by Tom Lowe
“Sean it’s not like that.”
“Bullshit! Keep me in the dark and let me hunt for a jaguar that knows I’m walking under his tree. Thanks, Lauren.”
“We’re not using you, we need you.” Her voice dropped. “We need your help. I’m sorry.”
I said nothing.
“Santana is an easy guy to despise, but he’s a hard person to catch because he has everyone else doing his dirty work. No one’s talking because he seems to have some frightening power, absolute control over those who work for him. We believe he’s tied at the hip with one of the most ruthless human trafficking rings in the world.”
“One of the most ruthless? What do you call harvesting human organs? Does it get any more ruthless than that?”
Lauren sighed. “I haven’t held information back from you that would help solve this or find Santana. He’s a terrorist of a different breed. Intelligent. Fearless. And he enjoys killing…personally. We’re running out of time.”
“That’s insightful. He’s probably two moves ahead of anything we can do right now. We need to get a DNA sample from him. Gomez is dead. Davis isn’t talking. He says he doesn’t know where to find Hector Ortega.”
“What about this doctor, Jude Walberg, can he identify Santana?”
“He says he never saw Santana. Only took orders on the phone. He insists the vics were dead before he got there. He says Gomez and Ortega were the ones who packaged and delivered the organs. Walberg said he didn’t know how the distribution worked. Said as soon as he was done they told him to leave. So what we have is Gomez is dead, Silas Davis in custody, Hector Ortega is MIA, and Santana remains a phantom.”
Lauren was silent.
I said, “Detective Dan Grant questioned the girls in the van that night, the same van transporting the vic I found by the river. Dan said the girls didn’t want to talk. One finally did say that when the vic ran from the van, Ortega chased her for a few minutes, but came back to the van and he said, ‘She deserved what she was going to get.’”
“How many victims?” Lauren asked.
“Walberg says at least six. At first it was one a month. Then business picked up and the slaughters become more frequent. Because the doctor only identified Ortega and Gomez, they must have picked up the bodies and took them to the shack after they got a call from Santana. I was convinced that Richard Brennen fit the profile, but the hair on the duct tape didn’t match his DNA. It did match the killer known as Bagman. I bet Bagman and Santana are one and the same.”
“We’ve got to bring Santana down immediately.”
I looked at my watch. “We need a positive DNA match. Follow him.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to try and find the bodies. Maybe I’ll run into Ortega along the way.”
“Do you need back-up?”
“I need to find Ortega. Then I think I’ll find a real body count.”
“If Ortega’s fled to Mexico, what’s left?”
“I hope the FBI has some good bloodhounds.”
“To track him to Mexico?”
“No, to find the bodies here.”
SIXTY-FOUR
It was late afternoon when I drove into the migrant camp. Some of the buses had returned with exhausted workers. I parked the Jeep under two Australian pines and tried to blend in with the farm workers as they shuffled to the store or in and out of the trailers.
Out of the corner of my eye, I felt someone staring at me. I turned and recognized the man. He was the young man I had seen earlier, the man who’d been beaten. He looked the other way and started walking. “Wait!” I shouted. He kept going. I ran toward him. He darted between two trailers, limping on his right leg. I caught him easily, put my hand on his shoulder, and turned him around.
“It’s okay! I’m not here to hurt you. Comprende? I’m here to help. Please… put the knife away.”
“I understand English, some.”
“Good. What’s your name?”
“Manny Lopez.”
“Manny, listen to me. I know what’s happening here. I don’t care what they say, you’re a free man. They can’t hold you or the others against your will.”
“I try to leave…to run…they find me…hurt me…say they kill me next time. Others try…try to run…they no come back. I think they killed…”
“Who do you think was killed?”
“Some workers…I don’t know all names. They take people from camps…you know…some in Immokalee…Lake Placid…Palatka. Some no come back.”
“Is it men and women, or mostly women?”
He gestured with his palms up. “The womens.” He glanced away for a beat, his eyes looking over the dark tomato fields.
I described the woman I had found to him and he slowly turned his face back to me, his eyes heavy.
“She wear a small gold…how you say?”
“Crucifix.”
“Si.”
“Tell me, what’s her name?
“Angela…Angela Ramirez…”
I could see her face as clear as the morning I found her. Now she had a name. Angela Ramirez. “Is her family in Mexico?”
“No. Honduras.”
“How can I find them?”
“I know the casa…where Angela’s family live. I can show to you on map.”
“Thank you.”
“Angela dead?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
“How she die?”
“She was murdered.”
“Gomez…he kill her?”
“I don’t think so. I think it’s a man in Miami who’s connected to Gomez, Ortega, Davis and maybe even the Brennens. Do you know where I can find Ortega?”
“I no see him for six days.”
“Where does Ortega usually work? Where might he be hiding?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I not sure. He sometimes with Gomez. Sometimes he with the grande black man name Mr. Silo. Sometimes he take the women’s in the…”
“The van.” I said
He nodded.
“Where does he keep the women?”
He pointed to the doublewide trailer at the end of the road.
“The largest one?” I asked.
Manny nodded. “That’s where they take Angela. She no go…they not break her…” He pointed toward his heart.
