The Rescue(48)

“No way. Not in this traffic. Not at night,” she said. “They were focused on you. I watched the two tailing units work their way back through traffic after chasing the diversion back at Venice Boulevard. Never looked anywhere but ahead of them.”

“Wow. I thought we’d have to pull some pure fucking magic on them later tonight,” said Harlow.

“I think you maxed out your PFM credit line already.”

“Yep. Time to lie low and analyze.”

“I got you covered,” said Sophie. “Full operations center in a sick Hollywood Hills rental. Gated community. No way the FBI is going to sniff this place out, and if they did, they can’t get eyes or ears on it.”

“How much did that cost?”

“You really don’t want to know. But I think it’s necessary in this case.”

Harlow couldn’t help but wince at the additional expense. Not for her own sake, but her partners’. She’d gladly spend every dime she had on Decker’s cause. Her mission in life was perfectly aligned right now. Uncovering the conspiracy behind Decker’s fall could do more to expose the institutional rot responsible for the unhampered growth of the human-trafficking industry than she could ever hope to accomplish with her firm.

If they could connect Aegis Global to the Meghan Steele tragedy, along with the Bratva’s trafficking network, the government would be forced to act. Senator Steele would undoubtedly make that her sole focus.

Her partners had felt the same way, agreeing to devote their full attention and the firm’s considerable resources to the “Decker situation,” but the cost and potential liability to the firm had grown exponentially in a very compact span of time.

“Are you okay with that?” she said.

“Come again?” said Sophie, glancing back at her between the seats.

“It’s just that the Decker situation is expanding, and the stakes are getting higher,” said Harlow. “I’m just . . . I don’t know.”

“We’re all one hundred percent in on the Decker situation.”

“I’m just saying. This could implode on us,” said Harlow. “Severely.”

“I don’t care. I’ll gladly go to jail for this. Or worse.”

“Worse is where this is headed,” said Harlow. “I think we need to get everyone together and check the commitment level, given today’s developments.”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” said Sophie. “I’m in this to the end.”

“I’m not worried about anyone,” said Harlow. “I just want to be fair. We’ve worked our asses off to get the firm to this point. Pushing this any further could wreck all of that. We may have already done irreparable damage. The FBI isn’t going to give us a pass on this. Neither will the Solntsevskaya Bratva. They’ll figure out we were involved somehow. Then there’s Aegis. They’ve already tossed my apartments. It’s only a matter of time before they toss everyone else’s places.”

“We can always get new apartments,” said Sophie. “We’ll never get a chance like this again. A real shot at making a real difference in the war against these traffickers.”

“We make a difference every day. That’s real.”

“I know, but think about this. Some sick fucker out there kidnapped the teenage daughter of a US senator and handed her to the Russians, expecting them to melt her in a barrel of lye. Then they threw a fit when they found out these unscrupulous Russians kept her alive for leverage and executed a mass murder across several states to cover it all up.”

“It’s insane,” said Harlow, thinking about the murdered families.

“That’s the really troubling aspect of all this. It didn’t sound insane to someone. Someone considered this to be the best solution to a problem—which must have been one hell of a problem.”

“Funny you say that,” said Harlow. “I’ve spent most of my time focused on what happened in Hemet—at the very end of the Steele tragedy. But Penkin’s claim that the Bratva didn’t kidnap her, assuming I believe him, sent me back to the beginning. If the Russians didn’t kidnap her, who the hell did? And why? We answer those questions and we unravel everything, taking every sick bastard involved in this nightmare down.”

“I like the sound of that,” said Sophie.

“Me, too.”

“Then we’ll work on the bigger picture while we steer Decker,” said Sophie. “We have the tools and the talent to dig pretty deep. May as well put it to good use.”

“After we get everyone’s consensus.”

“That, too,” said Sophie, adjusting the rearview mirror. “You can sit up now. We’re about to merge onto Century Boulevard. There’s an In-N-Out Burger just past the casino, if you’re interested.”

She sat up and peered through the lift-gate window, not seeing anything that piqued her suspicion.

“I’m very interested.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Decker sat in the second row of the tinted-windowed minivan, replaying the transfer in his head. He once again had to hand it to Harlow. The move had been perfectly executed. One moment he sat in the front passenger seat of Harlow’s car, the next he had been yanked out of his seat onto the street. An identically dressed man with a buzz cut told him to get in the van before hopping into Mackenzie’s car.