Rebirth (John Taylor #1)

Chapter 8

"Before I drop you off at the hotel, there is something I need to do," I told Renata as we were leaving the restaurant.

"What?"

"Something you said yesterday has been bugging me. You mentioned a conversation between the dead lady Marshal, and who I am guessing was Robles about something 'happening again,' and her 'not wanting to lose another one,'" I said.

"Ok?" she said in a questioning tone.

"Well, it occurred to me that if the Marshal's service did have a mole in it for the Bratva, then this might not have been the first time they went after a witness. That would explain the conversation you heard, anyway. I'm not sure if knowing this will be helpful, or where it might lead, but it's a thread I think we need to follow."

"So how are we to be finding out?" she asked.

"Well, I'm going to start with getting a computer," I said as we pulled up to a big box electronics place that was just opening.

I walked through the fairly open store to a row of computers they had for sale, and started checking until I found one that had Internet access and wasn't locked into one of the sales videos. I had just opened the browser up when an employee came over.

"Can I help you, sir?" he asked.

"No, I'm just looking."

"I'd be happy to tell you all about this model."

"I am fine," I said again, turning to glower at him.

Even with the shower and breakfast, I was still looking a little rough. Couple that with the irritation I was still getting from Renata, and I wasn't in the mood to deal with anyone.

After a moment the sales clerk took the hint and went away.

I kept my searches narrowed down to Florida for the moment, since if there was a mole in the Marshal's office, it would be in the area of where they were stationed and probably not have a national reach. I started looking for cases that were dropped because of dead witnesses, articles on the Marshal Service, anything to do with the Bratva, or anything to do with the girls being brought into the country through Florida.

It took a while to find what I was looking for, but in my searching I did see something that seemed related but unhelpful. There were several articles that talked about a noticeable upswing in the number of women being brought into the country from Europe and South America. ICE and other federal agencies, along with local police in the larger cities, had been stepping up their raids lately into some of the places where these girls were put to work.

From interviews with the girls, many of whom had been more or less leaked to the press, the authorities had begun putting together a picture. A lot of girls were being taken from their homes, smuggled into the US, and forced into the sex trade. The police admitted there was some kind of major pipeline of girls into the US; but they'd had, as of yet, little success in finding it. One agent who wanted to be quoted anonymously said that most of the agents in the field were convinced that there was more than one pipeline, and there was evidence the girls were being fed into some kind of clearing system that was selling these girls. He suggested it was all very organized, but so far they had made little headway into figuring it out, let alone stopping it.

While that was interesting ... and, from what Renata had told me, it was very likely Yuri was involved in this somehow ... it didn't help me at the moment.

After a few more minutes searching, I did find information that did help.

"That's weird," I said, more to myself than anything, after reading a few of the articles.