by Hunt, James
The gates of the mansion opened after the security guard checked Grant’s ID and badge number, then ran it against their registry of guests. There were no smiles during the interaction. All business from the guard.
Grant parked, and a young man escorted him from the driveway and inside the house. He wasn’t sure if the man spoke English because the only words he said were “follow me” in a feigned American accent.
The inside of the house was elegantly decorated, but done simply and tastefully. Art, depicting Mujave’s home of the Philippines, decorated the walls, and ornate furniture filled the rooms. The floor was marble, the ceilings vaulted, and Grant caught the glimpse of a chandelier in the dining room he passed. But in addition to the finer things, there were also three dogs that greeted him before he entered Mujave’s office, all wagging tails and hanging tongues. Grant also noticed the number of children’s toys scattered on the floors and over the expensive furniture. It made the building less of a structure of grandeur and more like a home.
“Detective!” Mujave jumped from his seat, that wide, warm smile on full display, the whiteness of his teeth contrasting against his tan skin. “It’s so good to see you again, my friend.” He took hold of Grant’s hand, shaking it wildly, and after seeing the man’s excitement, Grant started to regret the false pretenses of his visit. “Please, have a seat.”
“Thank you, Ambassador.” The dogs circled Grant happily, the Golden Lab hopping up onto the couch next to him.
“Happy, down!” Mujave said, laughing. “They get excited about new visitors.”
“I don’t mind,” Grant said, scratching behind the Lab’s ear.
“So,” Mujave said, clapping his hands together. “I hope your visit brings with it some good news?”
Grant rotated the wedding band around his finger. “More questions than news, I’m afraid. It’s about the other children that have been reported missing. I think it might be connected to something bigger.”
The upbeat smile faded from the ambassador’s face, and he leaned back. “I see.”
“I spoke with a young girl from a previous case this morning that I believe is connected to the abductions from today.” Grant made sure to watch the ambassador’s face closely when he told him. “The girl’s abductor said it was better the girl was with her than the spiders. I did some research about what that could mean and discovered a gang in the Philippines that identify themselves by spider web tattoos, and that they deal primarily with human trafficking.”
“The Web,” Mujave said. “There isn’t a parent in the Philippines that doesn’t know who they are.” He stood and walked over to a cabinet behind his desk where he removed a crystal vase and two matching glasses. He brought both back to the sitting area and this time joined Grant on the couch, pouring each of them a quarter cup.
Grant wasn’t much of a day drinker, but he found it best to go with the flow when prying for information. And after the first sip, he might have to ask where the ambassador got it. Not that he could afford it. “They’re the group you wanted me to tackle in the international efforts, aren’t they?”
“Yes,” Mujave answered, taking a sip. “There have been over ten thousand missing children reported over the past five years in my country. Only a fraction of them are recovered. Some are killed, and the ones that survive their reprogramming are sold into sex trades around the Pacific.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and paused. When he finally looked up, he pointed to a painting in the office. “That’s my village.”
Grant turned to see it. It was a beautiful scene. Right on the beach, with trees shading the sand and the tide coming in. Huts lined the beach, a few fires going, and the village people walking about. But the whole painting was built around a young woman, ankle deep in the surf. She had a basket on her head, and her tan skin glistened in the fading sun. She was beautiful.
“Looks like a wonderful home,” Grant said.
Mujave smiled. “It was. In fact, that was where my interest in politics began.” He pointed toward the picture, walking closer to it. “I ran for local office in my village, that was almost twenty years ago now.” He sipped. “I put together a sort of neighborhood watch. Any capable young man joined, finding that there was safety in numbers. We were a modest sized village. Only a few thousand, but still small enough to become targets for the Web.” He loosened his tie, his presence growing more informal with every swallow. “We had limited guns, but a few of the men had spent time in the Philippine version of the National Guard. I had the local police give them special privileges, and we created a security schedule and had a twenty-four hour patrol of the village. It made people feel safe.” He shook his head. “It didn’t last long.”
“The gang attacked you?” Grant asked, rotating the crystal cup in his fingers.
“I boasted about the initiative,” Mujave answered. “I wanted other villages to join. I wanted us to band together. When leaders of the Web heard about my efforts, they decided to bring me down a notch.”
Mujave sank into the couch cushions. He didn’t blink and hardly moved a muscle. “I can still see them as clearly as the night they arrived. They came in full force: automatic weapons, armored trucks with mounted fifty-caliber guns. They mowed us down like cattle. They torched the houses, raped the women, and stole what they wanted. I managed to get my wife and a few others out to the water in the dark of night.” Mujave’s eyes watered. “They were bloodcurdling cries, Detective; screams only possible in the fires of hell. But that’s what my village turned into that night. By morning, there was nothing but ash and blood.” He drained the rest of the liquor and set the empty crystal on the coffee table. “Those people died because they believed I could protect them. They died because I boasted that we were untouchable. I made a promise to myself that day that I would bring them down. That I would make the children of my country safe.”
Grant drained the rest of his own drink and sat the empty crystal next to Mujave’s glass. “If you’re leading international efforts to hunt this group down, then you’d need to be working with the FBI for anything domestic on the U.S. side.”
