The Hunting Ground (Deuce Mora Mystery Series Book 2)

by Jean Heller

  Cross and Colter walked in then, followed by a U.S. Marshal with two plastic bags filled with belongings taken from Mark and me. I looked to see if my bag had my camera’s memory card inside. I didn’t find it.

  “Where’s my gun?” Mark asked.

  “You’ll get it when you leave,” Cross said.

  He was flipping through some paperwork and didn’t look up, not even at the donut box, which still had another sprinkle-covered confection inside.

  “And where’s the memory card you stole out of my camera?” I asked.

  Cross looked up at me and flashed what could only be described as a smirk.

  “What memory card?” he said.

  “You know damned well what memory card,” I said. “The one with images of the murders at O’Hare.”

  “You won’t be seeing that again,” Cross said. “But there’s a brand new memory card in your bag there. We didn’t steal anything. We traded.”

  “There were other photos on the card that had nothing to do with O’Hare.”

  Cross nodded impatiently. “All of them were transferred to the new card. All except what you shot at the airport.”

  I turned to Bruckner. “You’re a lawyer. Do something.”

  “Deuce, sit down and let’s get through this, okay?” Bruckner replied.

  Cross slid one packet of paperwork across the table to Mark and passed another to me. A third went to Bruckner.

  “I could tell you what these are,” Cross said, “but you’ll probably take it more seriously coming from your attorney.”

  “By signing these papers,” the lawyer began, “you swear that you will never write anything, give any interviews, or discuss with anyone outside this room what you saw and experienced yesterday. Violation likely would mean prosecution.”

  “For what?” I asked. “Are they playing the ‘treason’ card again?”

  Bruckner looked me straight in the eyes.

  “Terrorism,” he said.

  “What? They can’t make up their minds?”

  The lawyer scolded me. “Deuce, you’re not helping.”

  “And if I refuse to sign?” I asked.

  Bruckner looked pained, as if my question caused physical discomfort.

  It was Cross who answered.

  “You will be fired from your job and publicly disgraced,” the NSA agent said. “You will be arrested and treated the way we treat any terrorism suspect. You will be held in isolation in a federal prison with access to no one, not even your lawyer, for as long as it takes you to change your mind. Then, when you sign the papers, you will be released. But understand, the life you left behind will have ceased to exist. And there will be no recourse to get it back.”

  Cross glanced at Mark. “Same for you, Mr. Hearst.”

  I slumped in the chair. I felt light-headed, as though my brain had disengaged, overwhelmed by the ultimatum I’d been given.

  Cross slid a bottle of water across the table to me, a condescending gesture that felt like a “gotcha.” Nonetheless, I opened the bottle and took several swallows.

  Thus fortified, I turned to Bruckner and asked, “Can he do that?”

  “In my opinion, not legally, no,” the lawyer said. “But if we took the matter to court, the government would claim the National Defense Authorization Act of 2014 gives it the right to detain U.S. citizens indefinitely without trial. Given there’s never been a hint of anything like that about you, we might prevail, though the outcome is problematic at best. Even if we succeeded, the damage to you would be irreparable.”

  I looked at Bruckner in disbelief. “And he’s not bluffing? You believe him?”

  Bruckner nodded. “He’s not, and I do.”

  “How am I going to live with this?” I said.

  Cross said, “You’ll find a way.”

  I looked across at Mark. He wouldn’t make eye contact. That told me he was going to cave and sign the papers.

  I asked Cross, “Are you doing this because it’s absolutely necessary for national security, or are you doing it because you can?”

  “We don’t play games, Ms. Mora,” Cross said.

  “Sign the papers, Deuce,” Bruckner said. “Weigh the consequences. You’ll be turning your back on one big story. But you’ll still have a job and a life.”

  My mind started searching for an exit out of this dilemma. I didn’t find one. I turned to Cross.

  “Even if I agree and ignore what we saw at O’Hare with our own eyes, there still has to be some logical closure of the Ryan Woods murders. Have you searched the mansion on Clark Street yet?”

  Cross frowned, confused by the sudden turn in the conversation.

  “No,” he said. “We’ve been waiting, as I mentioned, for a certain situation to play out. We have reason to believe that has occurred. So we’ll be going into the house . . . ” he glanced at his watch, “in seventy minutes.”

  “I want to go with you,” I said. “The child trafficking story is ending, at least for this one ring in Chicago. Let me witness the ending and write about that. If I don’t, the questions about this case will never end. The families whose children are alive want them back. The families with children who are dead deserve closure.”

  That godawful word again.

  Cross thought about it for a bit. “Technically,” he said, “the murders are a local police matter, not a national security case. The kidnappings are under the FBI’s jurisdiction. So I’ll defer on that to Colter. Taking the mansion is his operation.”

  I looked to Colter, trying to set my face in as much determination as I could muster. It wasn’t difficult.

  The two of us locked eyes for several long seconds.

  Then he said, “Sign the paperwork, and we’ll take you along.”

  I signed.

  63

  The rules were made clear to me as I sat in the back seat of Colter’s car enroute to the Near North Side neighborhood. I would be allowed to enter the mansion, but not until it had been cleared by SWAT. The police would not take responsibility for my injury or death should either occur.

