shoved the Glock behind my belt.
“Thank you,” Miles said. Agent Helmer seemed as warm as a little league coach who’d just lost three in a row.
I said, “Before we get cozy, where’d you put the transmitter?”
“It’s inside the right front bumper,” Miles said, looking at the Jeep.
“Then let’s have Special Agent Helmer get it out of the special hiding place.”
“Find it yourself,” he said.
Miles said, “Mark, get it, okay?”
GI Joe’s nose wrinkled like a spanked puppy.
“Please,” Miles said, “just get the damn thing.”
Helmer pulled out a small penknife, worked the GPS tracker from under the Jeep’s bumper, and sat the bug on the hood.
I said, “All right, what’s on your mind. I’ll assume a least one of you is wired.”
“We’re not,” she said. “We know you’re investigating the murder of the girl found not far from your home. We believe her death and others involving farm workers is related.”
“Now that’s damn good police work.”
“Please, Mr. O’Brien. Give us a few minutes to explain. These deaths are part of a bigger picture.”
“Let me guess, you thought I was part of that big picture. Maybe doing a little international export business out of my old home city of Miami. Probably tipped off by a trusted detective with Volusia County SO. You followed me via satellite to see if my path crosses paths with the vic’s. Even for you guys, it’d be easy to calculate location and time of deaths. Then, bingo!”
“You’re a first-class asshole,” the Little Leaguer yelled.
“Orwellian tactics before old-fashioned communications happen to rub me the wrong way.”
“It’s not surveillance,” Miles said.
“Maybe that’s not what the FBI calls it.”
She stepped forward, sighed deeply, crossed her arms over her breasts, and said, “Mr. O’Brien, I knew of you from Miami homicide. I also know you had one of the best conviction records, actually the best in your department. We were hoping you could lead us to the perp or perps doing these serial killings. It’s that simple.”
“Either that’s the worse compliment I’ve ever received or the FBI is just plain lazy. You’re looking for an ex-cop to help you do your jobs? What’s the real reason?”
Little Leaguer shoved his hands in his pockets and said to Miles, “Let’s just get the hell out of here. Last thing we need is a burned-out cop with a bad attitude.”
“And the last thing I need is two wannabes using me to help them do their jobs. Go back to Miami and put your transmitters on ships. Catch some terrorists.”
I turned to leave, and she said, “Now you wait just a minute, Mr. O’Brien!”
“Or you’ll do what, bug my bedroom this time?”
“We’re short staffed. The Miami office is in charge of keeping all the South American sleaze in check. We do have more ports and open coastline to secure than any state. There are more drugs, international gangs and criminals filtering through Miami than any city in the nation.”
“I served my time in Miami.”
“We’re aware you took early retirement after the death of your wife. We know you’ve moved on but wound up in the middle of this. Can we work together?”
“Not interested in government work.”
“We’re not offering you a job. We’re asking for some cooperation.”
“Why? Why and how has this evolved to get you guys out of your offices?”
She was hesitant, choosing her words carefully. “You’re involved because you care about innocent people. We don’t have the means or manpower to keep check with the tidal flow of human trafficking into America. We know there’s sexual abuse, sexual slavery, beatings, and murders. No one will talk because they’re scared to death. It makes it very easy for a serial killer to penetrate because these people are afraid of the government, afraid they’ll be deported, and they’re afraid of the contractors who they work for. In the last few months, the prostitution ring escalated from serial murder to the sale of human organs.”
“So it takes the sale of hearts to get to the heart of the FBI? Is that when you finally send in your troops? Or is it because there are six months to the primaries, and this wouldn’t look good to the incumbent. Unsolved serial killings, human trafficking, sexual slavery. So not politically correct.”
Her nostrils flared, pupils at pinpoints, carotid artery pounding in her neck. “What is your problem? Why won’t you cooperate?”
“Problem? The problem is it takes the media, the reports of human organs cut out of victims, to get the FBI moving. It’s not enough for these people to be held as sex slaves, beaten and killed. They’ve got to be sold like a side of beef to raise some red federal flags.”
She started to speak then abruptly stopped. I said, “A friend of mine was just murdered. It’s because of what’s happening in these sex slavery circles that she was killed. For me, it started when I found a young women dying near my home. Now a woman I cared about was shot in her home as she was coming to have dinner with me. This is personal.”
“I’m sorry this has happened to these people. The point is we’re trying to do something, to find the person or persons responsible. You’ve made inroads in this case. You’ve penetrated the inner circles. We know a lot of the abuse is coming from contractors working for SunState Farms, but we don’t know who their upscale clients are and who’s killing these women.”
I said, “In other words, you don’t know, as my best buddy in Special Forces used to say, you don’t know shit.”
Junior said, “That’s enough—”
“Mark! Please! Mr. O’Brien’s right. We don’t know shit. But we will, and we’ll do it with or without you, Mr. O’Brien. If you become a problem, it’s obstruction of justice. If you work with us—”
“It’s what? Cooperation? Save your threats for someone you can scare. They mean nothing to me. What does mean something is catching a man who’ll look you in the eye, Special Agent Miles, while he’s shutting off the air to your lungs, while he’s raping you. Right before you pass out, he’ll place his lips on yours and blow the kiss of life into your lungs…just to do it again. The second time he won’t bring you back. He’ll literally suck the life out of you. And after your heart stops, he’ll remove it.”