by Tom Fowler
I drove to the rear. A large shipping container sat docked at the loading bay. No one milled around. “Looks like everyone is inside,” I said.
“Hoped to catch a few out here,” Rollins said. “Looks like we’re doing it the hard way. Stop the car.”
“Why?” I did even though I asked the reason I should.
“I’ll find a way in here,” said Rollins. “Don’t give me a look. I’ll be fine. A few of these assholes ain’t getting the drop on me so easily. I want to make sure no one important bolts when the shooting starts.”
“All right. Good luck.”
“Thanks.” Rollins got out and padded off toward the warehouse. I drove back around to the front.
“I hope he knows what he’s doing,” I said.
“He does,” Rich said.
“You know him?”
“Never met him until recently. But I know of him, and I know people like him. Some of them aren’t as good as they say they are. He is. Why he hires himself out as a bodyguard, I don’t know, but you found a good one. He could be off leading a revolt in Burma or whatever they’re calling it these days.”
“I think it’s Myanmar.”
“Whatever.”
“I’m glad he’s working for us,” I said.
“Me, too,” said Rich.
The five of us walked to the door. We didn’t encounter anyone. I found this odd but decided not to question our good fortune too much. “I wonder if they can see us approaching,” I said, unable to resist being a wet blanket.
“I don’t notice any cameras,” Norton said.
“You might not be aware of good ones. And even if the people inside can’t see what’s on the camera, the management company might be able to.”
“You’d think it would discourage them from shuttling a bunch of young women in and out,” Rich said.
“Fair point,” I said. “We are invisible.”
“I wouldn’t go so far.”
We got to the door, and everyone flattened against the gray stonework. There were no windows along the front wall. If they didn’t know we were here yet, they wouldn’t know until we breached the front door. I tried the knob. It was locked. I took out my special keyring, which the four cops standing with me scrutinized.
“Would those be burglar’s tools?” Norton said.
“They look like burglars’ tools,” Chavez added.
“I actually have a lot of keys,” I said. “It must be the bad lighting out here.”
Norton bent to look at the keyring as I selected the right tools for the job. “Must be the bad lighting,” he concurred.
I slid a steel rod into the lock, then a tension wrench. Five tumblers reverberated at the end of the wrench. This was a good lock. The probe slipped a couple times, and I was forced to redo the first two tumblers. It took more than two minutes, but I popped the lock and put my keyring away.
“It’s a lot faster on NCIS,” Norton said.”
“So are forensics,” I said. “Funny how things get faster on TV.”
“Someone’s a little sensitive, I think,” Bell said.
I appreciated the levity before we walked into what promised to be a pitched battle. “You have your professional reputation,” I said. “I have mine.”
Bell chuckled and brought the shotgun to bear in the next breath. Rich butted in front of me, drew his pistol, and put his hand on the door. I took out my .45 and noticed I’d been last to have his sidearm ready. These guys were professionals at this. As much grief as I gave them for being cops and playing within the system, I never lost sight of how good they were. While I held gobs of confidence in my own abilities, I’d been doing this for about a year. I was a cocky amateur.
Nice pep talk before walking into the warehouse, I chided myself.
Rich stood to the side and yanked the door open. Bell shouldered the shotgun and strode into the room. We were ready to go.
The lobby was empty to the point not even a stray scrap of paper littered the floor. If we hadn’t seen the container at the back of the warehouse, I might have guessed the Zhangs and company already packed up and moved out. One door led to the back of the building. It didn’t have a window inside it. Rich went to it and listened, then moved away and shrugged.
“Want to try putting your ear to the ground?” I said, taking care to keep my voice low.
“If I thought it would help,” said Rich.
I went to the door. If Rich didn’t hear anything, I doubted I would. I tried the handle. It was locked, too. I crouched and broke out the keyring again. This was a simple door handle with a crappy lock attached. Whoever designed this building wanted to offend my skills. I unlatched it in well under a minute.
