A Voice from the Field

by Neal Griffin

  “Bring it,” Tia said, accepting the challenge. “Like I already told you, Delafield, you guys are out of control.”

  “I don’t disagree with you, but even if we’re out of control, we have some heavy-duty backup. Now, do you want to hear my idea or not?”

  The waitress approached the booth. Tia waved her off, then waved at Delafield, encouraging him to continue.

  “Kane is financing his illegal purchases with money made through human trafficking.”

  There it is, she thought. Tia recalled the conversation in Sawyer’s office, when Sheriff Solo revealed the intel his deputies had gained through the illegal tracker. No way she was giving that information to Delafield. The trust wasn’t there yet. She looked at Delafield across the table, her face deadpan. “Go on. I’m listening.”

  “I’m not talking about the strip club stuff; forget about that. Kane’s got a guy on the West Coast who identifies good targets for their little business. He calls Kane, and Kane and Tanner head out there to pick up the merchandise.”

  Tia played along, curious to see how much Delafield was willing to talk. How much he really knew about the crimes of Kane and Tanner. “The merchandise?”

  “Women. Young. Just across the border and alone. The kind of girl nobody is going to report missing.”

  Even with what Solo had already provided, it was hard to hear. Tia sat in silence and allowed Delafield to go on.

  “Kane and Tanner are hooked up with a coyote. After he IDs the target and notifies them, he hangs on to the girl until Kane and Tanner come out and close the deal.”

  Tia felt the anger building inside. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. That cops would sit by and allow such crimes to occur. Allow innocent girls to be kidnapped and raped. Treated as nothing more than slaves. Fighting for control, she could hear the tremor in her voice.

  “How many times? I mean, how many girls have they brought back?”

  “So far? At least four,” Delafield said. “They got a regular circuit. Starts in LA. Then Vegas. From there they hit a dozen or so truck stops, a bunch of labor sites, roadside hotels. They were just getting back from the last run when you came across them. Kane surprised everyone when he tried to snatch you off the street.”

  The fury began to boil over and still Delafield had more to tell.

  “Kane’s got an arrangement with a pimp down in Chicago. Once Kane’s done with ’em, he sells the girls off for a few hundred bucks. Then they walk the blade in Cicero. Bottom-rung shit.” Delafield shrugged. “From the time Kane makes the snatch until he gets rid of them is usually about three months. I figure he’s cleared about thirty or forty-K per girl.”

  “Jesus.” Tia shouted in frustration, covering her face with her hands. She had never imagined that Stahl and his team could have been so complicit. So negligent.

  Delafield reached out with both hands and grabbed Tia by the wrists, whispering. “Damn it, Suarez. Are you nuts? Keep your voice down.”

  Tia looked around the restaurant and saw several faces looking her way. Delafield was right. Prying ears could create big problems. She lowered her voice to a whisper, but the wrath remained.

  “What the hell is wrong with you people? You know all this and you leave the guy out there walking around? I don’t get it. Do him for kidnapping and lock his ass up.”

  “Seriously, Suarez? Are you really that naïve?”

  Tia clenched her jaw and said nothing.

  “Who’s going to prosecute with an illegal immigrant prostitute as the victim? California? Vegas? Some circuit judge in a farming town in Kansas? I suppose you think the feds will take this on.” He shook his head. “The human-trafficking angle is a nonstarter. The DTAT angle on this whole thing is domestic terrorism. Nothing else.”

  Tia leaned in. “What is this DTAT shit? Who are you guys?”

  Delafield looked around the café before bending toward Tia and lowering his voice.

  “Stahl is Colonel Lester Stahl. He’s Army Special Forces and Intelligence, but strictly as an analyst. A real pencil neck. I doubt he’s ever even seen the business end of an M4 and I sure as hell know he’s never kitted up for a real mission. This is his first field assignment.”

  “And he’s running the show?”

