“This is a whole new world,” Frank muttered.
“Yeah, it’s a gray one as well,” Caleb said. “Anyway, no handler would be okay with him doing that, so I think it’s something else that has him up in LA. I don’t know what.”
Frank glanced up from the screen, brow furrowed now that he was actually processing the implications. “Wait—circle back to the massacre,” he asked, voice steadying as he shifted into detective mode.
Caleb turned the screen back toward himself and scrolled—fast, as if he didn’t want me to see the pieces until they were lined up right. “Okay,” he said finally. “So… this part isn’t from the Sheriff’s archive. Or the DEA mirror. It’s from an… older source.”
Frank frowned. “Meaning what?”
Caleb exhaled. “Meaning it shouldn’t exist anymore.”
A cold prickle climbed my spine. “Show me.”
He hesitated, then clicked a file open. Grainy. Fragmented. Scanned from a document that had been photocopied too many times.
Across the top was a faded crest. Mexican Federal Police—Organized Crime Task Group.
My pulse kicked. “What am I looking at?” I asked.
“Remember, we had to deep dive for this, way past the normal searches we did about your Alejandro’s medical training and license.”
“He’s not my… jesus… okay…”
“What Jamie found was a list of recovered minors from cartel sites in Mexico,” Caleb said, tapping the header. “Kids found alive at raids. Kidsrescuedwhen leadership fell.” My throat tightened as Caleb scrolled to highlighted, half-blurred lines. “This is after the Águilas massacre, when federal agencies went in.”
He sat back in his seat so I could see the screen.
VARGA, GAEL ALEJANDRO. Estimated age 10–14. Condition: malnourished, multiple healed fractures, second-degree partial-thickness burns, nonverbal during recovery. Status: unaccounted for after the raid; transfer destination unknown.
VARGA, LUCÍA MARISOL. Estimated age 15–17. Condition: severe anemia, untreated infection, evidence of restraint scars, early first-trimester pregnancy (approx six weeks of gestation), nonverbal upon recovery. Status: unaccounted for after the raid; transfer location unknown.
Frank leaned in beside me, his shoulder nearly brushing mine as he studied the file. “Both unaccounted for?” he murmured, quiet but sharp—fully switched-on now.
“GaelAlejandroVarga? You think that’s Doc?”
“Jamie suggested it after tracking fake passports and money transactions, and I tend to agree with his summary.”
“What does it mean, destination unknown?”
“At this point, no freaking idea, we’re running everything we’ve got on this, but I thought you’d want to know. One interesting thing that’s been so well-hidden it took a week for Lyric to dig up… As well as the women and children rescued, he tracked down a leadership survivor, a man called Nazario Ortega, the big guy, also known as Raven. Six months in a burn ward, looks as if he wrestled a flamethrower and lost. When the cartel shattered, everyone considered the cash pipeline had died with it, but the cash never stopped moving; it just went quiet.Five years later, thisRavencreates a new identity and reboots the Águilas Cartel. Same fear and bones, new skin. Previous smuggling routes were revived, with new faces now operating the product through the Iron Bulls MC as before.”
“So does it make sense that our dumping ground crime scene and the older bodies, courtesy of a link to a surgeon, could also be linked to the cartel?” And somehow in all of that, Doc?
“Can’t say for sure, but that’s my guess. And you’re right, our connection issomeonewho knew about the dumping ground and reopened it, with medical knowledge connected to the old cartel, or the old MC, who’s trafficking organs. Two timelines, two messes. The hillside’s a graveyard from the old cartel days. The new body could be linked to the cartel’s new iteration. Who knows?”
Someone with medical knowledge who was linked to the cartel.
Alejandro?
I waited for Caleb to join the dots, but he didn’t; instead, he tapped away and pulled up another screen.
“Now, this is where it gets interesting. Fourteen years ago, the dayafterthe massacre, an offshore account was established under a fake ID, and a shit-ton of the old cartel’s money was syphoned from them to this new account.”
Frank murmured under his breath, leaning closer to the screen, “Follow the money…”
“Raven hiding it?”
“Nope, as I said, he was unconscious in a burn ward on the edge of death, no one else left, and this money was moved the dayafterthe massacre.”
