The Inside Man

by M. A. Rothman

  “It looks like Levi uncovered one of the rats in the State Department,” Mason said. “This man was helping some of the traffickers with their jobs.”

  Lucy slid the photos closer to her and frowned. “So, this is pretty much what I’d expect. Actually, this is a smaller operation than the kind of stuff I’ve been hearing about crossing in from the Canadian border and the West Coast. But maybe it’s just a smaller delivery than normal … I presume you tracked down the buyers?”

  “Yup. And with Levi’s help, we’ve uncovered a rat’s nest of scheduled deliveries coming in within the next two weeks.”

  Levi felt more confused than ever. “How exactly did I help you uncover anything?”

  Mason turned his attention to him, and Levi felt Lucy’s gaze on him as well, an amused expression barely hidden. “Remember how I said I’ve been watching you? Well, that wasn’t a lie. I knew about Benson, but I didn’t know about his East Coast contacts. As soon as you figured out Giancarlo Fiorucci was the bag man for a bunch of buyers, well, I was able to put two and two together.” Mason raised an eyebrow and said in a conspiratorial tone, “You know, this Fiorucci character … I’ve been trying to track him down, but he’s gone missing for some reason. Interesting, don’t you think?”

  Gino was likely chopped up into fertilizer and spread across a good part of the Atlantic, but even if Levi knew that for sure, which he didn’t, he would never talk about it. “I didn’t really have any thoughts on that guy.”

  Lucy put her hand over her mouth as she laughed and pointed in Levi’s direction. “When I first saw you, I really thought you were some tourist way out of your element. That’s just too funny.” She turned to Mason and hitched her thumb at Levi. “I’ll bet you a steak dinner he killed him and that guy is buried somewhere nobody’ll find him.”

  Levi glanced at his watch. “I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but can I take a rain check on all of this? I—”

  “Need to save a little girl,” Mason said.

  “Well, I don’t know if … fine, I guess that’s what I’m trying to do.” He glanced back and forth between the two strange characters in the room. “Can we pick this conversation up later?”

  Mason wagged a finger at Levi, “Just realize, what I’m going to ask you right now isn’t about only one little girl. We’re talking about hundreds of boys and girls. Innocents that our country is allowing to be enslaved. And I need the two of you to help. From what I can tell, you both have the exact skills and relationships we need to put a dent into this trafficking. Go take care of the Tanaka girl, but can I count on your help?”

  “You know I’ll do it,” Lucy said without hesitation.

  Levi wouldn’t have believed it was possible for his life to get more complicated than it already was. “Hundreds of kids coming in to be enslaved? Pimped out?”

  “And worse,” Lucy and Mason said at the same time.

  With a deep sigh, Levi shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m saying this. Fine, I’ll try to help. After I find the Tanaka girl.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Before Levi had left the enigmatic Lucy and Mason behind, he agreed to stand in front of a device that took a three-hundred-sixty-degree scan of his head and flashed lights in his eyes. Mason said the scan would serve as his ID from now on, whatever that meant.

  Now Levi pulled into the parking lot where he’d last met Yoshi. The ex-FBI agent hopped out of his car and started to walk over, but Levi parked and motioned for Yoshi to turn around. “We’re not taking my car.”

  “Okay. But why, what’s up?” Yoshi asked.

  He didn’t have the tools to remove whatever Mason had put into his car’s headliner without making the rental look like a bunch of alley cats had had a fight inside his car, so Levi pressed a finger to his lips, motioning for silence.

  He popped the trunk to his car and shoved his gear into a backpack. He then ran his handheld bug scanner through the interior of Yoshi’s car, along the undercarriage, and in the trunk. He found nothing. Finally, he and Yoshi got in Yoshi’s car.

  Levi turned to his companion and gave him the intersection to plug into the navigation system. “We’ve got about an hour’s drive north, take US 1 and once we get there, we’ll be navigating by feel.”

  “Okay,” Yoshi backed the car out of the parking spot and began driving. “Are you going to clue me in on what’s going on?”