  Delafield finally took a sip of his coffee, nodded, and went on. “Four years ago Stahl was tasked by the Director of National Intelligence to create the Domestic Terrorist Assault Team—DTAT for short. He’s got about twenty-five agents, mostly military, Special Forces types, a few from old spook units. The agency budget is classified and most of the work is reported straight to DNI. But in four years, Stahl hasn’t been able to break a single case. The guy belongs behind a desk. This whole thing with Gunther Kane is the closest Stahl has been able to get to making a real case on somebody.”

  “Real case?” Tia smirked. “Is that what you call this?”

  Delafield shrugged. “What can I say? He’s a fed. Different breed.”

  “Funny to hear you say that about one of your own,” Tia said.

  The big man snorted and briefly looked disgusted. “Not ‘my own’ at all. Believe it or not, I’m just like you, Suarez.”

  “Come again?”

  “I was a detective working narcotics for the Cedar Rapids Police Department. I heard about a hotshot new spy agency, recruiting guys to go deep cover. Targeting high-level domestic terrorists. Sounded great. Getting on with a federal agency. Doing big-time covert ops. You know, the kind of thing you could tell your grandkids about.” Delafield shook his head. “I wish to hell I’d stayed in Iowa. I’d go back to pushing a patrol car tomorrow.”

  “Why’d Stahl hire you?”

  “Before I was a cop, I did four years regular Army. Ended up working a sting operation with army CID, targeting stolen weapons. We were pretty successful. Got a lot of stolen guns off the street and put some very bad soldiers in Leavenworth. Told Stahl about it when I interviewed and he was impressed. Must’ve thought I was a good fit for this op.

  “I’ve been working Kane for more than two years. I’ve spent so much time with that fat-ass, racist prick that I’ve started to forget it’s all a game.” He shook his head. “And Tanner? Don’t even get me started. That little tweak has been playing Stahl like you wouldn’t believe.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Tanner was my original ‘in’ with the NAF. I worked him as an unwitting—he didn’t know I was working for DTAT—and managed to get him to set up a meet with Kane. A few months after that, Tanner got nabbed by state police with a pound of meth in his trunk. Stahl went off and signed Tanner as his own personal informant.”

  “So wait.” Tia stopped him with a hand up. “You mean your original intro to Kane is now working for Stahl?”

  Delafield could only shrug as if admitting to the incompetence surrounding him.

  Tia shook her head and she spoke with sincere “cop to cop” concern. “Dude, I’m no U/C expert, but that sounds risky as hell. You’re cutting pretty close to the bone.”

  “Tell me about it. It was news to me until you had your run-in with Kane in Milwaukee. That’s when Stahl let us in on his little secret. That Tanner was his bitch.” Delafield’s voice was more emotional than she had heard before. Angry, even. “But that’s been Stahl’s MO all along. He figures it’s his op. His world, you know. The rest of us just live in it. Fuckin’ guy.”

  Tia could feel her trust for Delafield growing, but she could also tell the man was under the gun. He was feeling the pressure. She sat quiet and let him talk, wondering what else he’d let slip.

  “It’s been slow going,” Delafield said. “When we started on Kane, it was supposed to be a six-month assignment. Turns out Kane wasn’t all that hooked up. We’ve really had to walk him down the aisle.”

  “You must be single,” Tia said, shaking her head ruefully. “I mean, what woman in her right mind would put up with this kind of bullshit for two years?”

  Delafield gave a quick shake of his head as
if to dismiss the topic. “Look,” he said, “are we going to talk about getting this case back on track or not?”

  “You called the meeting. What do you have in mind?”

  “You need to let this run its course.”

  Tia started to scoot out of the booth. “Not an option.”

  “Wait.” Delafield grabbed her arm with an almost-bruising grip. Tia pulled back, wrenching free. He softened. “Just hear me out.”

  Tia sat still, letting her silence serve as a signal for him to go on.

  “Just a few more hours. Stahl wants me to deliver Kane to a neutral location. Away from the Roadhouse. Away from Tanner’s place. He figures that way, it’ll be easier for us to control the takedown. Once Kane accepts delivery, we’ll pounce. He’ll never get a chance to even move the product.”

