“So does your government boss know you’re here?”
“He knows that I’m coming to check on a couple supply houses, yes. As does my Russian boss.”
“Supplies here?” she asked, her face paling. “That’s pretty ugly to think about.”
“It’s all ugly to think about,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean that it’s any less real in this world right now.”
“So, if that was the case, and you were undercover with that big businessman, would somebody go to that effort to kidnap me?”
“Some files were stolen from one of the government offices, and it revealed some names. Mine was one of them.”
“Ouch.”
He nodded. “We were thinking that we were safe because nothing happened for the first couple weeks. Your kidnapping was the first indication that maybe I’ve been compromised. The decision was then made to pull me and the other four people whose names were leaked.”
“So now you’ve left your undercover position, your government boss is busy hiring somebody to replace you, or are you still working with the government?”
“All the undercover take-down plans are happening right now,” he said. “There will be sweeps on more than forty different locations over the next three days. It’s best if I’m not even over there right now, and, as for my immediate future, I have no idea what I’ll do next.”
“Does it line up that maybe I was kidnapped at the same time?”
“It is possible,” he said. “Because, just before you were kidnapped—maybe four days before—we found a connection to this trafficking scheme that led to an Australian group. And maybe they were a little more adamant about finding a way to get back at us. Maybe they had access and found my name and realized that they were in trouble and decided to preempt any raid on their place.”
“So kidnapping me would stop you from raiding this Australian location or would stop you from turning over any of the information on them?”
He nodded. “And honestly, they aren’t part of the raids that we’ve got planned so far.”
“Why not them?”
“We didn’t have a chance to even organize that,” he said. “It was new information that just came in, but they had enough time to react. If they were told about me, then they could have gone on the offense, but it’s hard to say. We’re still waiting for answers.”
“Can you take out the Australian group at the same time?”
He shook his head. “No, not at all. It takes a lot of time to set this up.”
“So will you let them think they got away with it?”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten they’re there. Or how they’re operating. Wouldn’t hurt in the least to spend some time studying them to make sure that we pick up all their supply lines of their network. It’ll spread all across New Zealand and through Southeast Asia.”
She shook her head. “That’s pretty big stuff,” she admitted.
“We’re hoping to save several-hundred-plus women,” he said, “and that’s without counting children.”
“Oh, my God,” she cried out. “That’s terrible.”
“Unfortunately it’s also life,” he said. “As soon as we cut and destroy this network, a competing one will rise to the surface.”
She rubbed a hand to her temple. “In theory, if that’s what this is all about, then I should be safe in my own home, right?”
Joshua shook his head. “No, because, if anybody found out about you, then you’re not safe at all.”
“So what’ll happen?”
“The interesting part of the plan is already in progress,” he said.
“What plan is that?”
He laughed. “I have to die.”
Nico understood. He also heartedly approved. “Is it time to come in from the cold?”
Joshua looked at him and slowly nodded. “Never really thought about it before,” he said. “When you’re busy doing this kind of work, living a fake life, you don’t think about the other side of it. But, with everything blowing up, as it has this past week, I think it’s definitely time for a change of career.” His grin turned lopsided. “Still be in the government though.”
“Understood,” Nico said. “It would be nice to confirm that the kidnapping had something to do with it though. Because otherwise we’re tearing apart her life here as well as yours.”
“I don’t see any other reason for it, unless you’ve found something.”
“No, but that doesn’t mean that we haven’t missed something,” Keane said. “She’s pissed off a lot of companies and a lot of people.”
“The GA group has,” she said, turning to look at him. “Sure, I’ve been part of the group’s voice for a while but much less this last six months or more. Feels like much longer. If this had happened a year ago, when I was much more visible, then I would have understood it. But to happen now, it doesn’t make as much sense.”
“But still, for the Australian human trafficking group to have gotten a hold of you would have been something they only learned about recently, right? Like you said, Joshua, you were compromised recently.”
“Not necessarily,” he said. “It’s possible the Australian traffickers had their suspicions a while ago. I knew about the Australian link, but I didn’t have any details until recently. It was just one of those countries that we knew would be connected, but we hadn’t found it yet.”
“Right,” Nico said. “So it’s possible but just not necessarily for sure.”
“Exactly. And the thing is, she didn’t want to go to Australia, so that would be a nebulous connection too,” Keane added.
“Except her assistant insisted,” Nico said. “So let’s think about this. You, Joshua, know there’s a connection to Australia, and Australia knows that you’re an up-and-coming player in the entire trafficking empire, and they get suspicious and start investigating you. And how would