  Levi was still processing what he’d learned in the last twenty-four hours, and he didn’t want to admit he was running mostly on instinct. “I don’t want you to get your hopes up, but I have a lead that might be fifty-fifty on figuring out where our little princess is.”

  Yoshi tightened his grip on the steering wheel and pressed a bit harder on the gas. “You’re not serious, are you?”

  Levi noticed the subtle signs of emotion on Yoshi’s face. He was blinking rapidly; his breathing was deeper than normal and his face was slightly flushed. Good.

  “I don’t joke about these kinds of things, Yoshi. I’ve been monitoring someone, and I saw them take a ride up into what looks like a rural area late at night and then turn right back around.” He pointed to an offramp, “Actually, let’s ignore your navigation. Take I-29 North and then the New Hampshire Avenue exit. We’ll follow that almost the entire way.”

  Yoshi followed Levi’s instructions and they drove in silence for a long time.

  Levi motioned to the right. “Georgia Avenue. Cut off over there.”

  “How do you keep this straight in your head?” Yoshi asked.

  Levi wasn’t about to explain his near-perfect memory, since he had no rational explanation for it. “I studied the maps for the trip.” Which was true, if incomplete. “Hang a right on this street.”

  Thick woods hugged both sides of the road, and a dead-end sign loomed ahead. It was colder here by a few degrees, maybe they were at a slightly higher elevation? Snow dotted the ground. Then the asphalt ended abruptly, and there was nothing but a dirt track crowded by woods.

  Levi looked at his phone. There was no signal, but oddly enough, his GPS seemed to be working. He pulled up the history of Anspach’s car as they followed the dirt road. When they were in the exact spot where the forensic analyst had stopped, he held up a hand.

  “Stop here and turn the car off. Let’s take a look around on foot.” Levi hopped out of Yoshi’s car and surveyed the area. “Our bad guy stopped right here and this seems like a good place to hide something.”

  “Like a little girl,” Yoshi said with a grim expression.

  Levi pointed to the edge of the woods where a hunting trail led off from the dirt road. “Let’s see what we find.” He glanced at Yoshi. “You packing?”

  Yoshi lifted his shirt and jacket to show an in-waistband holster with what looked like the butt end of a .45.

  “Good,” Levi said. “Watch your six. I have no idea what’s back here. It could be bears, deer, or bad guys. Just be ready.”

  Levi had spent almost two years learning about tracking game, looking for the signs of things that had come before him. Crushed blades of grass, a bent or broken twig, even the smell in the air—they were all clues.

  But Yoshi’s footsteps behind him were like a hammer slamming on an anvil.

  “Shh.” Levi motioned for Yoshi to stop.

  Levi focused and reached out with his senses. He could almost feel the world breathing.

  He heard squirrels high up in a tree to the northeast. Breathing in deeply, he detected something in the air … it was the musky scent of a black bear. The wind shifted slightly from the east, and the scent grew stronger. He closed his eyes, and the scent of the bear grew more distinct. He heard a slight grunt … and then the sound of deep breathing. The bear was hibernating.

  Levi turned to Yoshi, motioned to his left, and whispered, “Bear.” He pointed at Yoshi’s feet. “Be quiet.”

  Yoshi’s eyes widened, and he walked more quietly as they continued.

 
After another fifteen minutes of following the trail, Levi spotted a clearing about fifty feet off to one side. He pulled out his Glock—in which he always kept a round chambered—and heard Yoshi do the same behind him. Together, they left the trail and moved toward the clearing.

  At its center was an isolated cabin. From the roof of the cabin there was a set of cables running up a nearby tree, and from Levi’s angle he couldn’t quite make out what the cables were attached to. Certainly, it was some kind of platform, but it was too flimsy to support a person.

  Yoshi pointed at the tree and whispered, “Solar cells. The cabin is getting electricity from up there.”

  Levi put his hand over his brow as the sun glinted off a black square pattern, confirming Yoshi’s assessment. Hitching his backpack higher on his shoulder, he whispered, “Stay here, I’m going to scout this out.”

