by James Hunt
Mocks snorted and then stopped at her desk to retrieve a fresh Pop-Tart from its packaging. She ripped open the top and devoured it in three bites. “God, I was starving.” She wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve. “Sometimes I wonder if I substituted Pop-Tarts for drugs.” She shook her head. “Still not sure if it’s the healthier option.”
Grant chuckled unexpectedly, and it helped calm the nerves. He felt steady now, more purposeful. The mission was clear, and they had good intelligence. Now they just needed the head of the snake.
When they arrived at Cyber, Sam had three laptops open on his desk: his own, the one that belonged to Stacy West’s fiancé, and the laptop they had retrieved from the gang’s headquarters in the south side.
“Tell me you have something, Sam,” Grant said, sneaking up behind him.
“Well, I have made progress on the site,” Sam said, pulling up a spreadsheet and list of names. “I’ve managed to locate all the IP addresses used by the usernames on the website and have even matched a few more real names, though none of them have been close in location to where the other kids were abducted.”
“Send them out to the precincts where they’re located anyway,” Grant said. “Have the officers bring them in and search their homes. They might get lucky and find something.”
“I don’t think it’ll be hard for them to get a warrant in our current environment,” Mocks said.
“What about the laptop from the gang?” Grant asked. “Anything?”
“Oh-ho,” Sam said, his voice low and throaty. “You could say that.” He held up the blue note pad that Grant had taken along with the computer. “It’s Cebuano, one of the main languages of the Philippines. This whole laptop is programmed to only accept, and react, to that type of language. It’s even embedded into the coding, which I have never seen before.”
“What do you mean?” Mocks asked.
“Coding is like math,” Sam answered. “It’s universal. And while different programs have specific languages, the language is the same in the program regardless of the country it’s in.” He lifted the laptop. “But this little tart has had its hard drive tweaked to have the Cebuano language embedded in its core coding.”
“So what does that mean?” Grant asked.
“It means it’s been a pain in my ass,” Sam answered.
“There is something on that computer The Web doesn’t want anyone to see,” Grant said. “There has to be a location, some date, something that tells us where this is all going.” If it hasn’t already happened.
“I’m working with a translator from the State Department, but it’s just slow going,” Sam said. “I’m sorry.”
“We don’t need sorry,” Mocks said. “We need evidence.”
“I can give you what I have so far,” Sam said, reaching for a notepad. “I wrote everything down that I’ve decoded.” He gave a sheepish grin. “Sorry for the messy handwriting.”
Grant handed the pad to Mocks once he realized he couldn’t decipher the chicken scratch. Mocks looked it up and down. “These are just random pairs of numbers.”
“That was in a folder titled ‘hilo,’” Sam said. “Which translates to venom in English. Most of the files on the computer follow some type of spider theme.”
“Let me see,” Grant said, taking the notebook from Mocks. He counted down the paper. There were eight sets. “All of them came in pairs like this?”
“Yeah,” Sam answered.
“GPS coordinates?” Mocks asked.
“It fits the length for longitude and latitude,” Grant said. “Sam, type the first one in.” Grant handed the paper back to Sam and he opened up a GPS. The first pair of coordinates zoomed in on the coast of southern California.
“Could be drop off points for shipments of women coming in from the Pacific,” Grant said. “Try another one.”
The second set of numbers was a location off the western coast of the Baja peninsula.
“Keep going,” Grant said. “There has to be one closer to Seattle.”
“Wait! I got one,” Sam said. “Forty-six, forty-six, fifty-nine, dot, sixty-four, ninety-six North. One-twenty-four, five, forty-six dot thirty-one, twenty-eight West.”
The map zoomed in on the southern coast of Washington State, and Sam expanded the image. “It looks like it’s in the heart of Grayland Beach State Park.”
“Secluded, off a main highway, thick cover from the trees, no coastal lights,” Grant said. “Nighttime when that park is closed, it would be the perfect drop off point for smugglers.”
“Looks like the others are all south of Los Angeles,” Sam said. “This is the closest one to Seattle.”