  “I told you, I’m done working with you guys.”

  “I need ten hours, Suarez. You need to give me that.”

  “Forget it.” It was Tia’s turn to lay things out. “I get it. Stahl and his buddies are like the New Avengers or some such shit. Frickin’ untouchables. But that’s got nothing to do with me. I’m local and I don’t answer to your people. I told you, Delafield, I’m out.”

  “No. You’re not.” Delafield’s gaze went to the entrance, then back to Tia. “You think you get to walk away? Or better yet, you think you get to tramp all over this op?”

  Tia didn’t reply. Delafield said, “I’m just telling you. Better yet, I’m warning you, beat cop to beat cop. Stay out of this. Stahl is already looking to take you down and he’s far enough up the food chain to screw you over big-time.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “After you took off this morning, he huddled up with Graham. I overheard him talking about a mental breakdown, some kind of courtroom thing? How you needed to be taken out of the equation. I heard him telling Graham the shooting at the farm needed to be taken federal.”

  “The hell with all you people.” Tia pushed her way out of the booth. “Go back to your bunker, Delafield. I’ve got police work to do.”

  “Do you want to get that girl away from Kane or not?”

  Tia stopped. Delafield had said the one thing she could not resist. She sank back into her seat. “Tell me what you got in mind.”

  “Like I said, everything is set for tonight. I’m going to the Roadhouse at nine o’clock. My job is to get Kane to the meet location, twenty miles away and in the middle of nowhere. One way in and no way out. We’ve got it all pre-staged with a tactical team. He’ll be bagged and tagged in no time. After that, I’ll go with you to see your judge. I’ll give him everything.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying, I’ll spill it all. The trips west. Kane’s attempt to kidnap you. Everything. Then, you and Stahl can argue over who has the better case. It won’t matter to me, because I’m done with this shit.”

  Tia knew what the offer meant. If Delafield went on the record, she’d have no problem getting search warrants for the Roadhouse and Tanner’s place. Hell, with Delafield’s corroborating statement she could swear out arrest warrants for both Kane and Tanner for multiple counts of kidnapping. Not to mention felony assault on a cop.

  “You’ll give it up? All of it?”

  Delafield nodded. “I told you. I get it. We fucked up. It’s time to get back to basics. But if you go it alone, Stahl is going to shut you down in a big way.”

  Tia thought it over.

  “All right, Delafield, we’ll do it your way. Twenty-one hundred hours. I’m following you guys to the takedown location. Soon as Kane’s in custody, you and I hightail it back to Newberg. We have a late-night date with a judge I know. He’ll give us what we need.”

  “Fine.” His voice was anxious.

  Tia got up to leave and gave Delafield a last look. She knew he needed to be brought in. He’d been out of his real world for too long. No one should go two years deep cover with a shit bag like Kane. The look in his eye felt more crook than cop. “You sure you’re good, Delafield? You can handle this all right?”

  “Don’t worry about me.” He shimmied out of the tight-fitting booth, stood, then pushed past her. As he walked away, he said, “Tonight, Suarez. We get this shit done tonight. After that, I don’t really care what happens.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Tia pulled the GTO in to the alley behind the Piggly Wiggly and found Connor sitting on the edge of the grocery store’s raised loading dock, legs dangling over the side. The white apron his manager insisted he wear was wadded up on the cement floor beside him; his John Deere cap was pushed back on his head. He was reading a worn paperback of The Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson.

  Moving as quietly as possible, trying to catch him off guard, Tia had gotten to within a few feet of him when, without looking up, he spoke.

  “Break time, Officer Suarez. I’m not inclined to spend it with the cops.”

  She smiled. “It’s Detective.”

  His blue eyes turned a little green against the cap he pulled down tight to block the sun, which shined a bit more directly in his eyes when he turned to look at her. “Well then, that’s different.”

  She hoisted herself onto the cement platform. “Why are you reading that communist crap again?”

  “Say what you want, the man knew something about being free.” He set the book aside. “What are you doing here?”

