They could go back and ask the man. Or they could bring him to the container and watch for signs of fear if they tried to go for the wrong door, but that would be assuming he knew about the risk of an IED. Better to study it themselves first to get an idea of what they were facing, before putting their trust in the reactions of the shady crewman.
“Side door would be less likely to be observed, but it wasn’t meant for regular opening and closing. Sealing this makeshift exit with epoxy and painting over it was intended to give them a way to force their way out at the end of their journey if no one came for them, not come and go. This ship is still rocking with the waves so they know they’re not on land yet. They know they haven’t reached their destination.” He was exploring all of the logical possibilities, trying to outthink their bomb maker. “I still have a bad feeling about this. The last bomb was a victim-operated improvised explosive device, a booby trap. The only reason it didn’t go off when you triggered the trip wire was because he had a delay mechanism on it. I had time to defuse it. In this case, the maker could’ve shortened the delay or not used one at all. We need to do everything we can to reduce the risk and I don’t trust that crewman to tell us anything about a potential bomb even if he actually knows.”
“Fine, maybe he knows about it, maybe he doesn’t, but he’s still been getting in there without getting blown up.” Dealing with the threat of the bomb was exactly the kind of psychological mind-fuck she hated the most because her opponent wasn’t even here. Maybe. She stared at the container as well. “We need to make a decision before we leave international waters. We can’t just leave people in there.”
He nodded. “The way he’s refusing to help, our friend might be stalling. As long as this ship is in international waters, the jurisdiction’s ambiguous.”
“He can’t know that’s why we risked intercepting this cargo.” She was certain the crewman couldn’t be that shrewd. But she hated second-guessing and this was wasting precious time. Once they left international waters, Search and Protect would be treading on someone else’s jurisdiction, and none of them wanted to handle the legal mess.
“No,” Jason said slowly. “But he might be sure there’ll be help once the ship gets closer to their planned destination.”
Enough. They’d gathered as much first-hand data as they could.
Arin returned to King and hooked the leash back to his collar, then she and her dog headed to where Raul and Taz stood with the ship’s captain and the crewman. The crewman was still trying to explain his way out of the trouble he was in with his captain.
Arin strode right up to the crewman and he flattened his back against a shipping container as if she were an oncoming freight train, eyes so wide she could see the bloodshot whites of them. “We found it. Don’t deny it exists.”
The crewman quit his blubbering and snapped his mouth shut.
Beside her, King had picked up her aggressive attitude and reinforced her. The dog’s fur around his neck and shoulders lifted, making him look huge. He leaned forward with his ears back, legs stiff as they stepped even closer, getting into the crewman’s face. “You interacted with them, even stole shoes from one of them.”
Tears and snot started running down the man’s face. “Please. They have to sit in there with their own waste. I was only supposed to give them fresh drinking water, maybe some fresh food. I only get paid for the ones who make it to the delivery alive.”
Well, there was impetus to check on them, then.
“Show me how you checked on them, exactly, step-by-step.” Perhaps she wasn’t cut out for prolonged interrogation, but she did intimidation and placing people under extreme duress just fine.
The crewman scrambled through the shipping containers, returning to the one King had found unerringly. It was a good thing because if there’d been more than one, Arin wasn’t sure she could take the mental somersaults required to handle multiple containers possibly rigged with IEDs and the various ways each of them might blow them all up.
Jason had remained with the shipping container and moved to block the crewman’s headlong rush to get to the container. As Arin gave a shake of her head, Jason stepped aside. “Slow down. Let me see exactly what you’re doing.”
The crewman complied after stumbling a few steps away from the growl in Jason’s command. Jason did intimidating well, too. In an impressive, sort of distracting, definitely hot kind of way.
The crewman went to the side door. “Here, the paint was chipping away but I didn’t open. They didn’t tell me to open here, so I didn’t.”
Huh. Had it ever been opened at all then? Maybe the paint had come away and the epoxy hadn’t completely sealed around the edges of the makeshift door. Maybe the people inside had tried to open it and stopped for some reason.
The crewman went around to the actual door of the shipping container. “I opened here. I never go inside. Never. Bosses made it real clear to me they’d kill me if I touched any of the cargo. Just made them throw me the shoes in exchange for the water. I never touched any of them, I swear.”
Obviously, the crewman believed in the possible ramification if he’d touched only the “property.”
“Do it slowly.” Jason stood by the man with his firearm trained on his head, watching every move.
The man complied, visibly cowed by Jason’s tone and the threat of the gun. The door opened on well-oiled hinges, making some noise but not enough to call the attention of anyone not in the immediate vicinity. As the door opened, light flooded in and the people inside lifted their hands to shield their eyes. All of them cowered. None of them moved to come to the door.
A horrific stench hit her, the combination of days of unwashed bodies and human waste mixed with spoiling food was enough to knock a person out. At the far end of the container, there were what looked to be waste receptacles. There were also small fans all along the sides, hooked up to…car batteries? There were empty water bottles everywhere and even empty cans of juice. But nothing, no litter or blankets or anything came close to the front of the container.