“We still don’t have a time,” Mocks said. “It could have already happened.”
Grant shook his head. “No. They’ll wait until after the twelve-hour mark when they know authorities will start to pull back on searches. I bet that’s when they’ll move the kids. Plus it’ll be dark.” Grant checked the time. “It’s six-thirty now. Sun sets in an hour, and the park closes.”
“I’ll tell the captain,” Mocks said.
“No, tell Lieutenant Furst. He’ll be able to put a S.W.A.T. request together faster,” Grant fished out his phone and dialed Hickem. “I’ll get reinforcements. We’re going to need a lot of bodies for this one.”
***
The oranges and pinks of the sunset had vanished by the time Grant and Mocks arrived at the park. Clouds rolled in and blocked the stars and moon, pulling a blanket over the night sky. It made perfect conditions for smugglers and made it harder for Grant, Mocks, Hickem, and his team to locate the bad guys.
In addition to Hickem’s FBI team, the Seattle Chief of Police ordered four S.W.A.T. teams down with them. With everyone accounted for, their group totaled fifty. Grant wasn’t sure if it was enough.
Mocks shut the trunk of the sedan and loaded a fresh magazine into her service pistol, then holstered the weapon. “You think our kid will be here?”
“Maybe,” Grant said. “We’ll know soon enough.”
Mocks nodded, her fingers twitching after she inserted her earpiece. She joined the clustering group of S.W.A.T. and FBI agents while Grant lingered behind.
As Grant placed his own earpiece on, he felt different. The usual steel winged butterflies hadn’t appeared. Instead he saw the vision of his daughter, Annie, the same vision from the gunfight with the gangbangers, and a wave of calmness washed over him. Despite Mocks’s warning, all he thought about was seeing her again.
“Detective Grant.”
Grant looked up to see Hickem standing in front of him. The FBI agent raised an eyebrow, his body encased in the same gear as the raid at the house. He didn’t even bother washing the blood off. “I suppose we go into this thing on an even playing field.”
“Yeah,” Grant said. “You could say that.”
“You probably won’t get any credit for this bust,” Hickem said. “Seeing as how you’ve run into some discipline issues lately.”
“It wasn’t a discipline issue,” Grant said, giving Hickem a shoulder bump on his way past. “It was a lack of it.”
Grant, Hickem, and Mocks led the way as their teams followed them through the woods. The going was slow, methodical, none of them sure if the gang members were here already or what they would find.
They reached the edge of the forest where the stretch of sand touched the ocean, the sound of waves rolling onto the beach. Hickem inched over to Grant. “This is as good a vantage point we’re going to get.” He lifted a small GPS device. “The coordinates you found are fifty yards to the south. From here, we’ll be able to see any movement coming in and out of this forest.”
“No one moves unless I give the command,” Grant said, then looked at Hickem. “I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble if things go south. Plausible deniability.”
“Whatever makes you feel better, boss,” Hickem said.
And then they waited. Grant checked the timer on his watch every few minutes, which only made
the time pass slower. Thirty minutes, then an hour, then two, which tipped them over the twelve-hour mark. This felt like Grant’s last shot. If he was wrong, he’d end his career with a loss. And what was worse, Annie wouldn’t come home.
“Movement,” Hickem said, whispering into his radio. “Two hundred yards in the surf.”
Grant lifted the pair of binoculars. He didn’t see it at first, the waves were too high that far out, but a break in the surf exposed three boats.
Engines rumbled farther down the beach, and Grant pivoted toward the noise. Two large trucks had rolled out onto the sand.
“The pair of dump trucks are surrounded by two dozen armed hostiles,” Hickem said. “Could be more in the boats. Everyone stay put until we have confirmation of the cargo. Units seven, ten, and nine, go ahead and move into firing position.”
A series of copies echoed over the radio, and tiny movements in the trees gave way to their motion, but to someone on the beach, it looked like nothing more than the wind rustling the branches.