  He pulled a laser pointer from his pack, activated the green laser, and panned it back and forth across his path. It was an old trick his cousin had taught him years ago after he’d joined the Army and become a Ranger. A laser’s beam would flare brightly if it crossed the path of a tripwire. It wouldn’t be the first time that that trick saved him from a deadly booby trap. But in this case, he found nothing.

  As he approached the front porch, Levi saw that some of the snow had fallen unevenly on the wood slats. Aiming the laser at the slightly raised section in front of the door, he back away from the porch and shrugged away the tension he felt building in his shoulders. He shrugged off his backpack, pulled out a metal detector, and extended its telescoping arm to its maximum length. Turning it on, a red LED blinked once, twice, three times. It was ready.

  Levi put his backpack on and looked back at Yoshi. The man was squatting with his gun drawn, panning his gaze back and forth from the path they’d been on, to the house, and back. Just like Levi would have done as a sentry.

  Levi moved once more to the porch, all the while swinging the metal detector’s rounded loop back and forth. When he got to the uneven plank that had drawn his attention, the red light flickered on and off.

  A tingle raced up and down the middle of Levi’s back.

  Quietly, he returned to Yoshi.

  “The front door looks like it’s booby-trapped.”

  “Shit,” Yoshi said. “So what are you going to do?”

  Levi took a deep breath. “I’m thinking of doing something really stupid.”

  “What?”

  “Stay here.” Levi unlocked his phone and handed it to Yoshi. “If something bad happens, call your brother from my phone. I think yours is being monitored by whoever kidnapped June.”

  Levi motioned for Yoshi to stay as he walked back toward the cabin. Sweeping the path ahead of him with the metal detector, he walked the entire perimeter of the cabin. The cabin had no windows, and he saw no other signs of disturbed ground. The front door was the only way in.

  Cringing, Levi stepped up onto the porch, skirting past the suspicious plank. At the front door, he knelt and examined the locking mechanism. It looked simple enough—a typical pin and tumbler lock. He set aside the metal detector, pulled out his lock picks, and selected what he needed.

  He stuck a torque wrench into the slot and probed with his pick. Scraping the pins while putting just a little pressure on the tumbler, he felt the pins begin clicking into position. Finally, the lock turned.

  Levi pushed open the door ever so slowly.

  Nothing happened.

  From within the cabin, he heard the whir of a compressor, and he felt a slight warmth coming from within. This place was heated with some kind of furnace and forced air.

  He once again picked up the metal detector, passed it over the suspicious plank, verifying that there was some form of metal object beneath it, and pushed the door open with the detector.

  Finding no obvious metal in the entryway, Levi stepped inside.

  What he encountered was not what he’d expected.

  He’d expected a bare cabin with maybe a cot, and hopefully with a little girl. What he found was some kind of workshop. The room was barely fifteen feet square, and along the far end were two workbenches with what looked like electronics hobbyist tools: meters to measure current, batteries, tubes of epoxy, breadboards for wiring circuits, all variety of wires with alligator clips … and two blocks of something in olive-drab mylar wrapping. On the wrapping were the words. Charge Demolition M112 with taggant (1 1/4 lbs Comp C-4)

  Military-grade explosives.

  This was an explosive expert’s hideaway.

  A partially peeled-off red stencil had been used to label a gray plastic device as a Voice Changer. Levi picked it up, held down the button, and spoke into it. His voice came out sounding like a robot.

  Exactly like the robot he’d heard on that ransom audio.

  A tingle of excitement rushed through him.

  He panned his flashlight across the walls, found a light switch, and flicked it on. Nothing happened, but somewhere he heard something move. He held his breath and listened.

  He heard whimpering.

  “June Wilson!” Levi projected his voice at the walls, unsure where the sound was coming from. “Can you hear me?”

  For a couple seconds, the silence that greeted him felt oppressive. Then a tiny muffled voice responded. “I heard you!”

  “What’s your mom’s name?”

  “Helen! Please help me!”

  Every inch of Levi’s skin tingled with the realization that this was the place. He’d actually found her.

  He calmed his breathing and listened. The girl was crying. And the sound was coming from somewhere below him.