Arin stared at the door and then looked at Jason. “What kept the people inside from rushing him? Why didn’t they try to get out, even for a breath of fresh air?”
Jason was grim. “They know. It’s why they were testing the side door. They know about the front. The bosses probably warned them, too. Look at their faces. They’re beyond terrified and they aren’t trying to come to us. The front door means death to them. It’s not likely he’ll trip whatever it is going in. It’s rigged to be a threat if they try to get out before they’re supposed to.”
He had motioned for the crewman to step away from the container and he leaned closer, studying the edges of the entryway. “No trip wires here, which means whatever sets off the bomb is inside, closer to them. What are the chances I can convince you to take this guy back to his captain and let me handle this by myself?”
“None.” Arin grabbed the crewman, who was still babbling about how he hadn’t damaged any of the goods. She shoved him face first into a different shipping container and pulled his arms behind his back, securing his wrists with multiple zip ties. She then walked him to a somewhat protected space between containers and ordered him to sit, zip-tying his ankles as well. All within line of sight of Jason. “I’m staying right here.”
Jason’s mouth was pressed in a grim line. “There’s a chance there’s no bomb. The assholes who put these people in here might’ve scared them to death with a lie. But I have to proceed assuming there is at least one IED, maybe more. We can’t afford to hope there’s not. I need you to promise me you and King will not get into this container. It’s not made to let anyone out before they reach their destination and someone who knows how to disarm this thing lets them out. We don’t make another move until you promise me you will not enter this container.”
She glared at him but his gaze was steady, his stance unyielding. This was his area of expertise and now wasn’t the time for her stubborn streak. “I promise.”
“Thank you.” He flashed her his rakish, lopsided grin, the one that made her heart thump hard in her chest once before she could get herself together again. Then he stepped inside the container.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jason Landon, you had better come back out of there in one piece so I can tear into your hide.”
Jason grinned wider as he heard Arin’s calmly delivered statement, the tone making her sound way more threatening than if she’d shouted it at his back. She was prickly, with one hell of a temper, and she cared. He’d do his best to fulfill her request.
“In the meantime, it might be a good idea to talk our new friends through what’s going to happen next and how they can best work with me.”
He had no idea if these people spoke English. The intel they’d received indicated the shipping container originated from East Asia, but where the actual victims came from before they’d been loaded into the container and onto the boat was anyone’s guess. They might be a family or people kept together for some time before being shipped or complete strangers. All of that would have to wait for interviews and gentler souls than either he or Arin. But Arin was shorter, less physically imposing, and as far as he was concerned, she had an amazing voice. He could listen to her for hours on any topic. She spoke in a mellow alto and it projected calm to the people around her, settling them and bringing them together.
“Talk to them.” He stood just inside the container, surveying the situation from the interior. “We’ve got sixteen total, fourteen women and two boys. There’s a ton of blankets piled in here, lots of plastic bottles and trash, and…a lot of shit in those containers.”
He was doing his best not to gag. Hell, it was probably better in here than it had been before they opened the container. He wasn’t surprised most of the captives were curled up and miserable. One or two were unresponsive, breathing but not looking at him. The rest were casting fearful glances at him and mostly trying to make themselves as small as possible.
“We are here to help.” Arin began speaking as he’d asked. She kept her sentences short, her cadence slow but not insultingly so, and stuck to the key points. “Stay where you are for now. Let us look for danger. When we are sure you are safe, be ready to move when we tell you to.”
Most of the captives understood. He saw the comprehension in their eyes, and more importantly, the hope. One or two started to tug at blankets, clearing them so he could see the walls and floors more clearly. One boy was all hands and feet. He might’ve been in a growth spurt before beginning this journey but now he was emaciated. He must’ve been the boy the crewman stole the shoes from because he had no footwear to speak of. The others were clothed, even if their clothes were a hodgepodge of items. “They’re listening, Arin, keep going.”
He made his way to the interior side of the improvised trap door first. They’d all tried to be sure not to be near it either. As he leaned to examine it more closely, one of the women made a croaking noise of dismay. He paused and looked at her. She looked frantically at the door and back at him and shook her head. He did his best to look reassuring and nodded his head, keeping his hands low and obviously away from the door.
He also kept as close an eye on all of them as possible. He couldn’t risk any of them bolting before he’d managed to disarm the bomb.
The woman made another noise, coming to her knees but not fully rising to her feet. She placed her hands on her chest, fingertips at her collarbone.
Hell.
He took a closer look at every one of them. He hadn’t noticed on his initial assessment because they’d all had scarves or shirts or whatever they could find covering their noses and mouths, the fabric falling to cover the lower half of the faces and necks. This woman had removed hers, and revealed the collar strapped snugly around her neck.
“I have good news and bad news,” he called to Arin in as pleasant a voice as he could manage under the circumstances. He was gagging over the stench. “I now know why they didn’t try to get out.”