The three boats crested a wave and then killed their engines, riding the surf onto the shoreline where they were greeted by a handful of the men who’d arrived with the trucks. Huddled masses swayed in the small dinghies, but even in the darkness, Grant knew what they were: women taken from their homes in the Philippines and brought to the States to be sold into sex trafficking.
But where were the kids? Were they in the boats as well? In the trucks?
“We need to move in now,” Grant said, lowering the binoculars and turning to Hickem. “We can’t lose them.”
“We wait until they’re out of the boats,” Hickem said. “It’ll give them less opportunity to run with their merchandise out in the open.”
Grant grabbed Hickem by the collar, and the trained FBI agent with over a decade’s experience in the field quickly raised a pistol to Grant’s temple, his eyes calmly locked onto Grant’s.
Mocks didn’t move a muscle in Grant’s peripheral, and despite the gun to his temple, Grant didn’t release Hickem from his grip. “That’s not merchandise. Those are people. Girls scared out of their minds, and if they’re out in the open, then they become targets. These people don’t care about those women’s lives. They might even shoot a couple themselves just for fun.”
“They’re starting to unload,” Mocks said.
Hickem lowered the pistol, and Grant let go of the man’s collar. He nodded. “All right, Detective. We’ll do it your way.” He turned his attention down the beach and reached for his radio. “All units, you have authority to engage. Priority one is the safe retrieval of the victims. Let’s move!”
Grant, Mocks, and Hickem stayed on the edge of the forest, and before they made it halfway, gunfire broke the silence of the night.
Rifle muzzles flashed in the dark with every gunshot, their bullets zipping through the air like deadly fireflies. Grant broke out into a sprint, pistol aimed in the thick of the gunfire. The chatter from the radio in Grant’s ear was nonstop.
Mocks disappeared into the throng of S.W.A.T. agents and darkness. Grant’s only focus was on finding Annie. A bullet splintered the tree trunk to his left. He flinched but held his fire. He was still too far away for a clean shot. He looked to the water and saw only one boat beached. The other two were being pushed back into the water, along with the women inside.
Grant broke from the safety of the trees and sprinted to the boats. He shot the first thug in the back and he splashed into the water. The second thug ducked underwater, and Grant fired two random shots into the waves.
Night had turned the ocean into black soup, and he couldn’t tell if he hit his target. Grant waded out farther and the waves lapped at his chest. He reached for the rope of the nearest dinghy when the gunman broke the water’s surface to his right.
The high water and waves slowed Grant’s motion, and he narrowly blocked the knife that slashed at his neck. The thug screamed in his native tongue, his eyes as black as the water around them.
The thug clawed at Grant’s throat, their arms locked together as Grant kept the knife away from his jugular. Grant thrust his forehead into the thug’s nose, and the man’s grip loosened.
Grant knocked the knife away and dunked the gangbanger underwater. He thrashed wildly while the waves pounded Grant’s face, his nose and eyes burning from the salt water. The thrashing faded, and then the body went still. Grant’s muscles remained taut, and he gasped for breath as though he had been held underwater himself. When he let the body go, it drifted to the surface and floated in the waves.
A thick cord circled the entire outside of the dinghy, and Grant grabbed it with both hands, trying to spin the boat around so the bow faced the shoreline, cutting through the surf easier.
In the chest-high water, Grant couldn’t get the needed leverage to turn the boat, and the gunfire from the shoreline worsened. The girls in the dinghy screamed as bullets entered the side.
Salt water dripped down Grant’s face, and he saw the tiller engine strapped to the dinghy’s stern. He pulled himself up and over the side and landed awkwardly on a pair of bodies.
The boat rocked up and down from a wave that knocked Grant off balance on his scurry toward the engine. He grabbed the cord to start it and yanked hard. The engine spun but didn’t catch.
Bullets thumped into the side of the boat again, and this round of gunfire triggered a bloodcurdling scream from one of the girls. Grant turned and saw three women rush to the girl’s aid, but she lay lifeless and still. It was too dark to see the extent of the injury, but judging by the way she wasn’t moving, Grant didn’t think she was alive.
