Beautiful Sacrifice

them.” Jase threw his manila envelope onthe kitchen counter. “The crap going down now has to be seen to be believed.”
    “That why you need me?”
    Jase’s smile faded and his face looked years older than thirty-four. “They’re going to fire me on the twenty-second. Merry Christmas, mope.”
    Hunter went still. “What the hell?”
    “Some stuff went missing from ICE’s warehouse. You know what that place is like—lockers crammed to the ceiling with guns and goodies, drugs and money.”
    “Brubaker thinks you’re selling drugs out of evidence lockers?” Hunter asked, not hiding his shock.
    “No.” Jase sighed, poured himself some coffee, and took it to the small café table. He slumped into one of the two mismatched chairs. “I’ve never flipped an investigation or taken a drop of all that black money pouring through our hands and he knows it. But if I don’t find this missing stuff before the twenty-first, I’ll be cleaning bathrooms at Mamacita’s. With my tongue.”
    “Three days?” Hunter demanded, unbelieving.
    Jase nodded. He was counting down the minutes. Hell, the seconds.
    “What went missing?” Hunter asked. “Guns?”
    “Maya stuff. Or Aztec. Or what’s that early one?”
    “Moche? Olmec? Mixtec?”
    “Whatever. I don’t know diddly or squat about that stuff. That’s why I need you.” Suddenly Jase put his face in his hands. “Ali told me she’s pregnant. I was grinning at the moon. Then this. I don’t know what to tell her. It’s not like the missing stuff is gold or coke or anything, but Brubaker’s dick is in a knot and it all has to do with politics. How do you explain politics to a pregnant mother with children to feed and a husband who’s about to get sacked?”
    And I’m your Hail Mary option, Hunter thought unhappily. Damn, Jase, no wonder you’re halfway to panic.
    Hunter took the remaining chair at the tiny kitchen table. Their knees knocked. The men automatically shifted to make room. They had been raised around small tables in small kitchens.
    “Walk me through it,” Hunter said. “How did ICE come across the artifacts?”
    “About two, three weeks ago,” Jase said, rubbing his eyes like a man who hadn’t had enough sleep. “Around the first of December. I’m out there supervising a training session at the Matamoros crossing. Everything is dry like burned toast. Everyone out there is swearing and edgy. Beagles start howling just because they’re so miserable.”
    “Beagles? What, you’re gonna lick the bad guys to death?”
    “Those beagles are unstoppable. Noses that won’t quit. Stubborn and cute as puppies. They’re a lot more tourist-friendly for airports and cruise-ship terminals than your average German shepherd.” Jase glanced up from his coffee. “Politics, you know. Nobody’s afraid of beagles. Ali swears she’s gonna steal one and take it home to the kids.”
    Hunter almost smiled. “Okay. You’re out on a beagle training session. Then what?”
    “It’s a joint training session. ICE and DEA, getting along just like stepbrothers. But when the president tells you to play nice, then you damn well don’t get caught playing dirty.”
    “What happened?”
    “We get a stake-bed truck with plates out of Quintana Roo. The dogs freak. Howling and pawing the air and stretching leashes all over the place. All we see are commercial bags of concrete and some boxes of tools.”
    “Coke?” Hunter asked.
    “Yeah, the dogs hit on coke stashed with the concrete bags. But not a lot of it. A few kilos, nothing like a full shipment.”
    Hunter’s mouth quirked at one corner. “And the dumb driver swears he didn’t know coke from concrete mix, right?”
    “How’d you guess?” Jase asked dryly. “The coke was packed amateur, and it looked like at least one of the packages had gotten messed up before it was wrapped. Dogs locked onto the smell of the coke even though it had been doctored with kerosene or jet fuel.”
    “Bad night for the driver,” Hunter said.
    “I suppose, but he seemed almost relieved to get caught. Was real eager to talk. Acted like we would protect him from the witch doctors. He gave us the address he was supposed to be taking this load to.”
    “He talked before he had a lawyer?”
    Jase shrugged. “He didn’t care about lawyers. All he wanted was to get away from the shipment quick as he could. We processed him the snitch route, even ran a transfer to Cameron County custody on an empty charge just so he