He led his partner from room to room, where Remy zigzagged back and forth. His nose twitched, and Hawk could hear him snuffling as he poked his head into nooks and crannies, scanning up and down, side to side. They moved into the kitchen—the last room left to search. Remy checked everything while ignoring the overflowing garbage and the lunch meat on the table. After a few minutes, his partner sat in front of the refrigerator and looked up at Hawk.
Hawk opened the fridge and let Remy sniff, but he didn’t hit on anything. He opened the freezer and was instantly suspicious when he discovered it wasn’t working. He tapped the top edge of the fridge door; Remy stood on his hind legs and placed his front paws against the door. Almost immediately, he sat again and whined.
Hawk pulled out his knife, flipped it open, and wedged it between the automatic ice maker and the side of the freezer. He pried off the cover and, hidden inside, wrapped in plastic and butcher paper, was an external hard drive.
“Good job, bud.” Hawk squatted in front of him, scratched his neck, and gave a couple of good solid thumps to his side. “Good job.”
Remy wagged his tail and did a little happy dance, knowing exactly what happened next.
“Here ya go.” Hawk dug out a good-size chunk of his homemade jerky from a pocket in his tactical vest and gave it to Remy. “Wanna go outside?”
Remy barked and hopped up and down, excited to play.
They crossed back through the house as Cole and Viking were lifting the creep off the floor.
“Found this.” Hawk handed the hard drive to Cole.
“Good work, Remy.” His boss bent over and gave Remy some attention. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
All of OSI’s teams, including Dark Ops, were covert. In other words, they didn’t exist. Once an op was done, they disappeared, and the feds and locals took care of the aftermath. Because, unlike the feds and local law enforcement, OSI’s teams operated in the gray area, where the rules were more … fluid.
Hawk loved that about his job.
“Come on, you piece of shit.” Cole tightened his grip on the trafficker’s elbow, causing him to wince, then he and Viking escorted the dirtbag outside.
Hawk followed, jogged down the porch steps, and tugged Remy’s stuffed duck toy from a pocket on the leg of his pants.
“Sit.” He waited until Remy sat, then he drew his arm back and tossed the toy. “Get it!”
Remy took off like a shot, ran over to grab his toy where it landed on the grass, and trotted back to him with a smile on his doggy face, not a care in the world.
Hawk envied his partner.
CHAPTER THREE
Charlotte’sfingersstopped,hoveredover the keyboard, and she listened carefully. She was sure she’d heard something that sounded like a door clicking shut. She saved her work, stood, and walked over to her office doorway.
“Hello?” She stood on her tiptoes and looked out over the rows of cubicles, but everyone had left long ago. She’d walked around the office to make sure of it.
Was she becoming paranoid, or was someone messing with her head?
Motivated to get the heck out of there, she rushed back to her desk, sat down, and hurriedly finished typing a summary of everything she’d discovered over the past few months. She had to stop twice because her fingers shook so badly. She attached her summary and the scanned images of the supporting documents and sent all of it to two separate anonymous email addresses she’d set up right after she first discovered what was happening and who was involved.
She quickly saved all of the documentation to an external hard drive and unplugged it from her laptop. Charlotte printed a copy of everything and stuffed it and the small hard drive into the largest poly envelope she could find. She would double-check the contents one last time when she got home, then seal it up. She planned to give it to someone who would know what to do with the information inside if anything happened to her.
Her phone beeped. She lifted it from her desk and checked the screen to verify she’d received both of the emails she’d sent. Once she knew they were there, she promptly deleted any trace of the originals from her work computer.
If anyone found out what she was doing and what she’d discovered, her life would be over. She didn’t mean that in an overly dramatic, high school, my-boyfriend-broke-up-with-me kind of way.
No, her life wouldliterallybe over.
That was how deep the shit was that she’d tripped into.
And, contrary to her current activities, Charlotte wasn’t some sort of corporate spy who was used to this kind of intrigue.
The government had a federally funded program responsible for resettling the record number of unaccompanied minors who entered the United States, but it delegated most of the work to NGOs like HRA.
A boatload of money flowed into the coffers of her organization, and where there was money, there were politicians and pundits willing to attach themselvesfor the good of the children, but really, it was for the good of their political careers and/or personal bank accounts.
