by Joseph Lewis
Pete believed it, and when he mentioned it to him, Chet merely shrugged and pretended not to care. That was confirmation enough.
“Just leave my boring, little world alone, will ya?” Pete had said with a laugh.
“Change your pin. Birthday’s are way too easy,” Chet had answered not even looking up from the computer screen.
That stopped Pete dead in his tracks.
And as if he was reading Pete’s mind, Chet had added, “And stay away from your mother’s maiden name.”
“Their physical age at their death?” Douglas Rawson asked.
He was the beneficiary of Affirmative Action. But that being said, Pete and Summer thought he was a good guy with a good mind. A bit of a stuffed shirt, perhaps, dressing like a model from Ebony or GQ, but he was okay. And, he was on the climb, rapidly moving up the ladder in the agency.
“Our guess is that they executed these kids because they were either too sick or too old,” Summer said.
“So . . . where do we go from here?” Musgrave asked.
Almost as one, they turned to Pete, who, though not the most senior agent in the room was the oldest. The warhorse, as Chet called him. He hadn’t been listening to the conversation or reports that had been given, and actually sat half-facing the pictures of the boys on the whiteboard. When he noticed the silence, he turned around, startled that they were waiting for him to speak.
Logan asked again, “Where do we go from here?”
“You all know what I think because we’ve been through it ten different ways from sundown. I believe these kids were victims of human trafficking. These kids come from different parts of the country.” He turned in his chair and gestured towards the white board with the pictures of the boys. “Monroe from Indiana. Nelson from Illinois. Watson from Ohio. Mullaney from California. Clarke from Arizona. Royce from Missouri. Babbitt from Minnesota. Collins from Wisconsin. Delroy from Nevada. Haynes from Michigan. Asher from Kentucky. And now, Tyler Hart from Cincinnati.” Pete paused and stared at the pictures of the kids before continuing. “These kids were taken when they were between the ages of eleven and thirteen. Death occurred at least one year after their abduction, though three were killed two years after their abduction. Nelson, Clarke, and Haynes had some sort of brand on the inside of their left ankle. The same three had scaring on their backs. Best guess is whipped with a leather strap. None of these kids were found in the state where they were taken from.”
“Despite what Chet said, he did come up with some links,” Summer added. “The kids came from middle class or upper middle class, intact families. Most of the boys had at least one other sibling. All the kids were athletic. The type of sport doesn’t really match, but their families and friends considered the boys athletes. They were bright kids, each on the honor roll and they were considered leaders. All were considered to be good kids. All were Caucasian.”
Pete cleared his throat, and the group looked at him. He lowered his head and raised it, staring at Musgrave, then at the others.
“I’ve read these files over and over to the point where I can recite them word for word. This might sound a bit out there, but hear me out.” He paused, stared at Summer and Chet, and then said, “I’ve been thinking these kids were targeted.”
He had been thinking about this for quite a while and saying it out loud, solidified it in his mind. The group stared at him. Summer frowned at him, not in anger, but in thought.
Chet simply said, “Hmmm . . .” then chewed on the end of his pen.
“Look at these boys,” Pete said turning from the group towards the pictures. “Look at them closely.” He paused then asked, “What do you see?”
Chet got up from the chair and squeezed himself along the wall in order to get a closer look.
“Targeted?” Rawson asked.
“Look at the pictures and think about what Chet told us. Each boy was athletic . . . intelligent . . . on the honor roll . . . a leader . . .”
“Different hair color, but the boys are really cute, good-looking,” Chet said.
“But targeted?” Musgrave asked.
It’s just a gut feeling,” Pete said with a shrug. “I have nothing to base it on, but there’s some sort of connection these boys have . . . I just . . . can’t . . . get a hold of it.”
Chet turned from the board, frowning at Pete, not in disagreement, but more like he was trying to digest something distasteful. Pete recognized that look and knew Chet’s mind was racing. Pete had called it ‘high octane thinking’.
