Walker (In the Company of Snipers #21) - Irish Winters Page 0,142
Reynolds and Cassidy Dancer Cannon into Cuba to end him. How Seth had been in Florida, at the same time, and had gotten involved in another privately-run effort to rescue those same women and children. One run by Cord Shepherd and his sister, Devereaux, the woman now married to Seth.
“I’ve got a good man still working in the Keys to bring down the bastards behind the sex-trade running between Cuba and the States,” Alex said.
“Cord Shepherd?” McQueen asked, with something that sounded a lot like disbelief, in his tone.
“Yes, you know him?”
“Hell yeah, I know Cord.” Grimacing like a bastard, McQueen scratched the end of his nose with a covert middle finger salute. Persia grinned. “You’re either one lucky son of a bitch, Alex, or you really do work magic. Seems like you snap up all the good guys and gals before I even know they’re alive.”
“What can I say? I know people,” Alex replied easily. “Plus, I’ve been in this business longer than you and your SOBs. Why don’t you and your people come work for me?”
McQueen slapped his thigh and laughed. “By hell, you’ve got guts. But no, thank you. No, sir. I’ve got teams all over the world. Think we’ll keep on doing what we’ve been doing.”
“You do good work.”
“Damned straight,” McQueen shot back at Alex. “Your TEAM’s not so bad, either.”
“That night” —Walker interrupted the mutual admiration between these two alphas— “in Guatemala, Renzo said his buyer was from Cuba. And now we’ve got footage inside Montego’s jail cells—”
“That looks exactly like the insides of Zapata’s prison,” Persia added weakly.
Another ugly coincidence…
Alex’s head cocked. “You think Montego, Zapata, and Goff were working together?” His icy blues took on a faraway gaze. “The timeline sure as hell fits. You might be onto something.”
“Unless Goff and Montego were part of something bigger,” Walker replied. “When did you end Montego?”
“A year and a half ago,” Persia answered for Alex. “Seth ended Roland Montego inside his own ugly lair down in Cuba. Then last December, in Virginia, Renner Graves took out Roland’s sister Catalina.”
“It was cold that night,” Alex murmured. “And it snowed…”
Persia scrubbed her hands up her biceps, remembering how cold it had been, even in tropical Brazil. That night, no one at Zapata’s lair had yet known the Sin Boys had apprehended Domingo Zapata in Montana. He’d gone there to kill Chance Sinclair and his pretty wife. But that was another story…
“What if these guys are all part of, I don’t know, a bigger syndicate?” Walker asked. “A worldwide syndicate would sure explain these trumped-up charges against me. Hell, even the ICC’s in on it.”
“I’d sure like to know who bribed or blackmailed that judge,” McQueen bit out.
Alex’s eyes turned hard as steel. “Senator. We’ve been looking at this all wrong.”
Chapter Forty-One
They made it through the Panama Canal eight days later, then turned north and traveled up the coast of Central America, past Panama and Costa Rica. Nicaragua. El Salvador. It wasn’t until Walker dropped anchor off the Guatemalan shore, that daily Sitreps yielded solid intel.
By then, he knew Hans Koning was safely at his sister’s home in New York, and Quinn Dooley was back aboard the Iwo Jima. Trevor was somewhere in Africa, doing who knew what. Former Petty Officer First Class Urban Sweeney, of SEAL Team 18, had called to assure Walker they were watching Miss Breeze, as well as the sailors who’d testified against Walker.
Because Alex believed in transparency and made certain that every Sitrep was broadcast over the yacht’s loudspeaker, Walker cringed when he heard his former mistake’s name. Which Sunday Night had surely been. Brief. Exciting, for what that was worth. But the biggest dead-end of a relationship he’d ever encountered. Talk about bad timing, him being with a total airhead when this shitstorm started. Not one of his smarter alliances.
Worse, every time Persia heard that name, her eyes would search for him, and she’d wink, as if she knew what an idiot he’d been. The tease. He needed to explain that one, but with so many others on board, there hadn’t been much time for privacy.
Izza Maher had contacted, of all people in the world, the Queen of England. She’d smiled coyly when she’d told Alex she had a confidential informant on the inside, working to clear Walker’s name. That she’d get back to him the second she had actionable intel.
Of course, he’d asked, “That CI got a name?”
She’d given him a saucy shrug. “Sure. The Queen. Who else?”