“Spirit,” I said.
“Si.”
“Manny, I think even more people have been killed. Is there any place on this farm where someone might be burying bodies? An area difficult to find them?”
“Many places. Some fields have no fruits…no tomatoes. Somebody could make graves out there.” He looked down the hard-packed dirt road and pointed to a backhoe near a tall Australian pine. “That macheen…sometime I see them take it out at night.” He paused, licked his dry lips, and asked, “Angela in a cemetery?”
“Yes. I will take you there.”
“Gracias.” He made the sign of the cross.
I thanked him. Then I headed for the trailer at the end of the dusty road.
SIXTY-FIVE
I walked behind the doublewide trailer. A rusted air conditioner, braced by a sawed-off two-by-four, hung from a window, rattling and dripping water into the sand. There was one rear entrance or exit. To reach the door I had to step up on a large paint can. The door was locked. I worked my way around the back of the trailer, heading for the front, stepping over dozens of used condoms.
I saw the sun wink from something shiny behind a clump of trees to the far right end of the trailer. I recognized the SUV. It was the Escalade that Ortega drove. I could hear the engine ticking from heat. I felt the hood. The motor was warm. It was unlocked, and keys hung from the ignition.
I could feel Ortega was close. Maybe watching my every move.
I opened the front door to the trailer. The recycled air smelled of cheap perfume, sweat-soaked sheets, and nail polish remover.
Six women, all looking terrified, sat on tattered furniture. The couch was the shade of a UPS truck, f
rayed and faded. The floor was linoleum, stained yellow, dirty and buckling in places. Latin music played from an area that looked like a kitchen. I stepped in from the heat, and closed the door.
One girl, no more than seventeen, sat with her legs bent at the knees, her arms wrapped around her legs, her small body rocking back and forth. She didn’t look up at me, her eyes wide and not looking at anything in the physical sense. I could see cigarette burns on her arms, between the scars from what looked like self-cutting and mutilation. There was a handprint bruise on her thigh, fresh bloodstains on her yellow shorts.
The other women simply stared at me. Expressionless. They were all so young, ranging in age from about sixteen to early twenties. I said, “Buenas tardes. Hablar Ingles?”
“Si,” said one of the youngest girls.
“What is your name?”
She was hesitant, looking at the other women. I said, “It’s okay. No one is going to hurt you. I’m not a policeman, and I’m not with the Border Patrol or Immigration. My name is Sean O’Brien. I’m here to help you. Are you held against your will?”
The girl stared at me, not sure what to say. I asked her to repeat, in Spanish, what I said so the others could understand. She did and none of the women spoke.
The youngest girl said, “My name is Maria.” She was fearful, eyes wide.
“How old are you?”
“Sixteen,” she said in a voice just above a whisper.
I could see dread in her eyes, and it wasn’t because I felt she was afraid of me. She licked her dry lips, her eyes darting around the room.
“I know you’re being forced to have sex. That’s against United States laws. Human beings can’t be held as slaves — sex slaves or any kind of human bondage. Do you understand?”
The women each offered the slightest nod. I looked at the youngest girl. “How do they pay you?”
She reached in her jeans pocket and pulled out a condom wrapper. “We turn in these at the end of the week. They give us five dollar for every one we have.”
“Five dollars?”
She nodded.
“How much do they charge the men?”
“Farm workers twenty dollars. The men’s we meet in the hotels, houses, and the condo…maybe five hundred dollar.”
“And you are given five dollars for that?”
“Sometimes more.”
“Where is the condo?”
“I don’t know how to find it. They take us there.”
“Who takes you there? Is it Hector Ortega?”
Her eyes found mine, the whites showing. She looked at the other women. They sat straight. Too straight. I knew Ortega was in the trailer.
“I’ll write my number down,” I said, with the same inflection and audio levels. “You’ll call me. We’ll file a lawsuit against the people that run this outfit.”
I gestured for one girl to come forward. She did, and I leaned in and whispered in her ear, “Where in the trailer is Ortega?”
She looked over her shoulders, bit her bottom lip, pointed toward the back, and whispered, “Last room.”
SIXTY-SIX
I pulled out the Glock, motioned for the women to leave the trailer, and I started down the hall. The interior had been divided in at least a dozen small rooms. Most of the doors were open. I could see the same sized small beds in each room. The farther I got in the trailer, the stronger the odor of sheets and mattresses soaked in perspiration and body fluids. I could hear the air-conditioner straining in the hot sun.
I also heard a sound behind me.
I whirled around and pointed the Glock in the terrified face of a farm worker. He looked like he’d just come back from the fields, a John Deere hat on backwards, ruby red FSU T-shirt, filthy jeans smelling of green tomatoes and pesticides. He stuck his hands straight up.
I lowered the Glock. He looked over my right shoulder for a half second. It was all I needed. I dropped to the floor just as the gunfire roared in the trailer. The bullet hit the farm worker in the chest. I came up firing a shot at Ortega as he unloaded two rounds at my head. Both bullets missed my left ear and slammed into the flimsy trailer wall.
