Tragic Desires (2 page)

T
he blaring ring
of my phone wakes me. I’m pissed. I rarely sleep this deep and the one night I do …

“This had better be damn important, Huff, to wake my ass up in the middle of the night.”

“I wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t.”

“Shoot.”

“You’ve had three messages from a Colton Knight. Says he’s with the FBI and needs to talk with you. Says it’s urgent. And the dude sounded like it was more than urgent. I didn’t bother you with the first two, but when the last one came in, he sounded right upset.”

I groan. Colt’s a close friend from my former military days. “Yeah, I know him all right. He’s a good guy. I’ll take care of it. Thanks
, Huff.”

“Sorry I bothered you, boss.”

“No worries, man. Talk later.”

Troy Huffington was a great employee. He wasn’t one of those pains in the ass
who asked me for permission on every tiny detail. But I wish he’d called me sooner on Colt. This must be important. Then again, how would Huff have known that?

I quickly press Colt’s number and he answers on the first ring.

“Agent Knight.”

“Colt? Drexel Wolfe. I hear you’ve been trying to reach me.”

“Damn. Took you long enough.”

“Sorry
, dude. I was sleeping. Like any self-respecting citizen would be doing at 3 a.m.”

“Shit. Since when have you been
self-respecting?”

“Ever since I got away from your ass, that’s when
.” I chuckle.

“Yeah, right. Listen, I need you. We have a situation.
In Austin, Texas. Are you familiar with Austin at all?”

“A little. Why?”

“Ever hear of Dirty Sixth?”

I laugh. “You
gotta be kidding me.” Dirty Sixth is a section of East Sixth Street that is similar to Bourbon Street in New Orleans, but on a much smaller scale. It’s open only to pedestrians on weekends and other special events and is the location for many clubs and bars where partygoers hang out.

“Not at all,” Colt says.

It’s not hard to miss the seriousness in his voice. “Okay, you got my attention. What’s up?”

“We’ve
had a string of young women who’ve gone missing from the bars on Dirty Sixth. Random disappearances. We think it may be human trafficking.”

“No shit?”

“No shit. No trace of them. We’re up to thirteen now. And we’re afraid if we don’t put someone in there, it’s gonna get worse. I’ve got two sets of feet in now, but I need another. My problem is that I’m shorthanded. I need bodies on the outside watching the area so I want to know if you’ll go in wired and start checking things out.”

“Yeah, I can do that. How much time do you need?”

“At least a week, maybe two.”

After
a quick calendar check on my phone, I say, “Yeah, I can clear off a few things. When do you need me?”

“Yesterday.”

“Got it. Tell me when and where.”

Colt
provides the necessary details.

“Not to worry
, man. I’ll be in position tomorrow night.”

After we end the call, I text my
pilot. Then I try to go back to sleep.

My plane lands
at two thirty and a car meets me on the tarmac. The 103˚ heat of Austin slams into me like a freight train, after coming from Denver, where the weather was in the low eighties. I throw my gear in the back of the SUV and punch the hotel address into the GPS. Soon, I’m on the expressway, on my way to meet Colton and his men. He’s waiting for me in the lobby when I arrive.

“
Hot enough for you? This is like Vegas,” I complain.

“Tell me about it. I’ve got men stationed on
rooftops wearing Kevlar at night. It’s like the Iraqi desert in full battle gear. You luck out. You’ll be inside with the AC.”

“Good to know,” I say, feeling sorry for t
hose poor guys who get the rooftop duty.

“Come on. Get checked in and then we’ll go up and I’ll brief you.”

When we walk into the suite, six heads turn my way. I know two of the guys—Hugh Phillips and Dylan McElroy. Colt introduces me to four more, tosses me a bottled water and we start in on what’s been happening.

Dylan
hands me a packet and I pull out photos of the young women who’ve disappeared. All young and beautiful, their lives ahead of them. Gone without a trace. As I glance over each page, I’m as baffled as these guys are. There isn’t anything we can sink our teeth into. Every one of these victims vanished into thin air.

“No witnesses?” I ask.

Colt shakes his head. “Not a single one.”

“What about roommates?”

“Half of them didn’t have roommates. None of them had boyfriends.”

“Well, shit. That rules out the
number-one suspect,” I say.

Colton adds, “That would’ve been ruled out anyway. Why wou
ld one guy take all these women? If he had relationships with one, why go after all?”

I have to ask this
, even though I hate to. “Serial killer?”

“Possibility, but no bodies,” Hugh answers this time.

I rake my hand through my hair. I normally keep it cut short, but I haven’t had time for a trim in a long time, so it’s longer than usual. “All of these are happening on Dirty Sixth?”

H
eads bob up and down.

“Did any of these girls have friends they were out with or were they out alone?”

“They all came alone. They usually met friends out, but they never came in with anyone,” Steven says.

“So you’re telling me that all these girls were targeted. The
perp knew exactly who he was going to meet and he also knew if these girls would be alone. They would be easy to overtake.”

“Exactly. He
, or they, have been watching these girls and have been very careful about who they’re taking,” Colton says.

I shoot him a look. “Explain.”

