Encrypted Connection

Blaise: Two

He couldn't look at it anymore. Agent Wright turned away from the cargo container and faced the bay.

Their little toes had been painted. Red.

But not their fingers.

Why'd they paint their toes? Was there a party? Was it a girls night?

Were they selling them to depraved men that night?

He'd never know because here they lay, eight small bodies, eight long ponytails, eighty perfect fingers and eighty perfectly painted red toes.

Most people didn't know, or didn't care to know, Agent Wright postulated, that the biggest threat to the United States today was child sex trafficking.

They took them from schools.

They took them from malls.

From playgrounds.

From grocery stores.

Some of them they take right from their homes.

Each year, anywhere from 300,000 to 500,000 children are trafficked across international borders. It's the third largest crime industry and its said to gross thirty two billion dollars a year.

Right now, an estimated 24.9 million people are living in forced labor via trafficking worldwide.

Last year they'd busted a ring in Michigan. One hundred and twenty three children were saved.

But still, cities like Los Angeles, Denver, New York and San Diego each see about thirty million in profit from child trafficking.

Agent Wright hoped one day those statistics changed.

He'd been with several government agencies, acronyms familiar but he was unable to specify due to the conditions of his departure. He'd felt tied up by government red tape. Old white men still wanted their little barely legal sex dolls, so laws became harder to pass. Cases weren't prosecuted to save names of rich people.

It had nearly killed him, eaten him up with rage. Failure. Sadness.

But now, Blaise has no restrictions. No red tape or tape of any color. His budget was unlimited and his only goal was that no one knows and no one lives to be prosecuted.

But you couldn't kill a bastard if you couldn't find him. Or as it was, find her.

And that was the trouble with Madame K.

Blaise has no qualms that she was a woman. He'd lay a beating on her for information just like he would a man. All he had to do was picture those eight little girls and he'd be set.

There would be no paperwork to fill out, no warrants or briefings or any hint that Blaise's crew even existed.

They called it Black Ops for a reason. Off books. Spooks. Wet work. Whatever you wanted to call it.

He'd never get a medal but he didn't even give a shit. When he went home at night and laid down, those little girls wouldn't haunt him because he knew he was doing everything in his power every day to make it right.

Another agent walked up beside him, clearly fidgeting and tapping the butt of his gun. His size tended to fool most people, but Paul could take care of himself. And anybody that came at him. Dark hair and piercing blue eyes, he was every woman's wet dream, but at five foot four, the guy had a deadly accuracy with weapons and little man complex. Kind of turned the wrong ladies on and the right ladies off.

"Silvo said they wiped the hard drives, professional grade software. He may be able to get a few megabytes, but he's not sure."

They knew that was a possibility, but Blaise still cussed low. Someone had tipped them off.