Bell stepped forward again, shotgun leading the way. Rich stood to the side and yanked the door open. A slender Chinese man in the process of lighting a cigarette looked up in surprise. His eyes went wide. The unlit cigarette tumbled from his mouth. He reached for a pistol. Bell pointed and snarled, “Do it! Pull your little pistol!” The Chinese man stopped. He looked at us, realized he was outgunned, and put up his hands.
“Be quiet, and we won’t hurt you,” I said in Chinese.
He frowned in surprise. Bell walked through and clobbered the Chinese man in the face with the stock. The crack sounded surprisingly muted considering the damage it did. Chavez had moved beside Bell and caught the man before he made further ruckus crashing to the ground.
At least we still maintained the element of surprise.
“You speak Chinese?” Chavez said.
“Yo también hablo Español,” I said. Then I switched back to English and said, “But my Chinese is better.”
“Good to know,” Chavez said.
“A shame we can’t stash this guy anywhere,” Norton said, scanning the empty hallway. The first intersecting corridor connected in about twenty feet, and our corridor continued past it to a larger, ominous looking steel door.
“Just leave him here,” Rich said. “We’re going to lose the element of surprise at some point, anyway.”
Norton bobbed his head, and we all moved out, creeping down the hallway. At the intersection, Bell peeked around and looked both ways. “Clear,” he said in a harsh whisper. “A few doors either way. Probably offices.”
“Probably empty,” Chavez said.
“We can’t presume,” I said.
“And I’d rather not have our backs vulnerable,” Rich said in support of my point. “I say we check them out. C.T. and I will go left. Two of you go right and the last man can watch the doors behind and in front of us.”
“I’ll watch the doors,” Norton said. He jerked his head to Bell and Chavez. “You two go to the right. When in doubt, shoot.”
“You got it, Captain,” Bell said.
Rich and I went left. It featured three doors on either side and then dead-ended into a wall about forty feet ahead. “We’ll start on the left,” Rich said.
“Why?”
“Because left is always right.” Confusion must have shown on my face. “I learned it from D&D,” Rich elaborated with a smirk as he stopped, held his muzzle up, and jerked his head at the door. I tried the knob; it was unlocked. I turned it and pushed the door into the room. Rich went in, his gun at the lead. I filled the space behind him. The room looked empty and Rich confirmed the fact a moment later. The next room was similarly bare. As we walked away, I heard noises from the room at the end. It sounded like a woman’s voice, yelling at a high pitch.
“You hear her?” I said to Rich.
“I hear something,” he said.
As we walked closer, the noise grew clearer. “No! No! No!”
I sprinted the rest of the distance. Rich ran on my heels. We got to the door. I threw it open and brought my gun to bear. I will never forget what I saw next. Eliot Eisenberg, his pants around his ankles and his shirt bunched at his waist, sodomized a young Chinese girl bent over a desk. They both turned when we burst in. Eliot’s eyes went wide. The girl kept crying. Her ruined mascara and makeup
made it look like she cried inky tears.
Eliot turned toward us and started to say something, but I strode to him and kicked him in the groin as hard as I could. He doubled over immediately. I drove my knee up into his face, snapping his head back and sending him to the concrete. Even though he covered his genitals with his hands, I stomped on them and kept at it until Rich grabbed my shoulder and pulled me away. “Tend to the girl,” he said.
I nodded. The girl’s eyes were puffy from crying, and one angry bruise already formed on her face. Blood trickled down her legs. Her feet barely touched the floor. She lay against the desk and stared at me with wide, fearful eyes. “I’m not going to hurt you,” I said to her in Cantonese. Behind me, I heard Rich punch Eliot Eisenberg. I hoped he would shoot him.
Between sobs, the girl said, “Please help me.”
“I will.” Rich looked up at me after socking Eisenberg in the face again. I hitched my head toward the girl and stepped to the hallway. Bell and Chavez exited a room.
“Down here,” I said.
