by Peter Darley
Brandon sat down again. “All right. You did great, Ty.”
Tyler collapsed onto the couch. “Damn, I need a coffee.”
“I’ll get it.” Nikki stepped into the kitchen. A sudden attack of panic gripped her. What they were planning was positively lethal, and she couldn’t conceive of any way they were going to succeed.
With trepidation, she made the coffee and took it into the living room.
***
“Director Wilmot, I’m telling you, you’re wasting your time. There is no Sapphire. There’s nothing more that I, or anybody in this department, can say.”
Wilmot stared at Commissioner Landis with Garrett by his side. The agents’ gazes were typically intimidating and accusatory, enhanced further by their unresponsiveness.
Unable to cope with the silence anymore, Landis began to perspire. He couldn’t be certain if they knew something, or if they were trying to psyche him out. “So, is there anything else I can do for you? Because I’ve got a busy schedule.”
Garrett took a slender digital recorder from her pocket and placed it on Landis’ desk. Wilmot stepped forward and pressed the play button. Immediately, the echoed, tinny sound of their conversation the day before came through the small speakers.
Landis shivered at the first two spoken words coming from the recorder.
“I’m just going to zoom this along a little,” Wilmot said, and watched the rapidly advancing digital timeline on the LCD. He stopped it and smiled. “This is the best part.”
Landis sank back into his chair feeling his face become ashen as his own voice came through the speaker:
Mae Ling? I know my calling you is dangerous, but what we’re facing is much more so . . . I’ve kept you clear of police investigations for five goddamn years, but now it’s becoming problematic. I’ve just had a visit from the director of SDT, a Homeland Security sub-division. This is their second visit to the department. They’re looking for Sapphire . . . No, no, of course I didn’t tell them anything, but I’m telling you, something’s going down, and you should watch your back.
Wilmot stopped the recorder. “That was recorded at thirteen thirty-six hours yesterday, which would be approximately five minutes after we left.” He pulled up a chair and smiled gloatingly. “Now, are you sure you don’t want to revise your bullshit story, Landis?”
Garrett moved across to the chair besides Wilmot’s. She reached under the left underside, peeled away her adhesive-backed, thumbnail-sized transmitter, and held it up with a contemptuous expression.
Landis trembled as his life seemed to be collapsing around him. “Y-you bugged my office?”
Wilmot chuckled. “That’s right. It was obvious we weren’t going to get any answers out of you voluntarily.”
“What do you want from me?”
Garrett sat down beside Wilmot. “We want answers, Commissioner. Who is Sapphire, and where is his organization?”
“P-please, I can’t. They’ll kill me.”
“The alternative could be even worse,” Wilmot said. “A police commissioner spending the rest of his life in a federal penitentiary for aiding and abetting a human trafficking outfit, profiting from it, and perverting the course of justice? Just think about it, Landis. They’d have to put your ass in solitary just to keep you alive. After a few weeks of your own company, you’d become a dribbling vegetable.”
Landis wept. “P-please—”
“Hey, hey. Don’t get all bent out of shape. We can make all of this go away. All we need is information. So far, we’ve got that you’re on the take, and you’ve enabled this organization to evade police detection from the beginning. What we want to know is—who, and where are they?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? Who’s Mae Ling?”
“S-she’s the one who came to me in the beginning. She seduced me and got everything on film. She threatened to expose me. My marriage, my position in the community. . . I could’ve lost everything.”
Wilmot’s eyebrows rose. “She’s been paying you off too, hasn’t she?”
Landis nodded.
“Who is Sapphire? And who is Mae Ling?”
“I’ve never actually seen Sapphire,” Landis said. “Nobody has, except for on a screen. He’s African-American, mid-forties, well-dressed, and he broadcasts to the auctions from God-knows-where. Mae Ling is Chinese, and she’s his . . . I don’t know what you’d call her.”
“Where and when do these auctions take place?”
Landis buried his head in his hands knowing he was damned if he told them, and damned if he didn’t. Ultimately, he decided to disclose the location. “It’s on the docks.”
“OK, here’s what’s going to happen,” Wilmot said. “You’re going to tell us exactly where on the docks it is, and when the next auction is going to take place.”
“It’s tomorrow night.”
“Well, here’s the good news,” Garrett said. “We’re not here looking for Sapphire, or Mae Ling. We’re after someone we’re expecting to be at this place imminently.”
“Nobody finds it without being a part of it,” Landis said.
“Yeah, well, this particular person is extremely resourceful and not to be underestimated.”
“Who?”
“No, no, no. We ask the questions, Landis,” Wilmot said. “You answer them, and do as you are told. We’ll take care of everything else.” He turned to Garrett. “If this auction is taking place tomorrow, we’d better get going. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Landis stood in desperation. “Hey, wait a minute—”
“Sit down!” Wilmot snapped. “We’ll meet you here tomorrow. If you try to warn them, if you try to interfere with this investigation in any way, you’re finished, you understand?”
“Yes, I understand. But these people are extremely well-funded, and heavily armed. They’re killers.”
Garrett turned to Landis with a sly grin. “So are we.”