Exploring the theory further, Musgrave asked, “Chet, did you find any other . . . connection the boys might have had to one another or to the three perps?”
“We have nothing to connect them or their families with Ruiz or Szymanski.”
“All of the deaths were similar,” Rawson stated, surprising himself that he had spoken it aloud.
“Not similar,” Pete said shaking his head. “The same. Each boy was nude, handcuffed behind their back, shot twice in the back of the head with a .38. They were found in remote areas. We figure all of the kids were kneeling when they were shot. Angle of entry would indicate that, and the Hart killing confirmed the theory.”
“Did you look in the backgrounds of the individuals who found the boys?” Musgrave asked.
Chet nodded.
“Nothing there, especially with the last. That Indian kid . . .”
Chet looked at his notes.
“Tokay,” Summer said, helping him out.
“Yeah, George Tokay. He’s the same age or a year older than the boy he found.” Chet shook his head. “Nothing.”
“For the sake of argument, let’s suppose you’re right, Pete,” Musgrave said after a long silence. “We can’t prove its child trafficking, and we can’t prove it isn’t. We can’t prove the kids were targeted. But the key to all of this is finding Ruiz and Szymanski. They’re the key. We find them, we find the answers.”
CHAPTER TEN
Two of the boys, Ben and Cory, weren’t in the hallway. The rest of the boys, however, had filed out of their rooms as they were told to do, and they stood in front of their doors with hands at their sides in a sort of loose attention that wouldn’t pass military inspection. This was a ritual that none of them wanted to witness or be a part of.
Brett caught Tim’s eye and then Patrick’s. He glanced at Johnny, sweaty and pale and leaning up against the wall just to keep standing. He coughed as quietly as he could into his hand. Tim moved as closely as he dared without the guards noticing and whispered something to Johnny who wiped sweat off his face and nodded slightly without drawing attention to himself or to Tim. He stood a bit wobbly but as straight as he could.
Brett looked back at Patrick, four doors down and too far away to speak to. He seemed on the verge of tears, and Brett silently hoped Patrick would keep it together until he went back into his room.
“Fuck me,” Ian said in a very quiet whisper.
Brett, who stood one door away, shushed him without even looking at him. The door next to Ian’s room opened and out came Ryan, led by the Fat Man and Skinny Beard, two of the guards the boys feared the most because when they showed up, one of the boys went away. As good as dead.
With the two guards was a young, tallish dark-haired man wearing a baseball cap, trim and fit and wearing sunglasses even though there wasn’t any sun shining inside their little prison. The man took a long look at Ian and then at Brett, but barely glanced at the other boys. Brett and Ian exchanged a look, a silent question as to who he was. Ian shrugged slightly, while Brett shook his head. Neither of them had seen him before.
Ryan shuffled between the Fat Man and Skinny Beard with Mystery Man riding drag. Ryan was dressed in a gray t-shirt with a hole in one sleeve and another hole in the lower back, jeans that were about an inch and a half too short with holes in both knees, and in tennis shoes that had a hole big enough for his toe to stick out of the left, and with the sole on the right flapping when he walked. He actually didn’t walk, though
, because his legs were shackled forcing him to shuffle. His hands were cuffed in front of him.
He was a handsome boy with light brown hair and blue eyes. He was rather quiet, so none of the boys knew him particularly well, but he was one of them. Now, it seemed, he wouldn’t be much longer. He never raised his eyes from the floor as he shuffled along. He reached the end of the hallway where the door led down, to where? The boys didn’t know, but whoever walked through that door was never seen again.
Ryan turned back, managed to look at both Tim and Johnny before he was shoved by the Fat Man. Quietly, without a word or sound, the boys went back into their rooms and shut their doors behind them, which were locked by Butch, the ugly fat guard. Brett sat on his bed, his hands balled into fists, jaw set; more than angry and more than sad. More than frustrated that he couldn’t call out, couldn’t lash out. He wanted to hit someone or something.