They trotted to us. I stood before the door and blocked them from getting past. “There’s a Chinese girl inside, maybe sixteen. We walked in on her being violated. She’s going to need an ambulance.”
Chavez took out his cell phone and turned away to make the call. “What about the guy?” Bell said. “He’s going to need a bus, too.”
“He can wait,” I said. “Besides, if we leave Rich in there with him much longer, he might need a hearse.”
“I’m sure Rich has the situation well in hand.”
“I’m sure he does, too.”
We waited in the hallway until Chavez finished making the call. “Bus is on the way,” he said. “Now we’re official. This isn’t off the books anymore.”
“We’ll do what we have to do,” I said.
Chapter 17
Rich stayed with the girl. Chavez guarded our backs as we stood at the ominous doors at the terminus of the main hallway. Like the others, these held no windows, and I could tell at a glance they were made of sturdy steel. Their locks would be good. I took out my keyring and got to work. It took over two minutes, but I popped the mechanism on the right-hand door.
“Where did you learn lockpicking?” Bell said.
“Hong Kong,” I said, “where I perfected my Chinese.”
“So you learned the language and became a burglar.”
“You’re glossing over a lot of interesting stories,” I said.
He chuckled, and in the next breath, the mirth melted from his face in favor of a grim, determined look as he readied the shotgun again. The next person who looked cross at him wouldn’t get the benefit of a warning. “Good to go when when you guys are.”
“You have our backs, Chavez?” Norton said.
“You know it, Captain,” he said.
“Rollins is probably inside already,” I said. “For all we know, these assholes might all be dead already.
“We’ll proceed as if they’re not,” Norton said. He crossed to the other side of the door and jerked it open. Bell went in first with me following. Norton moved in after me as the door swung shut. He caught it with his foot and let it close quietly.
The warehouse was a large, mostly open expanse. To either side of us, loose hallways defined by slapdash partition walls held production offices. The rest of the tiled floor looked free and clear. A loading dock bisected the back wall, and a trailer had been backed in. A few Chinese men, along with an American or two, pushed some young girls around. No one took notice of us yet. Bell edged up along the right-hand partition. Someone saw us then and shouted out an alert in Chinese. The shouter went for his gun. Bell blasted him. Blood ran from several holes in his body as he toppled to the floor.
I hugged the left wall and Norton advanced behind Bell. A slender Chinese man ran around the partition wall with a gun pointed at me. I squeezed off two rounds, one into the right side of his chest and the other into his left collarbone area. He sagged into the wall and crumpled. I backed up a step and started past the production offices to make sure no one plotted an ambush there. Rollins moved into the hallway from the other end. He held up his hand at me.
A gunshot rang out, then another. Both hit Rollins. He staggered backward and slid to the ground. His gun fell from his hand and skittered away. I took off at a run. A tall Chinese man with a wispy mustache walked out of the office, holding a gun on Rollins. “How did you find us?” he said in mildly-accented English.
Before Rollins could answer, the Chinese man noticed my advance. He whipped his gun around. I went into a feet-first slide. He finished turning and fired twice. I slid toward him and pulled the trigger as quickly as I could. My first missed, but then four .45 slugs took him in the upper leg and body. He rocked back, dropped his gun, and collapsed to the floor.
Rollins lunged and grabbed his gun. He looked behind me up the hallway as I put another clip into the .45. I looked at the dead Chinese man. He bore some resemblance to Edwin Zhang in the thin nose and triangular jaw. He was also the first man I killed who didn’t threaten my life. I inhaled deeply and let out a breath as the fact sank in. I defended Rollins. If I hadn’t, the gunman would have killed him.
“How are you?” I said as I paused next to Rollins. I kept an eye on both ends of the hallway as he dragged himself to a seated position.
“I’ll be OK,” he said. “Vest took the slugs.” Rollins pulled his shirt open and looked at the two mushroomed bullets embedded in his armor. “Knocked the wind out of me, probably cost me a rib or two. But I’ll be OK . . . thanks to you.”