Ortega ran down the hall and out the front door. I followed. I saw other drops of blood past the fallen man. I had hit Ortega.
I ran around the side of the trailer where I knew Ortega had parked the SUV. I could see him searching frantically for the keys. I crept up behind the SUV and pointed the Glock in the window. “Hands on the wheel!”
“You fuckin’ shot me!”
“That’s the appetizer. Drop the gun and put your hands on the wheel. Now!”
He dropped his gun in his lap and slapped his hands on the steering wheel. I held the Glock in his face, reached though the open window, and lifted up his gun.
“I need a doctor!”
I looked at the gunshot wound in his right arm. “Get out of the car!”
“You’re trying to kill me!”
“I will kill you if you don’t get out of the car.”
He got out and stood in front of me holding one hand against his bleeding arm.
“Start walking!” I said.
“Where? Man, I need a doctor!”
I pushed him toward the dirt road in front of the trailers. He gripped his upper left arm and walked, blood seeping through his fingers, running down his bare arm. Farm workers watched from the edges of the road. The dog tied to a backhoe began barking.
“Shut up shithead!” Ortega yelled at the dog.
‘That macheen…sometime I see them take it out at night.’
“Stop!” I said, pushing Ortega toward the dog, a mix-breed with more lab than anything else. I kept the gun on Ortega while I rubbed the dog’s head. I looked up to where the rope was tied to the backhoe. It was then, in the late afternoon sun, that I saw it.
A long blonde hair, catching the afternoon light, glistening, hanging motionless from one of the teeth on the backhoe claw.
SIXTY-SEVEN
The strand of hair was caught in dried dirt in the tip of one dull metal tooth. “Well, what do we have here, Ortega?”
He swallowed, licked his thin lips. “I need an ambulance!”
“That is a lot of blood pouring down your arm. Must be your heart beating faster to compensate for the loss of your blood. I’d say you’re down to about five, many seven minutes before your heart starts pumping air.”
“Call 911 asshole!”
“Tell me where the bodies are buried, and I’ll call an ambulance. If you don’t, we’ll have to follow the backhoe tracks, could take a while. You and me tromping all over the south forty. I know the backhoe was used to dig graves. Where are they?”
He looked at the hair and looked back at me. The color drained from his face. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He blurted, “A half mile, down the easement, past the packing house, follow a dried-up canal to Farm 13. There’s fresh earth there. We don’t use that field. They’re buried there.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“You don’t know exactly? I ought to let you die! You bastard!”
I saw Manny Lopez standing near one trailer. “Manny, take off your belt, tie it round his upper arm, right above the wound.”
Manny started the tourniquet while I held the gun on Ortega and dialed my cell with one hand. I called Dan Grant and told him what had happened and added, “Send an ambulance. Bring in forensics, the whole team, and a lot of body bags.”
I hung up and called Lauren Miles. “This will be one your folks in Quantico will talk about in classes for years to come. Bring your camera guys, that way your instructors will have illustrations when they teach the chapter on the real killing fields.”
“We’ll take choppers and be there in an hour,” she said.
* * *
Two sheriff’s deputies held Ortega under armed guard as he was taken to the hospital in an ambulance.
A small army of investigators and forensics people assembled at Farm 13. The form
er tomato field looked like it hadn’t been farmed in years. Weeds and Brazilian pepper trees sprouted over the 150 acres of sandy soil. It was easy to see where the backhoe had been. A strip of land, about fifty feet long, was disturbed, fresh-turned soil.
It was here where men in white jumpsuits and masks over their mouths and noses descended with shovels. The first body was found within five minutes. County and federal law enforcement people stood in a near circle while forensics investigators began uncovering the rest of the bodies. The dead were lined in a shallow, mass grave, almost shoulder-to-shoulder. There were seven women and two men.
“Internal organs missing,” the ME said, looking up from ditch of the dead.
I stepped closer. The victims appeared to have dark hair and features, except for one. The matted hair was blonde. I had a feeling I was looking at the partially decomposed body of Robin Eastman. The sad life of a young stripper, caught in a maniacal turf war, ended like a gutted fish.
Lauren and Dan stood next to me and watched the proceedings. Both the FBI and the county investigators were doing a good job documenting with video and numerous digital cameras.
Lauren looked to the west and pointed. “Chopper isn’t ours. Media are coming.”
Dan said, “We got to keep them back a good fifty yards!”
The senior ME came up out from the graves, removed his mask, and said, “In thirty-three years, I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“Any idea the time-line from the first killing to the latest?” I asked.
“That’ll take some lab work, but I’d estimate the one at the far end has been in the ground about five months. The last one down, few days.”
Dan shook his head. “How do you even try a case like this?”
“What do you mean?” Lauren asked.
“Quantity of bodies. Death penalty isn’t enough.”
I said, “Lauren, maybe you can take your FBI team and pay Josh and Richard Brennen a little visit. Their neglect, their handed-down abuse and indifference allowed it to exist in the first place. That’s a crime in my book.”
Dan looked over and held his hand up. To four deputies he yelled, “There’s a bunch of media people coming. I see the satellite trucks. Make sure nobody gets on this side of the tape. I mean nobody!”