  She hesitated, then answered, “I’m sorry for the way things ended. I wish you had stuck around. I don’t think we were done talking.”

  He looked back. “Funny. I kind of got the impression you wanted to be done with me, period.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “You’re wrong. I wasn’t thinking that at all. I doubt I’ll ever think that.”

  Looking at Connor now, older and with many more miles on him, Tia couldn’t help remembering their bus ride to Parris Island. Hope and energy had poured out of him then. He’d stayed awake the whole time from sheer excitement, even after she had finally fallen asleep, leaning on his shoulder, for the last hour of the trip. Even all these years later, with all they had been through, she could hear the boyish excitement in his voice as he’d whispered in her ear, “Wake up, Tia. We’re here.”

  His real voice brought her back to the present.

  “Then I should have stayed with you. I’m sorry.”

  “Next time.”

  “Next time?”

  “Yeah.” She moved in closer. “Next time you get all worked up and put out with me? Just stay. Okay?”

  He nodded. “So now what?”

  She took a deep breath. “I’ve got a way to wrap this up tonight. If things go right, Kane and Tanner will be in custody on both federal and state charges and I’ll have search warrants for the girl. It’s all legit. Low risk, too.”

  He looked at her, almost expressionless, assessing. “Sawyer know about it?”

  “He knows enough.”

  “Low risk, my ass.” He looked away, shaking his head. “Damn it, Suarez. Don’t you have some burglary cases to work or something? Maybe get a cat out of a tree?”

  “Firefighters get cats out of trees. Cops shoot cats out of trees.”

  He pretended to ignore her and reached for his book. “All right, then. Like you said. We’ll talk later, I guess.”

  Tia put her hand on his, pinning it and the book to the cement. She got his meaning and she didn’t blame him for being frustrated with her.

  “Don’t.”

  He looked steadily at her. “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t shut me out.”

  He said nothing, but he didn’t have to. Tia could practically read his mind. All she had to do was go back to the department, sit at her desk, and earn her paycheck. God knows she had plenty of her own issues to worry about. She didn’t need to go looking for new ones.

  “This is it, Connor. If I can’t help her this time, then I’m done. But I have to do this.”

  “Let me guess,” he said. “There’s th
is voice. Am I right?”

  When she only smiled in response he went further. “So? You going to fill me in or what?”

  She shook her head. “I think you’re going to want plausible deniability. Just in case.”

  “Well, that sure as hell puts my mind at ease.”

  Tia got to her feet but stayed in a squatting position so their eyes were at the same level, then leaned in and kissed him on the mouth. “I love you, Connor. I know we don’t say things like that very often, but I want you to know it.”

  He started to stand, but she put her hands on his shoulders.

  “No. Stay here. I’m going to do this one thing. I have to. Then after that, you and I are going to talk about how to live our lives together. Put all the craziness behind us once and for all.”

  He shook his head. “Okay, but I just want to point out, it’s all your craziness. I stock shelves at the Pig. I don’t do crazy.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, agreed. My craziness.”

  She jumped down off the dock and stood looking up at him. She put her hands around his legs and leaned closer.

  “When this is over we’re going to sit down. Talk about some things I need to tell you. I want you in my life, Connor, but you have to know what you’re getting into.”

  He reached out one hand and stroked her cheek. “It doesn’t matter what you tell me. I am in your life for as long as you’ll let me stay there.”

  “Yo, Anderson,” the manager called from the doorway behind Connor. Neither he nor Tia looked around. “I need you for a cleanup on six. After that, stock toilet paper on aisle five.”

  He shook his head, smiling at his own reality. Tia laughed, just once.

  “I guess duty calls for both of us, huh?”

  “Want to switch?”

  He stood. “Don’t ask me twice—you might wind up grabbing a mop.”

  She pushed off his legs and walked backward for a few steps, watching Connor struggle to his feet. For an instant she saw pain in his eyes, saw how awkwardly he moved. In that moment she wanted to go to him, help him. Then he was on his feet and his composure returned. The flash of pity she felt faded when she saw his strength, the solid core of him that no one could take away.