“Every one of these girls either lived alone, or had roommates that were gone for an extended length of time … like, all summer. Their jobs were the type where they worked from home and didn’t report in anywhere. They had minimal contact with their families so if they went missing, no one would know for a few days. It was orchestrated down to the greatest detail.”

I shake my head. “They’re pros.”

“No fucking shit.” Dylan stands and stretches. “Here’s the thing. We’ve been casing the clubs now, but we don’t know how or who to watch.”

Colton looks at me. “And this is where you come in
, Drex.”

“Go on.”

Colt points to a map of the Dirty Sixth area. “I want you stationed in the bars here. Keep a lookout for anything that might seem suspicious. We’ve got six men and that’s it. I need two guys on rooftops checking streets from that vantage point. And I need one man inside relaying information back and forth. I also need a man in a vehicle standing by in case we need an extraction, because we don’t have a clue who we’re dealing with. That only leaves three … you and two others to case the inside of the clubs down there.” When Colton finishes, I realize we have more than our share of work cut out for us.

“How many clubs?” I ask.

Everyone laughs. “A shit ton,” Dylan says as he runs his hand up and down the map, indicating the number of bars on Sixth Street. And he’s right. There are many.

“Great. Just great.
Okay, so are there any that the abductions have been centered around?”

“We’re not even close to a hundred percent on that, but we think it might be
these six clubs,” Marshall adds.

“Well, at least that’s something. Damn. This is bad. I can’t remember working on anything that was so lacking in information.”

“Don’t remind us, Drex. But our focus is on those six right now. And the sad thing is we may be off base here.” Colt stands. “Okay, guys, let’s take a break. We’ll meet back here around six thirty for some eats, and then afterward, we’ll gear up and head out for the night. Drex, if you can stay, I’d like a few minutes.”

Everyone heads out. When the door closes behind the last
guy, Colt looks at me and says, “I’ve got a very bad feeling about this.”

I try to read him. Colton and I go way back
… to our days in Iraq. We both served as Black Ops. We’d been stationed in the Middle East in the Special Forces when we were both culled and subsequently trained in that highly secretive group … not that we truly had a choice. Well, I suppose we did, but back then, neither of us would’ve thought about refusing such an honor. The end result had turned out much better for Colt than for me. I’m thankful to be alive, but the price I paid was steep.

“Don’t just say that and then go quiet on me. Spill it, Colt.”

“I don’t know, man. There’s something here, but I can’t put my finger on it. Human trafficking, yeah, I think we may have hit on that. It’s the perfect profile. Young, unattached female. But the zero clue thing. Usually there is at least one to go on. But not here. Which leads me to believe someone big is behind this.”

“Big
, as in government?”

Colton pinches the
bridge of his nose. “Naw, not government … at least not ours. More likely corporate. I’m thinking overseas. Once these girls are gone, their pictures are plastered everywhere … Internet, newspapers, TV, you name it. And we have zero hits. So that has to mean they’ve been moved out of the country. In the two or three days between their disappearance and when someone notices they’re gone, they’re already out of here.”

“Mexico?”

“I don’t think so. Unless they’re using the same route that the Mexicans are using to come into the US, the patrols are so heavy right now, I doubt they could make it through. It would have to be by air or sea.”

“And you don’t think this is a serial killer. And that they’re not dead already?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t. There’s nothing here that points to that. Then again, there’s nothing here that says it isn’t, either. My gut is telling me no, though.”

“So, Colt, what are the local guys doing?”

“Everything we ask them to. They’re as baffled as we are, which is why they called us. But, like us, they don’t have a whole lot of manpower to spare. And a lot of their undercover guys are in narcotics and don’t want their covers blown working on this. That’s why we need you.”

I nod. “You got me. I can’t stay forever, but I’ve cleared the next two weeks.”

“Thanks, man. You’re the sharpest guy I know. If anyone can help, it’s you.”

His words strike a deep chord and it’s one I don’t want associated with me.
“Hey, don’t put that on me. I may not find a damn thing.”

“I know. But I had to at least give you a shot. If you don’t see anything, I don’t know where we’ll go
next.”

I stand to leave when Colt stops me. “Hey
, Drex. I just want you to know that I’m happy for you. Happy that your business took off so well. If anyone deserves it, it’s you.”

We exchange a hard look and I nod. Unspoken words pass between us, wor
ds neither of us will ever say because of all the bitterness they would expose. But we both know the truth of things, and that’s all that matters. We’ll be brothers until they shovel the dirt onto our coffins.

The club
’s crowd
swells as I gaze across the room. My seat at the bar is angled to give me a bird’s eye view. The bartender picks up my glass and I nod, indicating my desire for a refill. I’m drinking Jack and Coke, light on the Jack. It’s not my usual drink of choice, but I need the caffeine. The crowd mix is about fifty-fifty, so I keep checking the sea of people, looking for anything out of order. So far, nothing indicates trouble.

There’s a
dark-haired girl, in the right age range, alone. She’s weaving her way through the crowd, heading toward me. A break in the line at the bar allows her to inch through. She scoots next to me and leans in to get the bartender’s attention. He knows why I’m here. We’ve prearranged all of this with the owner, so I signal him with my head. She fits the profile.