“I guess it was my turn to be the bodyguard,” I said.
“Rollins smiled. “I’ll be nice and not charge you for today.”
I held out my hand and helped him stand. “Sounds fair.”
Norton and I fanned out on the left side of the room; Rollins and Bell took the right. Only a few stragglers remained. I heard the shotgun go off once, but no one Norton and I encountered offered any resistance. Chavez came into the warehouse. Then he and Bell herded the remaining assholes into a corner and held them there at gunpoint. I walked to the cargo trailer. It was a medium red with a few markings. The fasteners had been engaged.
Thankfully, they didn’t require any special keyring voodoo. Norton approached behind me. He and I raised the levers and swung the rear panels open. Norton produced his flashlight and turned it on. A few LED lights stuck on the walls of the trailer provided dim illumination. All told, about two dozen girls of varying ages were in the trailer. A few American, but more were Chinese, probably the children of immigrants. All of them stared at us with wary eyes, and a few backed away and trembled. I didn’t want to imagine what horrors some of these girls experienced from the Zhangs and their cronies.
“I’m Captain Norton of the Maryland State Police,” Norton said. “You’re safe now. We’re here to rescue you.”
I translated his words into Chinese for the Asian girls but managed to paint myself as the rescuer at the start of the message. To the translator go the spoils.
“We have an ambulance on site already and more on the way,” Norton said. “More officers and counselors are on their way, too.” He held out his hand and beckoned the girls forward. “Why don’t you all come out of there?”
None of them moved at first. I spied Katherine Rodgers in the back. She might have been the oldest girl in the trailer. A bunch huddled together near the back. However long they had been here, they learned to rely on each other. All men did was hurt them in ways I didn’t want to think about but already witnessed from Eliot Eisenberg. We needed to get them to trust a couple of men—at least long enough to leave the trailer and receive medical attention.
“Katherine,” I said. She looked up at the mention of her name. “Your mother misses you. I told her I would find you. She’s very worried. Why don’t you come out of there?” She looked like she didn’t recognize me for a minute. Then she bobbed her head and came forward. Her first few steps were dicey, but she found
her footing on the cold steel floor and walked to the door. She took the last few paces in a run and threw her arms around me.
“How did you find me?” she said. “How did you find us?”
“It’s something of a long story,” I said. “But we’re here and you’re safe now.”
Once Katherine came out, the other girls trickled into the warehouse. They shied away if Norton or I tried to help them. Katherine assisted a few of them into the warehouse and onto chairs Rollins, Chavez, and Rich brought from the offices. A slew of paramedics descended on them, accompanied by several state troopers and officers from the BPD.
“Where’s Eisenberg?” I said to Rich.
“On his way downtown,” Rich said. “He’s trying to claim police brutality.”
“What did you say?”
“I said you weren’t a member of the police department.”
“To my eternal gratitude.”
Rich smiled. “I also pointed out he only slipped and fell into my fist three times. It could have been worse.”
“I doubt he’ll see it the same way.”
“Fuck him,” Rich said. “He’s lucky I didn’t kill him.”
“Considering what’s likely to happen to someone like him in prison,” I said, “I don’t think he is.”
“Good,” said Rich.
I sat in Katherine Rodgers’ room at St. Agnes Hospital. The attending doctor already called Pauline. I didn’t think anyone should leave Katherine alone at the moment, so I waited for her mother. Katherine lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. She didn’t seem interested in talking, and I didn’t want to push her. The TV provided background noise over the beeping of monitors. I didn’t recognize the show.
“Some girls had it worse than me,” Katherine said after a couple minutes, shaking me out of my intense counting of ceiling tiles.
“All of you had it pretty bad,” I said. “I’m sorry this happened to you.”
It was hard to tell from my angle, but I thought her quivering chin inclined. “There are two people I can blame, and one of them is dead.” She paused. “I hope the other one ends up that way, too.”