“And as you know, the feds are already more than okay with straight-up human trafficking and murder, so there’s not really any chance of appealing to their moral conscience, either,” Lukas snaps, gritting his teeth.
“This could be the end of the line,” Genn concludes sorrowfully.
“But they don’t know Leon is connected to the threat on Chandler’s life,” I remark, still trying desperately to hold this shitstorm together. “Doyle arrested him for obstruction — not murder or conspiracy or anything. Obstruction is, what, a misdemeanor?”
“They’ll run it as a felony,” Vasily says.
“And anyway that’s just their excuse for dragging him in. Once they’ve got him in a cell, that’ll give them plenty of time to find all kinds of other shit to pin on him,” Lukas says.
“We — we can’t give up this easily,” I beg, shaking my head and taking a step forward. “It can’t be over yet! Leon needs our help!”
“Cherry, we can’t touch him now,” Genn says gently.
I can’t blame them for wanting to throw in the towel. After all, when I was sitting in that air vent just five minutes ago, I was thinking along the same lines. When things are this grim, it’s definitely hard to see past it. But every time I think about how quickly Leon jumped to save me, throwing himself in the crosshairs just to give me a fighting chance — I realize that I won’t be able to live with myself if I don’t at least try to return the favor.
Besides, a life without Leon is not one I’m particularly interested in living anymore.
Not when his words are still ringing in my head: I love you, too.
“No,” I protest, folding my arms across my chest defiantly. “I refuse to just lay down and let these feds ruin everything you all have worked so hard for. We’ve all come too far to just give up now.”
“We’d probably only make it worse,” Vasily comments, but I can tell he’s starting to cave a little bit. There’s a spark in his blue eyes indicating to me that he isn’t ready to give up yet. I decide to stoke that tiny flame. If I’m really going to do this and take on the feds, I damn sure don’t want to do it alone.
“Besides, we don’t have anything on the feds,” Genn says.
“They’re dirty as fuck, but they’re pros at looking squeaky clean,” comments Lukas.
Suddenly I gasp, remembering something so small and seemingly insignificant that I did on a whim much earlier. Something I totally forgot in the rain of gunfire as we ran away from the docks the other night.
I took a picture with my phone at the scene of the crime.
“Hold on,” I mumble, reaching into my jeans pocket to extract my cell phone. I scroll through the gallery of photos to find the blurry, grainy shot I took of Agent Doyle standing next to Chandler on the docks, overseeing the immigrants’ grueling procession. I zoom in on Doyle’s face. It’s not the best quality photo, to be sure, but it definitely looks like him. Bingo.
“What are you doing?” Vasily asks, confused.
I hold up the phone for them to see the picture. “Look!”
All three of them lean in and squint at the phone screen. I wait expectantly for them to all realize just how valuable this evidence is. But instead they all just look defeated.
“Cherry, this is never gonna be enough,” Genn tells me sympathetically.
“If a damning photograph was ever enough to put away a guy with this much immunity, God knows every one of those bastards would be behind bars by now,” says Lukas.
“It’s a good instinct,” Vasily comments. “I’m glad you thought ahead to snap that picture in the moment, but I doubt it would ever be enough to do any real damage.”
“You don’t understand,” I insist. “You can’t underestimate the power of bad PR.”
“Cherry, the FBI has enough PR points to commit mass murder and still come out spotless in the end,” Vasily explains, but I can tell he wants so badly to believe.
“I know people. I’m a journalist, guys. Okay, I was never exactly Joseph Pulitzer, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have connections. I have the names and email addresses of so many editors — at least one of them will be interested in a story like this! Human trafficking! Murder conspiracies! Dirty feds! Everybody loves a good underdog story,” I ramble, feeling my face grow flushed with enthusiasm.
Vasily looks like he might actually join my crusade. He turns to Genn and Lukas, who look much more dubious, regarding both of us with suspicious expressions.
“It might be worth a shot,” he begins hesitantly.