Personal Target: An Elite Ops Novel by Kay Thomas Read Free Book Online

over his car’s speakerphone as the speedometer crept up to ninety-five miles per hour. Gavin had gathered information about Tlaxcala and was sharing the not-so-fun facts while Nick drove back from the Gaylord.
    “The real center of Tlaxcala’s prostitution is the city of Tenancingo. It’s called cuna de los padrotes . The crib of the pimps. Leland Hollis worked with the DEA down there before he came on board with us. I’m adding him to this call now. Hang on.”
    Darkness fell as Nick raced across LBJ. He needed to get to the AEGIS office, get his bag packed, and get to Mexico—an hour ago. He knew it was hopeless to think he could find Jennifer with the little bit of intelligence he currently had, but he was flying out tonight anyway.
    Ernesto Vega and Tomas Rivera would not expect him in the area so soon, or at least he hoped they wouldn’t. The element of surprise was all he had going for him in finding her.
    Gavin seemed to read his mind. “I understand you’re in a hurry, but I’m not letting you go off half-cocked and by yourself, so just chill. Here’s Leland beeping in.”
    Nick pulled his mind back to his boss, grateful Gavin was thinking more clearly than he was. The man was a machine when it came to setting emotions aside from his work, as evidenced by his being back on the job less than a month after his wife’s death. Nick figured Gavin was doing this simply to keep himself sane, but whatever worked.
    A deep Southern-fried voice floated over the car’s speakerphone. “Hey, Nick. It’s Leland.”
    Nick felt a grim smile tug at the corner of his mouth. As if he couldn’t tell who it was from the man’s accent.
    “Gavin says you’re going to Mexico in a hurry. I don’t want to cover ground you’ve already travelled. Tell me what you know about Tlaxcala.”
    Grateful Leland was cutting to the chase, Nick took a deep breath and focused. “The state is a mess. Lots of sex trafficking and drug running, sometimes together, with no enforcement by the local government or police.”
    “You got it in a nutshell. I worked the area for several years. Tlaxcala generates eighty percent of the sex trafficking in Mexico. It’s a direct pipeline to New York. They ship women all over the U.S. and South America, and that little town turns a blind eye to it. They even host a carnival each year where pimps show off their cars and women.
    Gavin cleared his throat. “We tried to get some traction there with the Yarborough case last spring but turned up nothing. That was before you got here, Leland. It was why we went looking at Rivera’s compound for information.”
    “I understand why you didn’t get far. That piece of the criminal element in Mexico is as closed as a nun’s knees to outside intervention. Tlaxcala’s sex trafficking is the most dysfunctional thing happening in Mexico from a generational standpoint. And Tomas Rivera is smack dab in the middle of it.
    “Grandfathers, fathers, sons are all involved in the sex trade with the children aspiring to be just like their uncles, cousins, and older brothers. Ask a young boy who lives there what he wants to be when he grows up and he’ll most likely say a padrote. A pimp.”
    Nick’s abdomen tensed, and he pressed his foot down on the accelerator, passing several cars at once. “How has it become such an international center for exploitation?”
    “It’s insidious,” said Leland. “They send their most handsome young men all over Mexico to romance young women and lure them back to the area, promising a better life, marriage, an opportunity to meet their boyfriend’s family. After they get there and are cut off from their own families, the women are forced into prostitution in the local brothels or shipped out all over. They call it ‘love coercion.’”
    “Christ. What a mess,” said Gavin.
    Nick couldn’t think about that right now. It was too damn sad. The thought of Jennifer in that situation for a moment longer than she needed to be had