The Record Keeper (Murphy Shepherd, #3)

by Charles Martin

There are more people enslaved today—women, children, girls and boys—than in the history of the world. And there will always be demand.”

order to affect supply, we have to cut the head off the snake.”

We have found dozens of devices in Freetown. None placed by us. Not only is he listening to us, but he’s watching us. We’re his Netflix. If you’re in a room with electrical outlets or any type of high-speed wiring, and there’s a computer or a cell phone in someone’s pocket—regardless of whether it’s yours or not—he’s listening. And recording. He probably has a dozen people assigned to you alone.”

“We have to change tactics. Get smarter. In some ways—we have to out-evil evil.”

“We need to build a team of hackers who are better at his game than he is and bring his playhouse crumbling down. Disrupt his supply, or his ability to administer it, and force him out of hiding.” “Then what?” Bones hesitated. “Help me hunt the wolf.” “You want me to hunt him? Or kill him?” Bones looked at me but made no response.

By design there was not a single female in the group. Certainly there are talented female hackers and programmers. Some better than the guys we’d brought in. But we needed guys who, for lack of a better explanation, thought like guys. An inherent trait, not something we had to train. We didn’t have the time.

we were going to use their carnal desires against them.

The general idea was that we needed a team of brilliant minds to first find and then hack and get behind the impenetrable technical walls of Frank’s world.

“To outsmart the smartest, you need to hire smarter people.” When we pressed him, he asked, “You ever see the Gene Wilder version of Willy Wonka?” We both nodded. Eddie continued, “We need to create a process—an attractive process—whereby we bring in the best, whittle them down test by test, and find the one or two worthy of the chocolate factory.”

I work well alone, but I also know the value of a team.

At which point Camp picked him up and dumped him, headfirst, into a trash can.

Frank only employs people he can manipulate. And the way he does that is to entice and record and then hold that against you while you do what he wants, when he wants, however he wants, for as long as he wants.”

there’s not a shred of good in him. He loves nothing and no one and alternates between two emotions. Both of which are insatiable: fear and hatred. He only wants one thing: power. Which gives him control.”

“For the simple reason that we grew up without any.”

Camp raised a finger. “How’d you turn out so different?” Bones smiled. “You’re assuming I’m different.” Camp looked around him. “Yes.” Bones shook his head. Maybe the first real look behind the curtain. “I ...

“If he’s such a ghost, how do you ...

And how come no one has ever caught him?” “I’ve spent thousands of hours. I know my opponent. And my brother. Sometimes when he thinks, the thought t...

The world had wrapped their arms around her and, in many ways, Casey had become the voice of the voiceless.

When I first agreed to publish, I told her I would do so under one condition: “Nobody ever knows my name. Period.” She had agreed and, to her great credit, she’d kept my secret. Especially when so many were willing to pay her a lot of money not to.

“You’re really not going to let me help you?” “Nope.” “What if I can be helpful?” “I want you free of him, not consumed by him.”

“Casey . . . don’t let him hold you captive from a distance. He’s just a man.” She nodded. “And when I close my eyes, I remember what that man did to me.” Having voiced her fear, she turned and walked off.

Casey had educated much of the civilized world on trafficking. On being trafficked. Since that time, she has become the voice of the voiceless. And while she and Ms. Karen have set publishing records, she has done one thing that can never be measured. Maybe more than any other. She’s given hope to the hopeless. Speaking as one who was once hopeless, I can attest that there is no value you can place on hope. Please welcome Casey Girl.”

Summer and I watched in wonder as she stood. Confident. Having shed her shell. Casey had become comfortable in her own skin.

In the week prior I’d”—Casey held up her fingers like quotation marks—“‘serviced’ more than a hundred clients. Which in English means I’d been raped for profit fifteen times a day. One after another. To keep me busy, or rather get the most money for my time, my traffickers had put my available schedule on the dark web. Sold thirty-minute slots. I’m told I was profitable. But that ‘profit’”—more quotation marks—“I never saw a dime. Selling flesh is different than selling drugs. Drugs you sell once. Flesh you sell a thousand times over. To help me forget, to transport my mind out of the hell in which my body lived, I did a lot of drugs. Anything I could. Whenever I could. Because of that, I don’t know how long I’d been on that ship. A year. Maybe two. Anyway, they brought in some new girls. Fresher. Less mileage.

