INTEGRITY CODE.

Prologue

Jesse Adams.

"Please, let me come with you." She begged the man infront of her.

"No, it's too dangerous for you."

"But who will watch your back if you go alone. Am assigned to you and you can't make me..."

"That's enough Evah!" It was out before his rage could be checked. But it would do. What he was about to do was dangerous, and against the code they'd sworn to abide by. Turning to her he lifted her chin such that their eyes met. "You'll  stay and look after her, both of them. I'm  going in alone, and that's final," he added seeing the pout she had on.
Tears were now flowing down her cheeks. She'd never been the sentimental one. He walked to her and took her in his arms. It was also against the code, affection towards a colleague, worse so an intern.

Screw the code.

It was no longer an ordinary mission. Not one sanctioned by the base, no.

"If I don't bring her back take care of Tracy for us." He added softly this time, which only made her tighten the hug. Had he not been raging, he'd have scoffed at her. She was the one item incorruptible, and followed her principles to a fault.

To a catastrophic fault.

He rubbed his wrist where he'd almost lost the arm by her doing. He pulled off, kissed her forehead and took his ringo-jacket and gear. Then walked over to the cot where their beautiful almost
-two year old lay, not asleep, but quietly staring back. By now he'd come to distinguish the little expressions she made. This one was a smile. A genuine one.
She was beautiful. Just like her mother. She wore a necklace they had given her, with a picture of them three. He lifted her into his arms and kissed her then left. He paused by the door eyes closed and sighed. Barely hiding the tear running down his cheek.
It was no longer a mission, it got personal.

           ********************

It was a cruise ship that only the over privileged could afford. Well lit and decorated. It's stories stack onto each other like a deck of cards. One would pass it for a cruise ship. Well, technically that was what it was, save for the questionable docking at hours you'd call ungodly, and unchartered crates. Search warrants proved no use as they were cancelled as soon as they were given. His handlers at the base had declared it off limits and way above his pay grade. Searching such a ship was either too stupid a move, or too daring with too much to lose. Often, the line between the two was too thin.

But somewhere on that ship they had his wife.

Or in, the thought wasn't exactly dismissible

Rumours had it of modern slave trade in the west, in the form of offshore jobs in what ended as very cheap labor, poor treatment and with high returns depending on who's side you were on. Only one officer had ever gone close to being inside it. He never came out the same. He got dismissed from duty and was sent far away where he now served as a small town sheriff.

Case closed and lips tightly sealed.

Adams hadn't gone to as far as getting his name, or the county he was sent before all the files had gone missing. He'd asked a young compiler and been told that all files had been sent to the city to review old cases.

Shredded, then.

He'd then did some digging and established that an annual gathering was to take place here. World leaders from powerful states and organizations all assembled there for a meeting of sorts. The information wasn't exactly hidden, but the objective behind it was. Foreign dignitaries would come and most every other iconic figure. But there seemed to be some selection of sorts. A few leaders, one he'd call noble, had not been given access, or invited. George Michael, for one.