Knowing that one way or another, some way or another, they had to escape before anyone else was taken away.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Under the very best of circumstances, a five hour drive into the middle of nowhere is something he didn’t want to do. A five hour drive into the middle of nowhere with Frank, Ron and a kid chained to the inner wall of the van being driven to his death was even worse. Yet, the Dark Man had given him an order, and because the Dark Man paid him a handsome salary, he was in the van. He passed his time by staring at the unchanging rural scenery and napping.
“Tell me again,” Ron said, turning around from the passenger seat, squinting at him as he yawned tiredly. “Why did he send you with us?”
He shrugged and said, “Like I said before. He wants to expand to Miami. He wanted me to tag along, so I can learn how you do things.”
The van made a left onto Highway 8 at Pembine, heading west and even the air-conditioning couldn’t make the humid Wisconsin summer comfortable.
“But you did this before, right?” Ron persisted.
“Well, yeah, but other than that time in the desert, I never got rid of a kid. I help get ‘em though. You know that, right?”
Ron faced the front, pursed his lips and shook his head ever so slightly.
“Nothin’ to it, really,” Frank said. “You take a kid, handcuff him, drive him to some spot no one will think of looking and pop him.”
He looked at the boy in the back of the van. The boy seemed to stare at his shoes, but other than that, he couldn’t tell what the kid was thinking.
“Why do you strip ‘em?”
“First of all, you get rid of more evidence that way. The police have all that science fiction shit, so if the kid’s wearin’ nothin’, birds and ants and shit’s likely to get rid of him for you. See?”
Frank looked in the rearview mirror at him.
“Yeah, I guess.” The young man glanced at the boy again. “The kid looks fine though. Why does the man want to get rid of him?”
“Who the fuck knows,” Ron said, shaking his head. “Christ!”
Frank stared at his partner, then glanced at the man in the rearview mirror and shrugged. The young man in the back made a face and shrugged back.
After a bit of silence, Frank asked, “Who’s the kid we’re picking up?”
“A kid from Waukesha. We’ve been watching him. He plays baseball twice a week, soccer twice a week, hangs out at a quarry swimming with a bunch of other kids.”
“Who’s watching him?” Ron asked sullenly.
“Ace and me.”
“Yeah . . . ‘cept you’re with us, right?” Ron said over his shoulder.
“Fuck! It wasn’t my idea!” He leaned forward. “The man calls me and says, ‘Get together with Frank and Ron. They’ll teach you what they do.’ So, here I am. It wasn’t my idea!”
“Lighten up,” Frank said, playfully slapping at Ron’s arm.
“Keep your fuckin’ hands to yourself! I don’t like it.”
“Think of it as a compliment. The man likes what we do, so we teach someone else how to do it.”
“That’s how I was lookin’ at it,” the young man offered.
They hadn’t encountered more than a half dozen cars as they drove past Dunbar. They came to Jack Pine Road and turned right, drove about a quarter mile as the pavement changed from asphalt to dirt and from two lanes to one. Frank pulled off the road and cut the engine. The boy in the back looked up defiantly, but his lower lip trembled.
“Take the kid’s clothes off, but watch his feet. They like to kick,” Frank instructed.
The young man got up from the seat and moved cautiously towards the boy.
“Please, don’t,” the boy said quietly, a tear rolling down his cheek.
“Sorry, kid. Shit happens to everybody,” the young man said as he yanked the shoes off the boy. “Today, it happens to you.”
“Please!” the boy sobbed.
“What can I say?” the young man said, taking off the boy’s jeans and boxers.
“Quit fuckin’ around,” Ron barked.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” the young man answered, tearing the t-shirt off the boy.
“Now, take one hand and cuff him before you unchain the other hand,” Frank said. “That’s it. Now, easy does it. You don’t want any mess in the van.”
The young man helped the boy to his feet and moved him to the sliding door.
“Please, not here.”
“This place is as good as any, Kid.”
