Emily Locke 01 - Final Approach

drank gingerly.
    “Back to you,” he said. “When your NASA story didn’t check out, I looked further and learned about your husband and daughter.” He paused. “I’m sorry, by the way, for your loss.”
    I nodded.
    Clement continued, “Was it ever suggested to you that their accident was related to your involvement in the Reed trial?”
    I thought about Wesley Reed—the man who almost sold Mattie at a roadside diner in Austin. The one who got off because I missed the trial. Having my fears articulated by a government agent put a fresh sting into an old wound. His question made it impossible to tell my story in order. I skipped to the meat.
    “My daughter didn’t die in that boat wreck, Mr. Clement. She was sold to a couple in Galveston. At least, they were in Galveston four years ago. You have to help me find them.”
    Clement leaned forward. I wondered if he should be sitting so upright. He shifted his weight, impervious to the pain he must have felt.
    “How do you know that?” His brow furrowed and glanced quickly at his bedside table, then back at me. I thought it might have been a habitual search for a notepad.
    I started by explaining what happened at the hangar after he was shot.
    “Thanks, by the way,” he interrupted, “for making the 9-1-1 call. My mom will probably send you cookies and Christmas cards for years.”
    I smiled. The more we talked, the more normal he seemed. He listened to my story about stowing away on the Otter, and grew intent when I came to the part about hiding behind the crates.
    “You see what was in the crates?”
    “I tried to find out,” I said, “but Kurt came after me before I could tell.”
    I rubbed my shoulder where it had been smashed under the lid.
    “Whatever it was, was really hard,” I added.
    He frowned. “Weapons, then.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “With this network, it’s three things.” He counted them on his fingers as he listed them. “Narcotics. Weapons. Human freight.”
    Human freight. Clement made it sound like a shipment of tomatoes or lumber.
    “Drugs and weapons too? But…” I was too confused to finish.
    “They operate in cells, and matrix their resources. Trish’s cell traffics babies, but that’s not all they do.”
    “Are you saying Trish was making a weapons shipment last night for another arm of her criminal ring?”
    “Perhaps,” he said. “And maybe another arm of her ‘criminal ring’ as you say, was placing a baby somewhere for her.”
    He took another sip of water.
    “Infiltrating their system has been no small effort,” he added. “I’ve been with the Bureau six years. This cell’s been my whole career, and its parent ring has taken a nice bite into the careers of dozens of other agents.”
    “I have something you’ll want to see then,” I said.
    The printouts from Scud’s hard drive were in my pocket. I unfolded them and passed them to Clement. He took them with the hand that had the I.V., still giving no indication of pain. Where anesthesia was concerned, it seemed new facts in his case were medicine enough.
    I walked to his bedside and reviewed the papers with him, describing my suspicions about the columns’ significance. Clement’s eyes followed my finger over the page.
    “This entry is Casey Lyons,” I said. “The date matches when he disappeared, and this is his age and gender. This little girl is missing from Houston,” I pointed to the row for an eight-month-old female. “It doesn’t look like she’s been sold yet. Maybe you can find her.”
    “Look at those cities,” he said, more to himself than me. “And the names. I can’t believe he actually attributed the crimes.” He was looking at the column that associated names like Kosh and Dalton with the kids they took. “It’s like they’re keeping score.”
    It was then I realized what I was up against. I wasn’t only battling the criminal network Clement had described, which, admittedly, surpassed even my worst fears. But I was keying in on something else. I was in this to find Annette and Casey, but Clement’s priority was to bust the ring.
    “Is the FBI going to find my daughter, Mr. Clement?”
    He looked up from the list.
    “I sincerely hope so,” he said. “We want to bring all these kids home.”
    “When will you start following up on this list?”
    “I’m sure a parallel effort will begin after I brief my office on this new information.” He raised the papers slightly. “My team will want to spend time with you,