  “We know there is Saudi security in there,” Colter said, glancing at me in his rearview mirror. “They’re probably already on edge. They were expecting the princes yesterday. They’re roughly twenty-four hours late.”

  “Has anyone talked to them?” I asked.

  “Yeah, Cross’s mole, Paul Nagi, should be inside with them,” he said. “He was supposed to tell them the plane developed some mechanical trouble between Dulles and O’Hare and had to put down for repairs. Indianapolis, or some place.”

  “Couldn’t they check to see if that was true?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. But why would they? Their jobs are to be ready when the princes arrive, not to check up on their every move. I suspect those princes live on their own schedules, and it isn’t uncommon for them to change schedules on a whim. If they get agitated, Nagi will calm them down. They trust him.”

  “I saw Nagi get on the plane at O’Hare yesterday,” I said.

  “No, you didn’t,” Colter replied. “You didn’t see anything at O’Hare.”

  “Yeah, right,” I said. I was testing the limits of the agreements I’d signed. “Where are the princes now? Not in Indianapolis, I’m sure.”

  The glance in the mirror was hard.

  “Don’t even try to go there, Deuce,” Colter said.

  I moped for a minute, then asked, “When will I be allowed in the house?”

  “When all the children have been safely removed and the building is secure, you and your photographer will be allowed inside, under escort.”

  I had talked to Eric Ryland for a time after Mark and I were released from detention at the Federal Building. I had been warned, yet again, not to discuss events at the airport with anybody, including my editor. But I was allowed to tell him about plans to take the mansion and to request a photographer meet me there.

  “Harry Klein is on his way,” Ryland said.

  I suspected Ryland alrea
dy knew more than he was saying because he asked me nothing about what I’d seen at Dulles or where I’d been for twenty-four hours.

  A phone rang beside Colter. What he picked up was no cell phone. I suspected it was probably an encrypted satellite phone for secure planning of the raid. He listened. I could see in the mirror that his face was hard set, his forehead creased with concern.

  “That’s not good,” he said. “My ETA’s six minutes.”

  He put the phone down and glanced at me again in the mirror.

  “Nagi just reported to Cross,” he said. “There are only two security people inside the house, which is the normal number. And the regular staff. That probably means they’re not expecting trouble.”

  “Why isn’t that good?” I asked.

  “There are no kids in the house. If they’re expecting the princes to want to party when they arrive, the children should be there waiting.”

  Now I frowned, too, and said, “Well, I’m not an expert on these perverts, but that would seem logical. Unless they’ve got the kids stashed somewhere else. Could they have been moved to the machine shop?”

  “No, we’ve still got that building secured. Besides, did that look like a pleasure palace to you?”

  “Maybe the princes have something else to do before they start to party.”

  “The kids should still be at the house,” Colter said. “This means we’re going to have to take out the security and staff before they have a chance to raise an alarm.”

  “With who?”

  He looked at me in the mirror again.

  “With whoever is holding the children. If the captors find out something’s gone wrong, the children will be killed.”

  That sent a chill down my spine.

  “Where could they be?” I asked. “If the children aren’t at the mansion, what are the other possibilities?”

  “I have no idea,” Colter said. “That’s what worries me.”

  “Wouldn’t your mole, Paul Nagi, know?”

  We pulled up in a parking lot about two blocks from the mansion. By the number of armored vehicles and police units there, I knew it must be the staging area for the raid.

  “That,” Colter said, “is exactly the question I intend to ask Mason Cross.”

  I reached for the door handle and realized it had been removed, typical for police vehicles to prevent prisoner escapes. But I wasn’t a prisoner. Colter came around and freed me. We walked across the lot to where Cross was talking to the SWAT commander.

  “Ms. Mora,” Cross said with a courtly nod. “Nice to see you again.”

  I didn’t dignify the comment with an answer.

  “Your guy have any idea where the kids are?” Colter asked curtly.

  “No,” Cross replied. “So you’ve got to take the house down fast, before anybody inside can send up an alarm.”

  “We can cut the land line wires,” Colter said. “Any chance you can shut down all the cell towers that serve the neighborhood?”

  “Not without a court order,” Cross said. “And then it has to be arranged with every provider in the city. We don’t have that kind of time.”

  “Our only other option is to carpet bomb the house with flashbangs,” Colter said. “We can probably be ready in thirty.” He turned to me. “Deuce, stay right behind me. Don’t even think about going off on your own.”

  I nodded. “I need to meet the photographer.”

  “He’s over by that SWAT van,” Cross said, jutting his chin toward the edge of the lot.

  “Go over with him while I talk to my commanders,” Colter said. “I’ll come get you when we’re ready.”

  The members of the SWAT team didn’t pour out of dark, windowless vans this time. They arrived on foot and with as much stealth as a heavily armed, armored, helmeted, and face-shielded platoon of soldiers can move.