“That’s right,” Mujave said.
“I need to know who your point person is on that case,” Grant said. “I think the Web has grown more sophisticated with their tactics.”
“You already know the point person on that front,” Mujave said. “You worked with him to get my daughter back. Special Agent Hickem.”
“Dad?”
Mujave and Grant turned and saw the ambassador’s daughter hovering at the door, the pack of dogs circling and begging for attention.
“Dalisay,” Mujave said, smiling. “Come here. I want you to meet your rescuer.”
The girl was timid, her head down as she walked. Grant forgot it had only been two days since they found her in that house. At eleven years old, she’d experienced more heartache than any child should have to bear. Her week-long captivity was not a pleasant one, but Grant had found her just in time. One more day and the man would have killed her.
“Thank you,” Dalisay said, keeping close to her father.
“You’re very welcome,” Grant said.
“Why don’t you go and play with the dogs out back,” Mujave said, giving her a kiss on the cheek that brought a shy smile. “I think they’re getting restless.”
“Okay. C’mon, Happy!” Dalisay sprinted back into the hallway, the Golden Lab barking and chasing after her, the others following suit.
Once the noise of his daughter’s voice faded, so did Mujave’s smile. “The therapists say it’ll take time for her to process everything that happened.”
“I never saw the medical report,” Grant said. “Did everything come back all right?”
“Yes,” Mujave said. “Thank God.”
Medical report was the discreet method of asking if the girl may have been abused or raped. Avoiding those scenarios depended on authorities finding the children quickly. He glanced down at his watch. The timer ticked past six hou
rs.
“I’d like to speak with Agent Hickem,” Grant said. “See what intelligence he has on the gang stateside. Could I get his information?”
“For you, Detective Grant, I’ll set up a meeting personally.”
“Thank you, Ambassador,” Grant said. He declined another drink, and Mujave agreed it was for the best. Once outside, Grant tried Mocks’s cell again, and this time she answered.
“Hey,” Mocks said, sounding slightly winded. “You got something?”
“Yeah,” Grant answered. “I just finished my talk with the ambassador. I’ve got a new lead. Everything go all right with Rick?”
“Yeah,” Mocks answered. “It went great.”
“I’m heading back to the precinct,” Grant said, getting into his car. “Meet me there.” He hung up and drove to the exit, where the guard opened the gate and let him out. It was the second time today Grant had used favors in a case. It wasn’t his normal protocol on the matter, but he was running out of time.
Grant’s phone buzzed. It was the precinct. “Detective Grant.”
“Hey, it’s Sam. I had a breakthrough with the website.”
Finally, some good news. “What do you have?”
“The man who took the girl at the mall, Parker something? I managed to track the IP address he used when he logged into the website. All of the other users got rid of theirs, but his is still operational.”
“What’s the address?” Grant scribbled it down, sloppily. “Thanks, Sam. Good work.” Between his meeting with the ambassador and Sam’s breakthrough, things were starting to come together. Now, he just needed to find out where Parker Gallient was hiding Annie.
7
When Grant returned to the precinct, Mocks was already waiting out back where the press couldn’t bother her. The horde of news vans and reporters had grown larger now that the major networks were jumping on the bandwagon. The whole nation had their eyes on the state of Washington, and they weren’t going to turn away until this was over.
“Hey,” Mocks said, climbing into the car, shivering under her bulky coat. “Sam filled me in on Parker.”
“The ambassador set up a meeting with the FBI team handling the gang stateside,” Grant answered. “We’re going to his office.”
Mocks clicked her seatbelt into place and raised her eyebrows. “I’m sure they’re going to love us snooping around their backyard.”
“The lead investigator was the same agent I worked with on the ambassador’s daughter’s case,” Grant said. “I’m hoping we can come to an agreement.”
“And if that doesn’t happen?” Mocks asked.
“Then we use the leverage we have with the address,” Grant answered. “I’m sure they’d be willing to work with us for some intelligence on one of the gang’s safe houses.” Which Grant was assuming what the house was for. That, or some type of post for their trafficking.
The FBI office wasn’t far from their precinct, and Grant found some street parking near the building’s entrance. He stepped out of the car, zipped his jacket to the collar, and tucked his hands in his pockets to avoid the cold.
Grant wasn’t sure what to expect from the FBI’s field office, but it definitely wasn’t what greeted him. Old and molding carpet, walls with paint peeling off in long strips, a ceiling with flickering fluorescent lights and yellowed tiles. Even his college dorm wasn’t this bad.
“Don’t let the federal budget fool you. It’s not as glamorous as they make it out to be.” Special Agent Chad Hickem was bigger than Grant remembered and when he took hold of Grant’s hand and gave three firm pumps, he thought his arm might fall off. “I figured it was only a matter of time before the ambassador tapped you.”
“Good to see you again,” Grant said, then turned to Mocks. “This is my partner. Detective Susan Mullocks.”
“I didn’t think they let ogres join the FBI,” Mocks said, her tiny hand swallowed up by Hickem’s as they shook.
Hickem laughed. “I got a special exception. C’mon back.”