“I was seconds from eternity. And freedom. She? Just hours from a living hell. One I’d been living. We? Brought together in some sadistic plot.” Casey studied the audience. “She knew none of this when she found me in the shower. And for some reason, in the first act of kindness I’d known in . . . years, she stole some ice, a bunch of it, and packed me in it. Talking to me all the time. Telling me to hang in there. ‘You’re gonna be okay.’ I was too high to tell her that I didn’t want to be okay. The ice countered the drugs, lowered my heart rate, and kept me alive. When I woke, the ice had melted and I was a Popsicle but somehow still alive. Sort of. Some sort of weird drug-induced coma.

emotionally she was not healthy. Having grown stronger, she began fighting the memories she couldn’t shake. Memories in which she constantly found herself helpless. And muted. She told us, “It’s like drowning every day only to find that someone lets you up long enough to suck in a breath of air just before they shove you down again.”

becoming proficient with several different weapons systems, and had applied for her concealed carry permit. Don’t get me wrong—I had encouraged her to do both. I wanted her both to be and to feel empowered to defend herself, but I get a little squirmy when the driving motivation is hatred bordering on rage. And possibly revenge.

These arms were rocks. But . . . tender rocks. They lifted me. Carried me. And while this man was carrying me, I was thinking to myself that the one thing I hated most in the world, a man stronger than me, just rescued me.

when I asked him, ‘Why?’ he told me something I’d long failed to believe. Couldn’t believe. He said”—her voice cracked—“‘Because you’re worth rescue.’

somewhere in that fog of remembrance and creation, I turned around and looked in my cracked rearview and I found he’d done the one thing I believed no one could ever do. Certainly no man.” The words were long in coming. “He had restored my hope.”

My question is this: What do I do with all those who gave so little and stole so much? What do I do with these men who live rent-free in my mind? Am I not of value? Do you not see me?”

‘Write it down. Tell the truth. Let it out.’ When I asked why, he pointed at my chest. ‘This thing you’re holding on to—this rage—is the poison we drink thinking it’ll kill someone else.’

“It’s my love letter to the me I used to be. And to all those like me.”

I’m talking about the real kind. The kind that, in your words, leaves the ninety-nine to find the one.

But one thing I’ve noticed about you—as the number of people you carry has grown, your shoulders have only broadened, and your heart . . . well, it’s bottomless.

But often at night when he shook and kicked and screamed, his tiny little hand would reach through the covers and find mine. Completely asleep and yet reaching out. I think that’s what broken hearts do. You showed me that.

David—the world needs your words. Don’t keep them all to yourself. And don’t let my death silence them. They have rescued countless millions. Like me.

Surprisingly, he whispered, “I don’t belong here.” It struck me as I listened to his beautiful words that, in all my life, in over two hundred fifty rescues, I’d never seen someone more afraid. Or more alone on planet Earth.

Love shows up.

It was a for-profit prison. They didn’t throw out nothing. They stretched a dollar till it screamed.

“Prison gives you a lot of time to think and not a lot to think about, so naturally I got to thinking about those drives. Couldn’t figure it out. So one day, I switched one of those silver boxes to another bag and just went about my business. I dropped the trash off at the incinerator, checked my cart, and started making my way out of the prison. I heard the first alarm on the elevator, and by the time I got to the surface and the door opened, there were four guards pointing guns at me. To be honest, I liked the attention. But I played dumb anyway. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

“How long ago was this?” I asked. “Time is funny in prison. Gets away from you ’cause the more you focus on it, the slower it goes.

as you age, you start to thinking that the end is closer than the beginning,

“When my time comes, I’d be obliged if you’d dig my hole. Put me in the ground. Maybe help me walk from here to there.” A final pause. Clay stared at me. His lip trembling. “Walk me home.”

“Notice I didn’t say ‘become like.’ I said ‘think like.’ There’s a difference. And one way we force ourselves to do that is to override what our body is telling us. Pain is a signal. That’s all. The body’s response to discomfort. We are here learning to mute it.

In the years following, wherever I traveled, I took that old guy with me. And maybe what he did for me, in some small way, I’ve done for others.”

I’ve come to understand, no . . . to know . . . through the hundreds of people I’ve rescued, that nothing matters more than a name. It’s why it’s always been the first thing I’ve asked them. Because no matter what hell they’ve endured, a name can call them back out. A name establishes a record. Drives a stake in the ground. Shouts across the stratosphere, ‘I’m here! I matter! I’m not invisible!’ And while you may think very little of me, God himself actually thought me up. What you see in the lens of your eye, this thing we call ‘me,’ started in his mind. He actually took the time to think me up. Imagine.” Another leg tap. “God thought of me. Molded my bones like a potter. And if that’s true, and he thought of me, and then made me, and then named me, then there’s a record of my existence. Evidence that I’m real.” He was quiet a moment, slowly swirling his wine.

A name is the singular thing that separates us from the ninety-nine. A name makes us the one.”

all across the world, no matter where we’d traveled, and no matter how dangerous, he’d always gone first. I hadn’t lived theory.

we began bounding down the steps. Four at a time. A floor every two to three seconds. We would have traveled faster were it not for Bernie. I doubted he’d done any physical fitness in a decade. Ten floors in and Bernie hurled. Again at fifteen. Thirty floors and he was staggering and dry heaving. Forty-two floors down, he was gurgling and begging for mercy.