“I’m listening.” Arin managed to be equally sweet. “Raul and Taz are here now, by the way. Zu is calling in the helo to carry us out.”
No arguments there. By the time the helo arrived to retrieve them, either Jason would’ve resolved the currently volatile situation or they’d need a pick up to get away from the damaged ship.
“They are frightened out of their minds to move because the bomb is set based on proximity.” He saw mostly exhausted terror on the faces around him. “They’ve all got collars around their necks. I’m betting they were told if any of them go near the doors, the bomb will go off. If any of them try to remove their collar or someone else’s, the bomb will go off.”
He studied each of them in turn. A few, including the woman who’d first gotten his attention, nodded.
“There’s no trip wire around the entrances or any kind of similar trigger attached to them. Just the collars.” He continued giving as much information as he could.
But the distance to the doors was different. It seemed above and beyond for the trigger to be set to the distance for each of the doors. During stormy seas, the captives would’ve been tossed around the container some and the chances one would roll close to the makeshift door were too high. Maybe the captives had been told they simply couldn’t approach the doors, but based on their positions, it was more likely they couldn’t get too far away from the bomb. The one thing they were all closer to than they would be if they could’ve huddled against the doors was probably exactly where the bomb was.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
“That was the good news.” He really didn’t like what he was going to have to do next.
“Fantastic.” Arin sounded less than thrilled. “What’s the bad news?”
“There’s too much room for error trying to disarm and remove their collars one at a time. I need a direct look at the bomb.”
There was a beat of silence, then she offered a hesitant, “That’s not good.”
He laughed. “Still working on your ability to put a positive spin on things, huh? Everyone needs to stay where they are, no matter what. I’m not going to want to talk more than I have to as I do this.”
“Care to explain why?”
“Because I’m pretty sure the bomb is behind four 30-gallon containers of shit or in one of them.” He’d done some awful things in his time. This was going to be one for his personal records.
“I’m guessing behind, for what it’s worth.” Arin managed to sound both sympathetic and encouraging. Then again, she wasn’t the one trying to breathe inside a refuse-filled steel box. “They wouldn’t put a bomb inside a container that people would be dumping things into. Refuse could be all sorts of caustic, especially if they were urinating in there, too.”
“You have a point.” Honestly, the practical thought cheered him a little.
He retrieved a small tactical flashlight from one of his pockets and approached the containers. Behind him, Arin continued to soothe the captives as she repeated instructions to them. They were holding still, tense, but not on the edge of bolting yet. He used the light to study the area around the containers first, then did his best to see behind them. Sure enough, he located the bomb.
Fortunately, the bomb had no connections to the tubs of stench so Jason was able to shift one out of the way to give him better access. The bomb was similar to the one he’d seen previously, with one or two key differences in the trigger mechanism. He could do this; it just wasn’t as easy as it looked in the movies. Seconds turned to minutes and the calm cadence of Arin’s voice helped tune out any distractions around him, though he was distantly aware of others arriving outside the container while he concentrated on his task.
Finally, he called out to Arin. “Tell them to exit the container. Slowly.”
Arin did as he instructed. The captives scrambled out of the container. Raul and the ship’s captain himself entered to carry out those who couldn’t leave on their own power. Once the container was empty, Arin sto
od at the entrance, waiting for him.
“I promised you I wouldn’t step inside.” She stared at him as he gently lifted the bomb mechanism and carried it toward her. “Nothing you say will make me leave without you.”
Arin sat in her office, elbows on her desk, hands raised. She tended to press her lips lightly against her interlaced fingers when she was thinking and there’d been a lot to think about since they’d returned from their somewhat grey operation to intercept the container ship. Raul had his hands full handling the logistics after the fact with the task force. Mali was similarly busy working to get the rescued captives medical attention and places to stay.
And Jason. Jason was washing the muck off from his stint inside the container. Thankfully, he hadn’t had to go searching through those waste buckets, but he’d definitely ended up with excrement smeared across his shoulder, arm, and back while he’d been disarming the bomb. He’d gone straight to the showers in the Search and Protect offices to wash off the stench.
Her heart had stopped the minute he’d walked into the container. She’d done everything she could to work with him, support him, do whatever was needed to keep the chances of him coming out alive as likely as possible. Now, she was shaken.
She wasn’t sure when he’d become a part of her core. She’d always kept herself protected, compartmentalizing emotions and experiences. Her ability to compartmentalize and prioritize in fractions of a second were part of why she was good at her line of work. She could take action without being frozen or confused, afraid or horrified. There were few at the center of who she was, souls she couldn’t set aside for the sake of any mission. Mali, King, and now, Jason.
She had no idea what to do with the realization. He’d achieved what he’d set out to do before he left Hawaii. There wasn’t anything left here for him. He had a contract waiting, a career-making opportunity. It would take up every waking hour he might have for nine months and beyond.
Fierce Justice Page 23