The office was small, and the ‘back’ was suspiciously close to the front. Eight other agents occupied tiny desks, all of them buried in their computer screens or jotting down notes while on phone calls.
Hickem’s tiny space was more cramped than the rest, though Grant attributed that to the man’s size. No nameplate or personal items adorned the desk. Just a few pens, files, and a laptop covered the top. The desk was functional, like the man who sat behind it.
“I need to know about all of your operations with the gang called ‘The Web,’” Grant said, fishing out his phone. He pulled up the email with Parker’s picture. “Specifically this guy.”
Hickem grabbed Grant’s phone, studying the picture. “He doesn’t look familiar, but then again, the gang has been recruiting like crazy lately.”
“How crazy?” Mocks asked.
“When I first started working this case eighteen months ago, we had their numbers stateside estimated at around a dozen. But recent tally suggests that they’ve blossomed to nearly one hundred in the state of Washington alone,” Hickem said. “We know they have contacts and movers down the entire West Coast all the way into Mexico. The majority of their imports come through Seattle. For now, it’s still their base of operations.”
“Have you done any investigations into how they’re growing?” Grant asked. “And more specifically how they’re communicating with one another?”
Hickem rested his meaty arms on the table, shrugging. “Burner phones mostly. They’ve tapped into the local homeless population for a lot of their new recruits, which is perfect for them. The homeless don’t have ID, are hard to identify, and will take pretty much anything you give them. They’ve also purged some of the smaller gangs in the area. There was a bad turf war about six months ago on the southern coastline of the city. They made our local gangbangers look like elementary school bullies.”
“I worked on a case after helping you with the ambassador’s daughter, and I think it’s connected to what’s happening with all of these abductions today,” Grant said.
“An hour ago I thought the same thing, but all of our intelligence is telling us that our guys have been quiet,” Hickem said.
“These people are running an international sex trafficking ring and the only thing they’re using is burner phones?” Mocks asked. “I don’t buy it. They’ve got a hand in this, and someone specific is pulling the strings.”
Hickem raised one of his very large eyebrows. Everything about the man was huge, even his inquiries. “And what makes you think that?”
“Someone created a website that teaches people how to abduct kids,” Grant answered before Mocks could be any more cryptic. “And it covered everything. How to earn their trust, stay below the radar, places to look, where to abduct, the most effective methods of how to evade authorities; it was incredibly thorough.”
“We haven’t run across anything like that in our investigation.” Hickem pointed back toward the only space that didn’t have a desk in it, which was taken up by filing cabinets. “Everything we’ve gathered so far is in those cabinets. You’re more than welcome to take a look at them. It’d be quicker than getting you clearance for the files we have on the servers.”
“We don’t have that kind of time,” Grant said. “Especially if these guys are as organized as you say they are.” Grant reached into his pocket and removed the paper that contained the address Sam gave him. “Do you know this place?”
Hickem looked it over, shaking his head. “Hey, Billy!”
Another agent stopped in Hickem’s doorway, leaning against the frame. “What’s up, boss?”
Hickem handed him the paper. “Is this on any of our Web posts that we have around the city?”
“Nope,” Billy said. “Not in our records.” He looked at Grant. “You guys found this?”
“One of our cyber techs did,” Grant answered.
“So you’re telling me we have the address of a currently operational Web station?” Hickem asked
.
“That’s what we think,” Mocks answered.
“All right,” Hickem said. “What do you want?”
“An introduction,” Grant answered. “You get the credit for the bust of Seattle’s worst bad guys, and we get to know what they know. No questions asked.”
Hickem smiled. “You could have brought in your own S.W.A.T. team for this, yet you chose to come here and hand this to the FBI. You must hate paperwork, Detective.”
“I hate scumbags who snatch little kids,” Grant said. “We have a deal?”
Hicken leapt from his chair and stepped around the desk. “We leave in twenty. All right, boys!” He whirled his finger in the air, as if he were corralling the wagons. “Let’s strap up!”
Grant and Mocks stepped aside as the office workers transformed from pencil pushers into a field-ready unit almost instantaneously. Mocks leaned in, whispering. “Are you sure about this? I don’t know if the captain is going to like another showy public display of police force. Not to mention the mayor and the senator.”
“Annie’s been missing for longer than six hours,” Grant answered. “We haven’t had any hits from her AMBER Alert. And if she was taken by one of these people she could be down in California by now.”
“But is this the right move?” Mocks asked. “We should check on the suspect in the hospital. Tommy’s abductor.”
“He’s still unconscious,” Grant said. “Someone put a bullet in his back that damaged his kidneys.” He gave Mocks some side-eye.
“Dangerous line of work, kidnapping,” Mocks replied. “They should have read the fine print.” She paused. “And thanks for today. I needed it.”
“I’m just glad you and Rick are fine,” Grant said. “He’s a good man. No reason for you to worry about nothing all day. I need your mind on the case.”
“You think we’ll find something with this Web crew?” Mocks asked, her face skeptical.
“It’s the best lead we have right now,” Grant said. “We just need to keep pressing forward.”
“Weren’t you the one who told me it’s best to take a step back every once in a while to take a look at the bigger picture?” Mocks asked.