Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 71880 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71880 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
“Is that good or bad?” Crew asked the question I wanted to ask too.
“I’d say it’s good,” Elliott responded. Mercier nodded once, agreeing. “Andorra’s great for those who need a hiding spot, less great for those who wanna plan an ambush.”
“Are they in Andorra la Vella?” Mercier wondered.
“No, which makes it worse,” Elliott said. “They’re up in the mountains looking out over the city. One narrow road, zero options for attacking at another angle.”
All I knew about Andorra came from Wikipedia. The tiny country’s capital sat at the bottom of a mountain range, with sharp slopes and peaks surrounding it on all sides. There was one way coming in, one way going out, pretty much. Popular ski resort in the winter, popular shopping destination for spring and fall, ideal vacation spot in the summer.
Oh, and they had no formal extradition treaty with the US.
“Do we have a lot of criminals hiding out here?” I asked curiously.
“Mercier will know that better than me,” Elliott answered. “My guess is it’s popular for safehouses, but…”
“You’re not wrong,” Mercier filled in. “A colleague of mine in DC used to work on mapping out US citizens’ illegal operations overseas, and he ended up here fairly often. It’s a great place to hide out and regroup, but they keep their operations in Spain, France, the Netherlands, Italy, and so on.” He paused. “Once you get deeper into the world of organized crime in Europe, you start seeing the patterns. Meetings in Monaco, hideouts in microstates like Andorra and Luxembourg, distribution centers around major ports, and warehouses along all the drug routes. That’s where you connect all the shell corporations to small shipping companies and massage parlors. Germany’s a hotbed for human trafficking—it’s like the big waiting room for young girls from Eastern Europe before they’re shipped off to the UK, Scandinavia, France, et cetera.”
Elliott shook his head. “I reckon that’s the reason most of us quit in the end. It’s fucking exhausting—you bring home one girl, only to hear on the news how four more got kidnapped. You blow up a trafficking ring, and three new ones appear. You order a drug interdiction at sea and seize four tons of coke, and twenty slip right by.”
“Mm.” Mercier nodded and dropped his gaze to his lap.
Crew sought him out and squeezed his hand.
I glanced over at Elliott, who was staring out the window, lost in thought.
He may have quit that field, but he still did a whole lot. I wasn’t talking about the protection rich bankers and politicians paid for either; we all needed a moneymaker. It was the rest. Elliott and Tariq had made a name for themselves in local communities over the years, offering free assistance, rides, and security for small business owners, single parents with children in rough neighborhoods, and protection for vulnerable populations outside their places of worship. You didn’t see any of that on their website, but if you happened to know Elliott’s parents, they were happy to tell you.
Unless anything had changed recently, most security guards at their agency worked for free one shift every month—well, not free. They didn’t get paid for those hours, but they did get extra benefits like cheaper medical insurance, paid maternity leave, stuff like that. So for that one shift, guards like Crew and the guy who’d been murdered at Elliott’s place—Toby?—they helped people who couldn’t afford security.
Elliott had dedicated his whole life to helping others, and he’d received no credit for it. PMCs didn’t get recognition. No medals, no status, no praise.
How many Blakes had he returned to their parents over the years?
Knowing him, he didn’t give two shits about recognition, but I hated that he’d been knocked down. It fueled my anger toward Piper too, because I should’ve been there for him all these years. I should’ve been the man he came home to after a mission; we should’ve sat there on our porch and nursed each other’s work headaches. And yet…because of this unfortunate twist of fate, because my supposed best friend was a wretched fucking bitch…I had my daughter.
I had Elliott now too, and I wanted to spend the rest of my life making him happy. He’d never experience loneliness again. He’d never be betrayed again.
The border crossing was completely deserted at this hour, so we just drove into a whole other country with nobody giving a fuck, something Crew ranted about while he drove like a sweet maniac.
“Like, you shoulda seen me and Gramps rollin’ into Monaco,” he said. “I asked him when we’d get to the border, and he was all, we already passed it.”
I unbuckled Elliott’s seat belt and nodded for him to scoot closer to me. He wasn’t out of his funk yet, and it was time to intervene. Crew had plugged an address into the GPS, so he didn’t need Elliott’s orders for another…sixteen minutes.