  The streets in the neighborhood remained closed. Two bucket-trucks of the type used by electrical workers and tree trimmers had joined the array of gas company vans around the mansion. The buckets, still at ground level, were occupied by cops holding weapons that looked like grenade launchers. They would fire the flashbangs through all the plate glass that comprised the mansion’s facade behind the wall. It was a weakness of the building’s security that the high front wall and the elevated side and back windows would shield from those inside the house a lot of what was happening on the ground around the building until it was too late. The house had been built for privacy. On this day it was working in favor of the police.

  The Journal photographer, Harry Klein, and I were escorted to positions behind Colter’s car across the street from the house. We could see everything, and Klein had a good photo position shooting over the car’s hood.

  We had strict instructions that if return fire started coming our way, we were to lie on the ground so the car would shield us; and if ordered, we were to run like crazy due east across the park away from the firefight.

  I stood next to Colter at the rear of the car, right where a round from across the street could theoretically blow up the gas tank. I crossed my fingers that he forgot to fill up.

  He raised a radio to his mouth.

  “Are we ready, Alpha?” he asked.

  “All stations report ready,” a low voice responded.

  “Let’s do it,” Colter said.

  There was a moment of cold silence. Then the world exploded.

  64

  The two buckets attached by articulated arms to the trucks on the street and in the alley rose in unison, and six men began firing missiles through the front and side windows. Broad sheets of glass exploded and then collapsed in crystal waterfalls into the gardens below. I heard additional fire at the back of the building.

  The missiles exploded in blinding flashes of light designed to activate all the photoreceptors in the eyes of humans standing nearby, making vision impossible for at least five seconds. As the blindness subsided, an afterimage remained, ruining the ability of affected individuals to aim a weapon with any precision.

  The overwhelming light was accompanied by a bang so loud it caused temporary loss of hearing and disturbed the fluid in the ears, destroying balance.

  I could feel the thunderclaps in my hands on the sheet metal of the car and in my feet through the soles of my shoes, even standing on grass at the curb.

  I closed my eyes against the flashes of light, but I wasn’t quick enough.

  So intense was the light and sound that when the barrage ended, my ears rang and spots danced in my eyes.

  In the short space in time when those in the house were incapacitated, the SWAT team forced its way in, began taking prisoners, and cleared the building room by room. Seven minutes after the assault began, it was over.

  “All clear,” the radio crackled.

  “Let’s go,” Colter ordered. He glanced at me and stopped. “You okay?”

  I smiled, feeling sheepish. “I will be,” I said. “I was looking right at the flashes. I’ve got lovely little polka dots in my vision now.”

  “I should have warned you not to look. Sorry.” He glanced over to the photographer, who was busy hanging gear off his shoulders. “You okay, Klein?”

  “Dandy,” Harry said. “Let’s go have a look.”

  Colter took my arm to guide me although my vision was clearing rapidly. When we got to the other side of the street, I withdrew from his hand.

  “I’m good,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t be a hero,” he said, and marched toward the alley gate that opened to the front yard. Klein and I followed.

  “Watch the steps,” he called over his shoulder.

  Inside, I thought we’d find the house a shambles, but flashbangs don’t explode like grenades. They are built so the concussive force is contained. The only damage I saw was a broken vase lying on the floor beside a spent flashbang canister.

  The SWAT leader walked over.

  “We’ve cleared all three floors and the basement,” he told Colter. We have seven staff members
and two security men in custody. No injuries.”

  “Any children?” I asked on impulse.

  The SWAT leader looked at me with curiosity and then at Klein with alarm as he realized he was being photographed.

  “It’s okay, Lieutenant,” Colter said. “They’re with me.”

  Still glaring at me the SWAT leader said, “No, no children. But the basement is a scene out of hell.”

  I couldn’t have described it better myself.

  As we descended the stairs, we encountered a display of fifteen cages, five across, three high. They were empty now, but they were of the same type and size I’d seen in the machine shop on the South Side, the one in which Joey Russell had probably been held until he escaped into the cabinet where I found him.

  A substantial garden hose coiled like a snake on a hook above the faucet to which it was attached.

  The area looked relatively clean, but it stank vaguely of urine and the coppery residue of blood. There were five drains, one under each stack of cages. My stomach felt queasy as I figured out that when the children voided their bladders and bowels, the urine and feces from those on top must have rained down on the children below, and they were all hosed down to clean them up.

  I didn’t know if I could tolerate seeing any more. But when Klein finished taking photographs, we followed a corridor under the steps back to an area that was divided into six rooms, three on each side of the hallway, each identical to the others.

  Each room contained a sturdy queen-sized bed, a toilet, and a sink. The windowless walls were covered in thick cork for soundproofing. A rheostat controlled the lighting, varying it from soft to harsh to set a mood. Overall, the rooms might have been comfortable prison cells if it hadn’t been for the shackles that hung from the ceilings. While the cork walls had been cleaned, I could see the stains where traces of blood had soaked in, visual echoes of the violence committed here.

  “Jesus,” I heard Colter whisper. Klein looked vaguely green, and it wasn’t the lighting. I sympathized. I was seriously sick to my stomach.

  I turned and walked into the corridor where the air was fresher. I put my hands flat to a wall, leaned in and breathed deeply, unable to escape the stench of the place.