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We were finishing up a hotwash of the mission and getting ready to caravan to London when Merrigan pulled me aside.
“I wanted you to know Francis Arnst was murdered in prison yesterday.”
The man she’d mentioned was arrested and prosecuted in the mission I’d been a part of in New York’s Adirondack State Park. I’d served as a profiler on the case along with Emmett “Mayhem” Gable and Grace “Hanadarko” Hunter, two of the best I’d ever worked with.
It was the three of us who’d finally narrowed the field of suspects down to the man, who’d been arrested. His career as a serial killer had gone on for over fifty years, and there still wasn’t a final victim count. While he wasn’t the lone murderer, he’d been the one to orchestrate the deaths of each and every victim. Hearing he was dead only made me hope there was a hell and he was burning in it.
Mayhem and Grace were the two profilers I’d mentioned to Nem a few days ago, saying I’d want to add them to the US task force if they became available. Arnst had been the reason I couldn’t hire them sooner.
Before his death, my two colleagues had been granted permission to conduct a series of interviews with the killer. From a profiling perspective, what they learned would be an invaluable source of information, not necessarily about that case but because of the insight it would provide for future investigations.
“What will Mayhem and Hanadarko do now?” I asked Merrigan.
“I’m not certain. Why?”
“What if we added them to my team?”
Her eyes widened. “Brilliant idea. I’ll see if they’re interested.”
While, a few minutes ago, I felt more down than I had since McTiernan fired me. Merrigan agreeing to reach out to the profiling team made me feel as hopeful now as I had been when I received Doc’s call on my way to the car that day.
21
NEMESIS
I’d received regular briefings from Cayman in regard to the Felixstowe op, but I hadn’t heard a word from Ares. I reminded myself, like I had countless other times, that it was for the best. We both had work to do, and neither of us could afford to become sidetracked by a relationship that was inappropriate and unprofessional.
While the news from the port city was positive in that ten containers, each holding over twenty victims, had been liberated and all victims rescued, no arrests had been made, nor were there any suspects in terms of who the traffickers responsible were.
I could only imagine the frustration Ares had to be feeling, and while I wanted to reach out in support, it seemed wrong to do so. Especially since I’d heard nothing from him.
Operation Purfleet wasn’t progressing as quickly as I would’ve liked. However, we had made several inroads.
Blackjack, Atticus, Magnet, and Zeppelin had divided and conquered a thorough search into Josif and Lazar Jacov, real names Ivan and Dimitar Todorova. Rather than cousins, the two men were brothers. The other thing they’d learned was they hadn’t worked for Mitskovski. It had been the other way around.
Once they’d figured all that out, they were able to track one container back to Lesovo, Bulgaria, a town seventy kilometers from Edirne, Turkey, where Mitskovski’s dead body was discovered.
Via overheads, we’d been monitoring the activity at the Todorova compound for the last twelve hours. We weren’t able to see exactly what was taking placeinsidethe large warehouse on the property. However, throughout the day and night, tractor-trailers hauling shipping containers would back into loading bays lining both sides of the building. Then, at intervals similar to their arrival times, they’d pull away.
It immediately became apparent we’d need a tremendous amount of support to mount a raid. It would take a combined large-scale action plan, requiring the participation of other coalition task forces as well as governmental agencies and law enforcement to pull it off, all of which would take time to assemble. The quickest way to get it moving would be to go to the top and request assistance.
“How did your meeting with Marchand go?” Wren asked when I opened the library door. I’d requested a videoconference with the French ambassador to the UN who oversaw the entire coalition against human trafficking, to request support I’d determined we’d need for a raid.
“He’s holding an emergency meeting with the ambassadors of some of the other Security Council member nations in the morning.”
Wren’s brow furrowed, and she nodded. “We need to track that other container.”
It was an unnecessary reminder, given how heavily what was taking place in Lesovo weighed on me. I knew that if the raid took place before we determined the second container’s origin, we’d never find it.
Wren, Wilder, and Tank had been working on it in the same manner the other team did in Bulgaria. However, we had so much less to go on.
“It had to have come into Turkey from Syria,” Wren said. “What am I missing here, and who the fuck is Mithras?”
We still had no idea whether the name Ivan Todorova, aka Lazar Jacov, had given us was truly a lead or simply a diversion tactic on his part. Every search we’d conducted on the code name yielded nothing.
“I’m calling Z,” she said more to herself than anyone else. I followed her out to the larger of the two dining rooms and leaned against the table while she placed the call.
“I need help. We’ve gotten nowhere with Mithras and nowhere tracking this fucking container before it arrived in Turkey. I just said this to Nem, who’s here with me, but what am I missing, Z? What are we all missing?”
