Ransom Read Free

Customs Enforcement agent Blake Fallon watched the woman on the video screen. Elizabeth Cantrell. Or Liz, as she’d been clear to correct him.
    Her DMV picture didn’t do her justice. Her honey-colored hair draped loosely about her shoulders, and her thick-lashed blue-green eyes reminded him of the Caribbean. The puffy, knee-length jacket hid her figure except for slender, jean-encased legs. The red color of her outerwear highlighted the pink in her cheeks.
    His lips had twitched when she’d tried to reach the window. Good for her for at least trying. She was going to need to be brave and brash for what he had planned. He hoped she had the mental and physical mettle to help him bring down an international criminal.
    â€œHere we go,” Canada Border Service officer Nathanial Longhorn said as he entered the room.
    Blake and Nathanial served together on one of many joint teams consisting of various law enforcement agencies between the United States and Canada called Integrated Border Enhancement Teams—IBETs for short. Other members of their team were working to find the illegal contraband smuggler Idris Santini’s far-flung bases of operation in Canada, the United States and Venezuela.
    Santini was like a cloud of smoke, visible one moment, then disappearing the next. But now Blake had a viable lead. A way of drawing Santini out into the open where Blake and his team would snag him in a tight net, like the dangerous critter he was. But to do so, Blake would need Liz’s cooperation. He’d get it by any means possible.
    Nathanial lugged Miss Cantrell’s suitcase onto the table next to the video feed and popped open the lid. Nestled inside between Liz’s clothing was a small wooden jewelry box. Roses and a hummingbird decorated the lid and sides. It was delicate and appeared old. A family heirloom?
    So far Blake’s information from his confidential informant inside the Santini organization had proved correct—a woman named Elizabeth Cantrell was planning to bring contraband for Santini into Canada via the border crossing in Buffalo, New York.
    Blake snagged the jewelry box and lifted the lid. The rough stone necklace he’d been told about lay at the bottom of the box. He breathed out a relieved breath and untangled the necklace, then stretched it out on the table.
    Nathanial snorted. “That’s it? Huh. Not what I pictured.”
    The stones weren’t pretty and sparkly like polished, cut diamonds, but were still ill-gotten gains from the blood and sweat of people forced into labor in horrible mining conditions in a developing nation. “These gemstones may not look like much, but each one, when polished and cut, will be worth millions. There’s a rumor the head of Venezuela’s most violent gang had the necklace fashioned for his wife as an anniversary gift. Santini won’t get paid if he doesn’t produce the necklace before the date.”
    Nathanial whistled. “No wonder Santini’s so hot to get his hands on it.”
    â€œYes.” Acid churned in Blake’s gut at the thought of Idris Santini. A man who’d stop at nothing to get what he wanted. Santini and his syndicate of smugglers funded an illegal mining operation in Venezuela. Though the authorities had tried unsuccessfully on numerous occasions to shut down the mine, Santini either bought off or killed anyone who endeavored to thwart him.
    A joint effort between the IBETs and the current Venezuelan government had tracked Santini’s latest shipment to Miami, then to Canada. But by the time the IBETs team had the intel, the goods and Santini had disappeared.
    Until today. Word was that a single, valuable piece had supposedly been stolen by one of his lower level minions to give as a gift to the man’s unwitting fiancée. Blake’s informant on the inside stated that Santini had personally abducted not only his man but the man’s new wife, Ms. Cantrell’s