"Vega is in the communications. Payments routed through three intermediaries, but the trail is clean. Ghost-proof." A pause. The ghost of a smile, the rarest expression in Ghost's limited repertoire. "I mean, proof that a ghost found."
"Did you just make a joke?"
"No."
"You did. You made a joke. I'm telling Jack."
"Please don't."
The device Seth had planted under the conference table was a digital goldmine. Communications, financial records, shell company structures, payroll for guards and site managers and the human resources department of a human trafficking operation that was run with the bureaucratic efficiency of a Fortune 500 company.
"It's worse than we thought," Ghost said.
He'd summoned them to the meeting room, all of them, which he never did, which meant the data was either very good or very bad. His laptop was connected to the big monitor on the wall, and the screen was filled with a web of connections that looked like a conspiracy theorist's fever dream except that every thread was documented, sourced, and verified.
"Four active sites," Ghost said. "The Delray warehouse was one. Southwest is two. There's a third in Hamtramck and a fourth in Lincoln Park. Total estimated workers across all sites, between sixty and eighty."
Silence. The heavy, nauseous kind.
"And the money goes..." Marcus prompted.
"Through the charity. Through the staffing agencies. Through a construction company, a logistics firm, and a real estate holding company. All Mercer." Ghost's fingers moved on the keyboard. "But here's the thing that should scare you. The device also captured communications with someone using a burner phone. Encrypted, but not encrypted enough."
"Who?" Zain asked.
"I don't have a name yet. But the area code is federal. And the language, the phrasing, the terminology, reads like law enforcement."
The room absorbed this.
"A fed," Jack said. "Mercer's got a fed."
"At minimum, someone with access to federal databases. The communications reference surveillance reports, task force movements, and, " Ghost pulled up a text exchange. "A specific mention of Lakefront."
The temperature in the room dropped.
"They know about us?" Nate asked.
"They know someone's been hitting trafficking operations. They don't have names. But they have patterns, and patternslead to names." Ghost looked at Marcus. "We're on borrowed time."
Marcus sat at the head of the table and radiated calm that only came from having already thought three moves ahead. But Zain knew him well enough to see the tension in his shoulders, the slight narrowing of his eyes.
"Timeline," Marcus said.
"We hit the remaining sites before whoever this fed is can tip Mercer off that we're coming. All three. Simultaneously or in rapid succession." Ghost pulled up a plan that he'd clearly been working on for hours. "I've got layouts, guard rotations, everything. But it has to be fast."
"And Mercer himself?"
"Mercer goes last. After the sites are down, after the evidence is compiled and anonymously delivered to the FBI agents who aren't on his payroll." Ghost's voice was flat. Clinical. But his eyes were burning. "We dismantle the operation. Then we dismantle the man."
"And the fed?" Seth asked.
"I'll find them. I just need time."
Seth looked at the web of connections on the screen. Sixty to eighty people, locked in cages like the one he'd been in. Chained to workstations. Invisible.
"How fast can we move?" Seth asked.
"Seth." Zain's voice carried a warning. "You don't have to. "