Water flooded the boat, and Grant noticed the holes in the sides. He yanked the cord again, then a third and fourth time. His shoulders burned, and the water in the boat reached his shins. “C’mon!” He snapped the cord back hard and the engine cranked to life. He revved the throttle and jettisoned north, away from the gunfire.
Bullets followed for a moment but stopped once they were out of range. The wind whipped at Grant’s face, and the air froze the water to his body. He shivered and got his first good look at the girls.
All of them looked foreign. And most of them were older. Annie wasn’t among them. Grant turned around and wondered if she was in the first boat, or the third. She might even be in the trucks. He kept the throttle open all the way to the shore, and the dinghy thumped into the sand, skidding forward until the propeller ran out of water. Grant killed the engine as the dinghy collapsed to the left. The girls remained in the boat.
They were frozen by fear, shivering in a huddled mass. Gunfire down the beach stole his attention and Grant hopped out of the boat. “Just stay here. You’ll be safe as long as you don’t move!”
One of the trucks had crashed into the trees, but the radio chatter confirmed some of the gang members had thrown down their weapons. He looked back out into the water farther off the shore and saw the third dinghy disappearing into the surf.
Sprinting in the sand was like running in slow motion. Grant’s legs stiffened and sank with every step forward. The fighting had concentrated at the second dump truck, where the remaining gangbangers had huddled inside. The chatter in his ear said something else, but it was muddled. Everything was so loud, so many people talking at once. It was hard to keep up with what they were saying.
Grant spied Mocks in the line of officers and agents that circled the truck. Weapons were raised, and no one moved. The rear of the truck was unoccupied, Hickem the closest to the opening.
“Exit the vehicle!” Hickem said. He stood closest to the truck’s ramp. Grant had no idea how many hostiles were inside. “Drop the weapons and step out, now!”
Shouts erupted from the inside of the truck, voices echoing off the metal walls. It all sounded like nonsense, but then Grant thought he heard English, and that was when a man burst out the back and crawled his way up the side, a woman close to his front with a gun to her head.
“Get back!” The gunman kept his back to the truck a
nd the pistol trained on his hostage. In the darkness it took a second for Grant to recognize him, but it was the face he was looking for, the one who’d taken Annie: Parker Gallient.
“You take another step and I will blow her fucking brains out!” Parker had a white patch of cloth over his hand, which held the woman’s throat. She moaned and sobbed, tears and snot dribbling down her face.
None of Hickem’s men moved, and neither did S.W.A.T. Everyone’s weapons followed Parker like a magnet, Grant’s included. Parker inched up the side of the truck slowly, his eyes wandering in every direction.
“Let her go!” Grant said, sidestepping in the sand and separating himself from the cluster of officers.
“I said get the fuck back, man!” Parker pressed the pistol harder into the woman’s skull and she let out another wail. “Don’t you get it? It’s all shit! It’s all fucked now! Everyone and everything!”
Grant’s arms were stiff and his mind tired, but he still had a good shot. It wasn’t as clean as he wanted it to be though. It was too tight.
“Where is Annie Mauer?” Grant asked.
Parker scrunched up his face. “Who?”
“The girl you abducted from the mall,” Grant answered. “Is she here? What’d you do with her?”
Parker laughed. “That bitch is done, motherfucker!” He shook the woman in his arms. “She’s already somebody’s new plaything.”
Grant noticed some of Hickem’s men move toward the back of the truck where the rest of the gang members still resided. His grip tightened over the pistol. “Where did you take her?” Flashes of Ellen and his own Annie flooded his mind. A voice in his head pressured him to take the shot. It’s his fault. Shoot him.
“That’s not part of the rules, man,” he said, the gun still pressed to Annie’s head as he reached the door of the truck. “And you can’t break the rules.”
Grant inched closer. He separated himself from the rest of the group by three feet. The voice continued its whispers, and rage slowly trickled toward Grant’s trigger finger. His daughter should have never died. His wife should still be alive. It was all Dunston’s fault. He should have pulled the trigger that night, too.