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“Yes, you may be able to convince some of the Watchmen to help you if you can locate them, but some may not. Not after the message the Reapers sent trying to kill me. I’d recommend not going back into that market if I were you. It’s much too dangerous for you now,” he warned. His eyes were wide and practically pleading with me to promise that I wouldn’t go back.
“I went back to the market after you were shot. There was a woman there who referred to you and me as an innocent. She made sure my friends got out of the market while I fought off someone who wanted to attack us. What does being innocent mean?” I asked.
His face paled.
“It means you are in far more danger than I realized. An innocent is someone who is marked by the Reapers, someone they intend to take or kill. You must leave this island. You don’t realize who you are dealing with,” he warned.
“They don’t know who they are messing with either. I promise you, I am well equipped to deal with kidnappers. I’ve done it before. How many Reapers are there? Do they have a hideout?” I asked.
“No one knows the exact number of Reapers, and no one sees their faces, but I believe there are Reapers all over the island. They are all required to provide a person per shipment, and they all take turns. They receive special perks for being a Reaper, but I don’t know what they are. The Reapers often contract work out to others, and those men are often sloppy. Recently a few women escaped being marked. They were able to flee with the help of the Watchmen,” he said.
“So with there being a Reaper in each territory, it would create a pattern if you tracked them all?” I asked.
“Most likely, yes.” He nodded his head, as if he was pleased that I caught on so quickly.
I looked to Adam to make sure he understood. We could use the map to track down individual Reapers and take them out, one by one. His eyes were hard, but there was a gleam in them, as if he couldn’t wait for the hunt.
“What about a hideout? Do you know if they have one?”
“I’m sure they do, but I’ve never seen it. I don’t know how they get the women off the island either. It could be by boat, private jet, or commercial flights.”
“Why do you suspect commercial flights? Wouldn’t that be too obvious?” I asked.
“Because those who are tourists could be traced back to the island. It would bring too much international attention, and the tourists would stop coming. They’d hinder their own operation. If they flew the tourists out commercially, they weren’t missing on the island. They land and go missing once they get off their flights.”
“So you suspect they are flown off the island under duress and then from there they are either picked up or taken straight to their buyer?” I asked.
“Yes, at least for some of the tourists that are taken, not all. Some of the Reapers are lazy and don’t care what attention it brings. For the local victims, the rules are different. The Reapers essentially buy the silence of the locals,” he answered.
“Have they bought off the police?” I asked. This was an important question, and it would help me with my side investigation into the FBI. Even if the FBI wasn’t moving bodies, but they knew of dirty police, there’d be some truth to what Bob suspected.
“Oh, yes, I’m sure there were officers that overlooked my shooting entirely. Paid by the Reapers to turn a blind eye. There are still good ones out there that try to do what they can, outside of the Reapers’ influence, but there aren’t many of them.”
No wonder it took so long for emergency services to arrive when he was shot, and no wonder Adam and I were grilled by the police. They were looking to see what we knew, if Jeremiah told us anything about why he was shot. I shiver at the thought of how close we were to the Reapers during that conversation. Their influence clearly stretched far and wide. It felt less likely that the local FBI office didn’t know about this, and that left me with a sense of dread. Part of me hoped that I could declare them incompetent but innocent. If the Reapers paid off the police, then they likely paid off the FBI too.
“What about other law enforcement on the island?” I pressed. I had to get the answer to my question in the most discreet way. I didn’t want to alert Adam to my investigation into the FBI field office. I wasn’t sure if he knew that the FBI held an office in the area, but I didn’t want to specifically name drop and bring it to his attention. I also didn’t want to give him a reason to lose confidence in me, to suspect that I might align myself with my corrupt colleagues.
“All of them,” Jeremiah confirmed.
My eyes widened, and it felt like I swallowed a rock. “That explains so much,” I whispered. My words sounded haunted, and I wanted nothing more than to march over to the local office and slam some faces against walls. I couldn’t do that, but I could imagine it in my head, over and over until it brought me some calm.
“I’m sure it does,” he said, matching my tone.
“If you had to guess how many Reapers there were, what would that number be?” Adam asked.
“On the island? I would think more than ten, but outside of that, I couldn’t be certain. I would think twenty to twenty-five would be reasonable, but again I just don’t know. If you are talking worldwide, I really have no idea,” Jeremiah answered.
“How long have they been doing this?” I asked.
“Fifteen years now. The operation started out a lot smaller, only disappearances here or there. It became a large-scale operation five years ago.”
My gut clenched, and I felt sick. The New York ring had only been operating for two years before I took it down. The Vegas ring that Adam’s crew caught had been operating for around the same amount of time. Fifteen years was an asinine amount of time. I could only imagine how many women had fallen victim to them over the years, and just how deep their influence truly was. It was like a poison, hidden by sunshine and tan lines.
“Is there someone from the Watchman that we can talk to further? Maybe we can organize something with them. Bring this all to a quick end.”
He hesitated a moment, still unsure of just how much he should tell us, despite our intentions. I could imagine that he didn’t want to put anyone else in danger. If I was marked as innocent, it was only a matter of time before the Reapers made a move on me. Sharing more information about the Watchers could make me a liability to them too. “The only person you might be able to speak with calls herself the employer,” he said.
I suppressed a grin.Finally a win.“I know exactly who that is.”
