Failed State (A James Winchester Thriller Book 1) (James Winchester Series) - James Samuel (top novels of all time .txt) 📗

George nodded. “I never delete anything. You can have everything.” He paused. “Actually, I have a burner account on Kranex, the email server based in Russia. Phelps has communicated with me on there before when we couldn’t talk. It’s yours.”

“Interesting, Senator. Anything incriminating?”

“Phelps made sure this state of emergency was declared to put pressure on Romero. He’s using those same friends in Congress to make sure he takes his father’s old seat in the next special election. They feel like they owe his father everything, so they’ll cooperate.”

“Is that illegal?” asked Jack.

“Shaky ground,” Scott confirmed. “Favours aren’t illegal, but there’s a limit. Declaring a state of national emergency and misleading Congress and the public to accomplish a vendetta won’t be easy to defend in court.”

“How long am I looking at inside?”

“You’ll need to speak to my colleagues. It all depends on how much useful information you can provide us and whether they lead to convictions.”

George looked disappointed.

Scott didn’t have the heart to lie to him, even though he could get away with it.

“I’ll do whatever you want,” said George. “Just keep me and my family safe.”

“We’ll do that. They’ll all be taken into the Witness Protection Program, and you’ll join them after your jail sentence. Romero won’t be able to touch you.”

George looked grateful.

“May I?” asked Jack.

“Yes.”

Jack went to untie George and give him what little comfort he could, given the situation. Scott took his second cell phone out of his pocket and put in a call.

“Agent May?” his handler said.

“It’s over. Senator Black will cooperate with us. We should have enough to take down Phelps. You can move on Romero.”

Chapter Fifty-Five

James watched as Sinclair skidded away from the rental lot of Miami International Airport. He lingered, dwelling on everything he’d done to get to this point. He missed Jessi. He felt like he’d played her to satisfy his own selfish desires.  Had she truly fallen for him? He would never find out the truth now.

Sinclair pulled up to the curb and leaned out of the window. “Alright, we need to equip ourselves and get set up before we can go after Romero. Luckily, I have plenty of contacts in the States, so it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.”

James didn’t say anything as he made his way around the rented silver Mazda and got into the passenger seat. They’d left everything they had in Mexico. Travelling on fake passports was risky enough without alerting US immigration with Sinclair’s computer systems and James’ tactical equipment.

Sinclair cranked up the air conditioning to banish the heavy, oppressive Florida weather. He manoeuvred into the line of cars battling to escape the airport.

“You’re quiet today. What’s wrong with you?”

“You know what’s wrong.”

“Forget about her. It would have never worked anyway. You’re a private contractor and she’s the sister of one of Mexico’s biggest drug lords. You best hope she doesn’t tell her brother that you dishonoured her. See it as a victory.”

James deduced from Sinclair’s playful tone that his partner wanted to cheer him up, but it didn’t help. He wondered whether she’d followed through on her desire to take what money she had and leave Mexico. He remembered in brutal detail how she’d begged him not to drag her back to her brother and the slamming of the front door.

“Okay, then,” said Sinclair. “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“We’re not robots.” James reclined in his seat. “We shouldn’t pretend we are.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We’re only human. I felt something for Jessi. I really did. We spent a lot of time together in that hacienda.”

Sinclair scoffed. “I bet you did.”

James narrowed his eyes at Sinclair. “We never slept together. We stayed in separate rooms the whole time.” He paused. “I know she wanted me to stay with her, but I tried my best to keep things purely professional. Only when we got back to Guanajuato did anything happen.”

Sinclair shrugged as he pulled onto the freeway. He put his foot on the accelerator and the Mazda responded with a growl.

“I sometimes wonder if I made a mistake not taking her back to Montoya.”

“Don’t let it bother you,” said Sinclair. “Our only goal was to deal with Quezada, at least before all this happened. We don’t need Montoya now.”

“Of course.”

“This lasted less than a week. It’s not as if you were with her a long time. Let it go. We have a job to do. Once we kill Romero, we can clean up the rest of this mess.”

James agreed with the logic, but as they neared Downtown Miami and the golden sands of South Beach, James couldn’t ignore the hole in his heart or the black mist clouding his mind.

South Beach bustled with bikini-clad women and fat, suntanned men plying the sidewalk bars and restaurants. The faint whiff of salt floating in from the Atlantic contrasted with the thrum of the small two-seater aerial advertising planes flying overhead.

After ditching the car, James rolled his sleeves up and adjusted his sunglasses. They passed the Art Deco Breakwater Hotel in the centre of Ocean Drive, squeezing between the minimum wage workers competing to drag hapless tourists into their bars.

“Why are we here?” asked James as they passed a black Ferrari parked outside the hotel. “I didn’t come here for a holiday.”

“You ever been to Miami before?”

“No.”

“Then you should know that South Beach is so much more than Ocean Drive.”

Sinclair led him away from Ocean Drive and into the boulevards behind it. The further they got from the beach, the grittier the area became. The homeless, muttering obscenities to themselves, reclined in the back alleys next to dumpsters on the unforgiving concrete. A Latino with matted hair splayed out at