Almost immediately Jerricho grabbed his prisoner by the neck and shook him really hard, his fingers gripped tight on his neck. The guy swore, as he started to choke. Jerricho released him enough for the guy to swear again, so Jerricho choked him again, until he stopped swearing. Jerricho did it one more time for emphasis, and the guy just sat here, glaring at him.
Jerricho smiled. “You can try to kill me later,” he said, “but I’m looking for two women, and I want to know where they are now.”
At that, only confusion clouded the man’s eyes.
Jerricho spoke into his phone. “Ask him what boss it is who’s looking for the women. And who else would be supplying women.”
Realizing it wasn’t him specifically that they were after, his prisoner immediately spilled out information.
Apparently some small boss was around the area, who delivered white women just across the border into Libya. At the word Libya, Jerricho’s throat choked. By the time they were done back and forth, the prisoner revealed a holding pen was a couple hundred miles away. And the women were being taken from all over the world. A live auction was slated already, and the women would be sold. The pure ones went for a higher price, and the pretty ones obviously commanded more. Others were going as domestic workers. Some of them would go into the sex business whether they liked it or not.
Jerricho shook his head. “Looking for two. We need as much information as he can give us,” he barked into his phone to the Mavericks translator. But his prisoner could not produce a hell of a lot on that because of all the agents in the middle.
Jerricho asked whether it would matter if these women were journalists or American citizens.
His prisoner’s eyes lit up at that. “If they’re more intelligent and if they’re from another country, particularly America,” he said, “they are worth more.”
Confused, he studied the translation, Jerricho asked, “Why?”
“Because it’s a power play. If they own them, then they have prestige.”
“Are the women safe?”
At that, the man turned and looked confused again. It took another few minutes of translating before he understood, and then he shrugged and said, “No, of course not. They are just women.”
Hearing those words, Jerricho stepped back and repeated, “Just women,” and he clocked his prisoner one more time, this time knocking him out fully.
“Are you okay?” Diesel asked on the other end of the line.
“Yeah, what a sucky world this is.”
“Which is also why you’re there.”
“I get it,” he said, “but you realize that, when I get to the auction site, if I find that I’ve got pastures full of women about to be sold off, there’ll be hell to raise.”
“Good,” he said. “Tell me how many men you need in support.”
“I will,” he said. “I’ve got to get there first.”
“And you’re on her trail. We don’t know for sure that this is the way, but it’s promising.”
“If that’s not promising,” he bit off, “I don’t know what is.”
“Just relax,” he said. “This is progress.”
And, with that, he hung up the phone, slipped out down toward the dock, and headed back to where Killian was. As soon as Jerricho hopped on the boat, they cut ties to the wharf and headed out to the water. When they were safely away from land, he quickly filled in Killian on what he had heard.
Killian stared at him in shock. “Auction?”
His face grim, Jerricho nodded. “American women get a higher price,” he said, “and, if they’re intelligent, apparently more so.”
He shrugged. “I mean, personally I prefer intelligent women, but jeez,” he said, shaking his head.
“Yeah, but what we don’t know is,” he said, “how many women will need to be rescued.”
At that, Killian winced. “It would be better if a lot of them are gathered into one group, as we save them,” he said calmly. “Because we’ll help them all, and we want to rescue as many as we can, yet to have a lot of them will be more difficult to get away with. If only a few are left, as in we’re too late, the bulk of the women will be in the system, and we’ll never know where they are.”
“I know,” he said. “And how many of them would ever get rescued out here?”
“Not many,” he said quietly. “And that’s why we do what we do. Just hold tight and keep focused.”
“I know. I’m working on it,” Jerricho said. “It’s just hard to think of anybody we know caught up in this.”
“I know, and we’ll get them.”
Jerricho nodded, and the two headed out, covering the two hundred miles as fast as the powerboat could travel—but still not fast enough—to the closest landing spot near the designated holding pen, before they had to go on foot.
Chapter 3
When Brenna and Jessie arrived at their destination, they were slowly led off the boat. Brenna’s knees were shaky; she needed water, and the heat was killing her. And she didn’t think anybody here would give a shit. As they were moved up onto land, she saw many other armed people around, and that just added to her confusion. She looked at Jessie. “I have no clue what this is,” she whispered.
Jessie stared, her eyes round. “I wish I had my camera.”
“Me too,” she said. “But it would probably get us killed at this point.”
No arguing there. They were quickly shoved into what looked like a corral or a paddock. And while Brenna stood here, several other women joined them. The women were crying; several had been beaten, and Brenna didn’t even know who they all were. But they huddled in one corner, and she stared at them. She looked at Jessie and asked, “Do you recognize any of these women?”
“No,” she replied.
None of them spoke English. One spoke a little bit of French, another one Spanish. Jessie spoke Spanish, and, with lots of interruptions and lots of hand motions, she turned to Brenna and said, “Looks like they were all kidnapped, the same as us.”
Brenna stared at Jessie in shock and looked at the women. “What? All eight of us here?”
Jessie did her own head count and nodded. “Yes, eight.”
One of the women leaned forward and whispered, and Jessie quickly translated. “And more are coming. She heard the gunmen talk about another thirty plus.”
Brenna looked at them in horror. “So what is going on here?” she asked.
They looked at each other and looked at Jessie and whispered, “We’re being sold.”
“Jesus,” Brenna said out loud. She looked at Jessie. “If we’re being sold, we’ll never get free at that point. We have to get out of here now, before the exchange,” she said. She looked around in a panic.
Jessie grabbed Brenna by her arms. “Calm down,” Jessie said. “We don’t know what’s going on just yet. You have to give your friend time to get here.”
She snorted at that. “What if he doesn’t even know?” she asked. “What if nobody knows?” She felt the panic starting to rise within. She knew she needed to stay calm but … She reached up, scrubbed her face. “Can they tell us anything?”