Page 148 of Defenders of Jawhara

Thanks to Talib, they had photos and IDs on all the Guardians presently in Jawhara and were able to pull together a general list of volunteers and paid employees, thanks to their social media posts.

Trent now had a good idea of who was who—meaning, who in the organization believed in their goals of saving the world and who might be on the take from companies looking to use the Guardians for industrial sabotage.

The top two names were Anna Neills and Bradley Myers. Travis hadn’t been able to trace funds to them directly, but they were the only two employees who showed suspicious fluctuations in their spending patterns.

Slade had gone to talk to the former owner of McFall Enterprises to see what he could find out. From there, he’d tried to get a meeting with the CEO of Givart Industries but had been met at the door by their lawyers, meaning there definitely had to be a smoking gun that connected the Guardians with Givart and the failure of a competing company.

The question now was who had hired the Guardians to go after Jawhara’s oil fields and Jewel Oil? Without that information, it wouldn’t work to simply take out the Guardians. Sheikh Kamal would still be open to attacks from some other organization willing to get paid to do the dirty work. Besides, it turned out that Chloe had been right—the Guardians did do a lot of good. At least they had at one time. So, it was time to pluck out the bad apples before the whole barrel was ruined.

Trent was hoping they would take the bait that he was going to dangle in front of them.

He pushed through the glass doors, clad in his best surfer gear—board shorts, Hawaiian shirt, and sandals. He flashed a peace sign at Chloe, and a wink, and turned to the austere-looking woman who seemed to be waiting for him.

Anna Neills. He knew from her photo online and the background info they had on her. She’d come up from a middle-class family, had bailed out of the corporate sector, run one nonprofit into the ground, and had married a guy who’d been under suspicion by the Feds for some sort of Ponzi scheme. He’d skipped town before he could be arrested, disappeared, and Anna had wound up with the Guardians. She didn’t look like a happy person.

Her black hair had been pulled back into a tight bun. She had on a black suit, and a bright red blouse showed from underneath. Horn-rimmed glasses made her eyes look too big for her face. She was doing a good job of hiding a healthy bank account.

“Mr. Larson?” She gave a fractional smile—a cold one.

Ah, doesn’t know if surfer dude is worth her time.Trent gave her a cocky grin, watching as she looked at his board shorts and mussed hair with disdain. “You the babe in charge?”

“Anna Neills. Mr. Myers is waiting for us in the conference room. This way, please.”

Trent gave Chloe another wink and followed Anna into a conference room that barely qualified as such. Yeah, the Guardians were trying to look as if every dime went to good causes.

Travis had made sure that there was a lot to be found online for Trent’s background check.

He was a rich kid who had inherited a surf-empire fortune and spent his days playing. He’d also asked Chloe to let folks know he was for the oceans. The meeting had been a snap to set up after that.

In the conference room, Bradley Myers looked up from a computer—it had a PowerPoint presentation showing up on a flat-screen TV. Bradley grinned, showing uneven teeth. He wore khaki pants, a camp shirt, and boots, and he had a red scarf, of all things, tied around his neck. He at least looked friendly. “Mr. Larson, please come in.”

“Dude, pretty fancy place you all have here.”

“We rely utterly on the generosity of our donors.”

Trent nodded. Well, that set the tone of asking for a handout. He sat down and rocked back in his chair.

Anna Neills sat and folded her hands in front of her. She had long nails and the red polish matched her blouse. Trent had a hard time not thinking about the color of blood and Macbeth’s wife.

He turned back to Myers. “Chloe was, like, telling me you were pretty involved in protecting the oceans from things like oil leaks. I’m looking to get on board with some of that action. No way I want to risk getting cancer from surfing in slicks.”

Myers nodded and managed to drop his wide smile. “If there were only more people who thought like you did, we wouldn’t have such a problem in this world. Chloe mentioned you were considering a sizable contribution?”

Trent let the question hang. “Dude, trust fund’s a bitch. I have to justify my dollars to the trustees. They’re usually cool with charities, but I was thinking maybe half a million would be a good start. But I want to show them I could do more.”

Anna sat up. Seemed she liked the mention of money. She smiled. “Are you thinking of joining us on one of our expeditions?”

“Oh, that’d be awesome. But, man, I’m leaving for a trip through the Middle East in two weeks. Gonna be seeing what the surf’s like over there, y’know?”

Myers asked, “What countries were you planning to visit?”

“Dude, there’s a real little country—you know, like named after that Star Wars dude. Jar something.”

“Jawhara?”

“Yeah. That’s it. Man, the beaches are like totally white, and the waves are supposed to be like better than North Shore.” Anna and Myers stared at him. “Hawaii? The pipeline? Thirty-foot monsters that make you feel like you fell off of a skyscraper? That’s for me, man. I’m in it for the rush.”

Myers tapped something on his phone. “Could you excuse us for a moment?”

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