“I don’t wanna die. Please,” the boy sobbed.
“Nobody does, Kid, but like I said, ‘Shit happens’.”
The boy led the way into the woods, crying, pleading. Every now and then, Ron shoved him forward. Pine needles and small, pinkish and pointed pebbles pricked his feet. He limped and tried to move carefully, but Ron shoved him hard, making him fall, but he quickly got to his feet.
“Right here. Now!”
“Okay. Now what?” the young man asked, looking from Frank to Ron.
Frank reached into his waistband and pulled out a .38, checking the load as he did.
He pushed the boy’s shoulder and said, “Kneel down, Kid. You won’t feel a thing.”
“Please . . . let me go? Please?”
“Sorry Kid, not today.”
“You mind if I do him?” the young man asked, stepping forward. “I mean, I never did a kid.”
“Fuck,” Ron muttered.
“Sure, be my guest,” Frank said, handing him the gun. “Stand over here and pop him from behind. Two shots.”
“Two shots from behind,” the young man repeated.
“Oh fuck, just do it!” Ron yelled.
“Okay,” the man said, turning and pointing the gun at Frank. “Shit happens, right?” He pulled the trigger.
“God dammit! Oh fuck!” Ron yelled, backing up and stumbling.
The young man pointed the gun at him and pulled the trigger twice in rapid succession. He surveyed his work. Frank lay on his back, one shot to the face. Ron lay on his side, one shot to the face and one to the neck. Three shots. Each lethal.
“You dumb fucks . . . I’ve done my share of popping assholes like you,” he said out loud to no one in particular.
The boy looked up at the man hopefully.
“Sorry, Kid. Your turn,” the man said, stepping behind the boy. He pulled the trigger twice, watched the kid pitch forward face to the dirt and said, “Shit happens.”
He spit on the ground and walked back to the van. He climbed into the driver’s seat and took out his cell phone, dialed a number and waited.
“Yeah?”
“It’s done. Give me half an hour.”
“We’ll be waiting.”
He ended the call, started up the van and drove east on Highway 8, back to Pembine and then south on Highway 141 to Beecher and to a diner called Mary’s Place. He climbed out of the van and locked it with the keys in the ignition and then went into the diner and joined two men in a corner booth and picked up a menu. No one said anything until a waitress stepped over to the table.
&nbs
p; “What can I get you gentlemen today?” she said through a much-practiced smile.
* * *
First they heard the car door slam. Then they heard what sounded like crying and, though they couldn’t make out the words, they knew somebody was angry. They were about to start up their ATVs when they heard the first shot. They froze. When the second and third shots rang out, they instinctively crouched down, searching for cover. Then, two more shots followed by silence and a car door slamming. Then silence and the car starting up and driving away.
Neither of them spoke.
They froze, just as if they were playing frozen tag or statues. They stared wide-eyed at each other, neither wanting to make the first move. Finally, the older of the two rose slowly, straining toward the sound of the gunshots and upon not hearing anything, motioned to his younger brother to stay put. The younger brother’s silent and frantic protests went unnoticed.
The older boy moved slowly and ever so lightly through the woods, as if he were walking in a minefield, careful not to make any noise. After what he figured to be fifty or sixty yards, he stepped into the small clearing and saw the two dead men and the dead boy.
“Oh God! Jesus Christ!” he said, and threw up.
He ran, stumbled back to his brother.
“Call dad, quick!”
“What?” the younger boy asked.
“Oh God . . . they’re dead . . . call dad . . . now!”
Recognizing puke on his brother’s shirt and not understanding anything but the urgency in his brother’s voice, he used a cell phone, and when his dad answered on the second ring, he yelled, “Dad, come quick! Something bad’s happened!”
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Four Seasons in D.C. might look like just another upscale restaurant. It was here, however, that many deals on Capitol Hill were made. Mid-level aids would meet and broker deals over lunch, and then later that afternoon or evening, senators and congressmen would retool the deals into law.