Page 67 of The Wild Charge

Walsh leaned far enough off the table on which he sat to set a piece of paper down at Luis’s elbow. “And you’re going to tell him this.”

~*~

The plan, such as it was, wasn’t without risks – but when were they? It wasn’t anything Fox hadn’t handled before, so he left Ghost and the others to pressure Luis into cooperating, and went outside to make a phone call.

The other line picked up after the third ring, brimming with the whir and hum of loud machinery in the background. Fox frowned to himself, as the voice on the other end shouted, “Hello?”

“Agent Maddox.”

More machinery noise, and then a sharp breath, and an angry tone: “I’m not ‘Agent’ anything anymore. Whoever this is–”

“It’s Charlie Fox.”

“Who?”

“Fox. With the Lean Dogs MC.”

More silence punctuated by the clack and whine of mechanics. Then Maddox said, “Hold on.” Seconds passed, and then the noise cut off, and the only sound was Maddox’s rapid breathing against the phone speaker. “What do you want?” he bit out, and sounded like his back teeth were clenched.

“Well,” Fox said mildly, “something’s got your knickers in a twist.”

“I’m on the phone with a felon. Is that supposed to make me happy?”

“Hey, now, some of these idiots might have rap sheets, but I’ve never done time.”

“No. You only should have.”

“You’re sounding an awful lot like a cop for someone who turned in his badge and gun.”

A beat. And then a sigh. When Maddox next spoke, he sounded like a man who’d been ground under life’s bootheel, and then left to dry in the blazing Texas sun. “What do you want, Fox?” he asked, wearily.

“We have Luis Cantrell in custody.”

“You…you what? How? When did you – you’re keeping him? How are you–”

“If you’ll stop flying off the handle,” Fox drawled, “I’ll explain it to you.”

“Shit,” he muttered, but quieted, and Fox gave him the main gist of it all, leaving out the most incriminating parts – namely that they were holding him in a cattle trailer on Dartmoor property. Plausible deniability and all that.

“Shit,” he repeated, when Fox was done. “Why are you telling me all this? I’m working in a fucking cereal factory these days.”

Ah. That explained the noise.

“Because if this operation is as big as Luis claims it is – and our research so far is leaning that way – then we’re looking at a massive sex trafficking ring. National and international. And your friends at the Bureau are caught up in it, according to him.”

“I don’t have any friends left there,” Maddox said, tone hardening.

“No? Not even a few?”

“Fuck you, no. They’re corrupt up to their fucking eyeballs. It’s why I got out – and why I’m never gonna get a job that pays half as fucking well from now on.”

Fox felt his brows go up. “They’re blacklisting you?”

“That, or else having Quantico and ten plus years on the force doesn’t count for much with hiring managers.”

Fox dug out a cig to stall for time. He’d been thinking to ask a few questions, see if he was willing to give up any of his old co-workers to point them in the right direction. Now, his thoughts spun elsewhere. “Tell you what,” he said, once he’d lit up and taken his first drag. Ghost might not like this, but Fox would help him see the wisdom in it later. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission, right? “Where are you?”

“Odessa.”

---