  Panning the flashlight along the floor, he spotted the outline of a trap door under one of the work benches.

  “I’ll be right there!” he shouted.

  A beeping noise came from one of the devices on the workbench.

  “Please turn the light back on. I’m scared.”

  Levi flicked the light switch back to its original position and slowly backed out of the cabin. He motioned for Yoshi to join him out front.

  “It’s her,” Levi said. “She’s here.”

  Yoshi’s eyes filled with tears, but his smile couldn’t have been bigger.

  “I want you to come in with me so she has a familiar face she trusts.” He motioned toward the suspicious plank. “Just watch out for the wood plank on the left side of the door. It wouldn’t surprise me if this guy has some kind of land mine for unexpected visitors.”

  The workbench was holding the trap door down, so Levi carefully moved it aside. It made a horrendous metallic clanking noise as it scraped across the floor of the cabin. He opened the trap door, and there she was. At the bottom of an inclined ladder was the tear-streaked face of a little blonde girl.

  June.

  She began to climb up the ladder. The device on the workbench started beeping faster.

  That’s when Levi noticed what she was wearing.

  “Wait!” he shouted. “Go back down, I’ll come down to help you.”

  Levi had seen vests like June’s in his journey through the northern Kashmir region of India as well as Afghanistan. He’d seen what they could do to both the wearer and the people around them.

  He climbed down the ladder, and Yoshi followed.

  “Yoyo!” June jumped into Yoshi’s arms and began bawling.

  Yoshi held her tightly. “You’ll be okay. We found you. Nobody’s going to hurt you again.”

  Levi waved at Yoshi to get his attention, then mouthed the words, Suicide vest.

  Yoshi’s face paled and he nodded grimly. As the girl buried her face in the crook of his neck, he whispered, “Can you disarm it?”

  Levi hesitated for a moment, but slowly nodded his head to give Yoshi some reassurance. He knew Yoshi had no experience with explosives—Denny had pulled the ex-FBI agent’s personnel file for him—but the truth was, Levi didn’t have much more. He’d read up on it, and he was probably
only one of a handful of people alive who’d ever disarmed a fifty-year-old nuke. But that was under Madison’s guidance. But a suicide vest? He’d never even studied one.

  Yoshi whispered, “Baby, I’m going to put you down so Mister Yoder can take a look at what you’re wearing, okay?”

  “No.” June shook her head and began sobbing all over again. “Yoyo, it hurts so, so bad.”

  “What hurts?” Levi asked.

  She pointed at her neck and sniffed loudly. “The robot man made a pillow, but it fell off when I was asleep.”

  Levi glanced at the floor and saw a rolled-up bundle of foam rubber sheets, held together by black electrical tape. A few fragments of the torn rubber sheeting remained at the top of the vest.

  Her vest was making a beeping noise, similar to the one upstairs. And its frequency was increasing.

  June said in a quavering voice, “That noise started happening as soon as I climbed up the stairs. Oh, I promised the robot man I wouldn’t go near them, but when the door opened, I forgot.”

  Levi glanced back at the ladder and wondered if she’d triggered some kind of proximity sensor. Were the beeps some kind of countdown?

  A trickle of sweat dripped down the back of his neck as Yoshi set the girl on the floor and assured her everything would be okay.

  Levi lifted up her shoulder-length hair and saw the red raw skin and blood blisters that had formed from the chafing. Of course the vest was hurting her. “Okay, honey. Let me turn you around so I can see what you’ve got on.”

  June cooperated as he turned her, looking at the vest from every angle. It was made so it couldn’t be removed without being unclipped, and the connections each looked like wired contacts. It was a classic design he’d seen in some of Madison’s sketches.

  “June, stand with your feet spread wide, I’m going to look at the vest from underneath. I need to see which spot I can use to get you out of it.”

  She followed his instructions, and using a flashlight, Levi followed the two straps that looped around her legs. He pressed his fingers on the material and felt some wires running along the length of the straps. Following the straps to the main part of the vest, he peeked under the vest and saw a box-like protrusion.