Page 13 of Grayson

“In all likelihood, someone gave them the small jobs to see if they could pull them off and if they got caught, would they keep their mouths shut,” Hunter.

“Wait,” said Grayson. “Maybe they’re not selling the kids at all. Maybe they’re using the kids to grow their army, kind of like they do in Africa. Steal young kids, train them, kill them if they don’t perform. But either way, the kids are never seen again.”

“But what about the nuns?” asked Jennifer. “They’re not training them to steal or commit crimes.”

“No, they’re probably not,” said U-Jin, “but it doesn’t mean they’re not selling them or training them for something worse than crimes.”

“Once we have the intel from our team back home, we’ll have a better idea of which direction they traveled. I agree with everyone here. Lacroix is going to be seriously pissed that they lost you,” said Striker nodding at Jennifer.

Her face flushed and she nodded back at him. Striker walked toward her, gripping her shoulders.

“I didn’t mean to be so blunt, Jennifer. You’ll realize that your soon-to-be father-in-law is an asshole sometimes. Just ask my wife.”

“You’re not an asshole,” she said leaning against him. She wrapped her arms around him and he hugged the young woman, kissing the top of her head. “You were always so sweet to me and I saw you as another father to me. I can’t wait to officially be part of your family.”

Grayson smiled at his father and then looked at the rest of the team.

“While we’re killing time, let’s get some food and start looking at possibilities. Don’t take a piss without someone being with you, Jennifer. You will always have at least two people with you.” She started to protest but Grayson, Striker, and Moose all stood as if to warn her. “Always. At least two.”

“Okay,” she nodded. “No arguments. At least two.”

She left the trailer, several of Grayson’s team following her. He turned to the men he’d known since childhood, his fisted hands at his side.

“If anything happens to her, you’re going to have to drug me with horse tranquilizers to keep me down.”

“Not happening,” said Moose slapping his back as he walked by. “If anything happens to her, we’re all aligned, we go berserker.”

CHAPTER NINE

The room beneath the abandoned winery had no windows, only sweating concrete walls and a single lamp that hung over a steel desk. Kyle Lacroix stood beneath its jaundiced light with dried mud on his boots and a split across one knuckle, listening to the slow tick of a clock he could not see.

His boss sat beyond the light, where the shadows erased everything but the pale oval of his hands. One finger tapped the desktop, once, twice, then stopped. The silence that followed felt less like patience than a blade being tested.

“Say it again,” the boss said.

Kyle kept his voice level.

“We found the team at the bottom of the mountain. All four men. Their radios were smashed, their weapons were gone, and none of them could tell us where the children had been taken because they were dead.”

The tapping began again.

“And the nuns?”

“Gone with them.” Kyle tasted iron where he had bitten the inside of his cheek. “The cave was empty. Food left on the make-shift tables. Blankets missing. Tracks led down the south path and then into the trees, but the storm washed most of them away before we arrived.”

The boss leaned forward just enough for his eyes to catch the light.

“You told me one frightened girl was causing trouble.”

“Jennifer isn’t frightened and she’s not a girl. She’s a grown woman.” The words came too quickly, too sharply. Kyle forced his jaw loose. “And she didn’t do this alone. Someone helped them. Someone who knew the mountain, knew our patrol routes, and knew exactly when the weather would cover an escape.”

A pipe groaned somewhere overhead. Kyle caught the faint rumble of trucks moving along the river road, each one carrying ordinary cargo above a basement built for extraordinary cruelty.

“I did not ask for theories,” the boss said. “I asked for results.”

Kyle stepped closer to the desk.

“Give me forty-eight hours. I’ll find Jennifer, and she’ll lead me to the rest.”