They closed the door behind them, leaving the commissioner to his thoughts with his hands trembling and perspiration dripping from his face.
Wilmot hurriedly exited the LAPD building with Garrett and immediately took out his cell phone.
“So, what’s the plan, Director?” Garrett said with a wink.
“If this auction is happening tomorrow, and Sapphire has Drake’s sister, there’s as good a chance as any he’s going to be there, if he’s managed to nail down the location.”
“I agree.”
Wilmot switched on the phone. “I’ve already set this up. It took a little persuading, but it’s a matter of mutual interest. He’s an escaped soldier, and he’s their boy.”
“Their boy?”
“Drake’s own comrades. The Eighty-Second.”
“You’re bringing in the military?”
“No, not simply the military. Drake’s own unit. They’ve got more of a chance of taking him in alive than anybody. They’ve got the skill, the training, and he’s one of them.”
“Was one of them. He was discharged after he was sent down.”
“Doesn’t matter. They have battlefield history with him, and the jury did everything possible to let him go free. He’s the one who screwed it up for himself.”
“You’ve got a point.”
“Yeah, I do. They’ll help us to capture Drake, and when it’s over, we’ll throw the book at Landis. It’ll be a beautiful collection for our résumé.”
Garrett smirked in agreement.
Wilmot punched in the contact and held the phone to his ear. “This is Director Andrew Wilmot at SDT. Patch me through to General Grant. This is an emergency.”
Jed Crane braced his hand against the side wall of the precinct and peered around to see Wilmot and Garrett disappearing into the crowd. “Gotcha.”
Thirty-Nine
Playing with Fire
Fabian Rodriguez swaggered across a parking lot toward a bare, warehouse-type environment. Approaching a door at the far end with a sm
ug grin, he recalled, with pride, how far his journey in life had taken him.
Six years earlier, he’d been working the streets of Baja for one of Mexicali’s drug cartels since he was fourteen. The day came when he’d been assigned to traffic a consignment of cocaine for Mae Ling Cheung, one of the most fearsome characters he’d ever encountered.
However, Mae Ling had taken to him warmly. She’d offered him a vocational opportunity that would pay him, in one month, more money than he could earn in a year. After eagerly accepting, he relocated to Los Angeles with her, and became her favored scout.
His own survival instincts had long since annihilated any sense of morality. Selling drugs, the kidnapping of children, and seducing women into human cattle auctions, had become a way of life to him. Using his experience, looks, and charm, he developed the ability to spot vulnerable females from a considerable distance, and manipulate them to their doom. Seeing them as nothing more than acquisitions, he never gave a thought to the horrendous torment into which he was leading them. He’d lost sight of the fact that they may have families who would spend their lives grieving. Should his victims lose their lives at the hands of those who purchased them—it was simply business.
He took out a key and inserted it into the door lock, and instantly, the environment changed. He stepped into an ornate corridor with a plush red carpet, leading to a spiral stairwell.
At the bottom, he stood for a moment to behold the auditorium and catwalk. As many times as he’d seen it, it never failed to fill him with excitement. It had become the source of hundreds of thousands of dollars in commissions. But he was becoming greedier, and today was his day for negotiations.
He turned left, walked through a vacant bar area, and came to another carpeted stairwell. After climbing two flights, he made his way along another corridor, stopped at the last door, and knocked.
“Come in, Fabian.”
Smiling, he entered to see Mae Ling sitting behind her desk filing her talon-like nails.
“Are you ready for tomorrow night?” she said without looking up.
He pulled up a seat opposite her. “You bet I am. This is gonna be our most profitable event yet.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Are you kidding me? When have you ever had a virgin nun on the table?”
She finally looked up, and he noticed her studying his cocky expression derisively.
“You still have much to learn, my boy,” she said. “Blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for verily he shall not be disappointed.”
“What’s that? Buddhism?”
She rolled her eyes. “No, Fabian. I’m just trying to keep your feet on the ground.”
“Yeah, well, my feet are itchin’ to leave the ground. I’ve been at this for six years, and you’ve been paying me five percent in all that time. I’m the one who does all the leg work.”
“Oh?”
“From now on, I want ten percent.”
“Do you, now?”
A sense of affront welled up in him, a stark contrast to the arrogant, grinning confidence with which he’d entered. “Hey, come on, lady. Without me, these events wouldn’t even be happening. Show a little respect here.”
For a fleeting moment, a flash of anger appeared in her eyes. However, she reined it in just as quickly, replacing it with her sultry smile. “I’ll talk to Sapphire.”
“Yeah, well, when am I gonna meet him? I’ve been working for the guy all this time, and—”
“He’s overseas, as you know. Just leave it to me.”
They stared at one another for a tense moment. Even when Mae Ling appeared to be amicable and supportive, she never failed to cause him a slight shiver.
“All right. Thanks.” He stood, and made his way to the door.
He looked back at her for a brief moment. Then, without a word, he exited the office, and closed the door behind him.
Mae Ling pondered the conversation with rage swelling in her. Fabian was an expendable convenience, at best. Recruiting scouts was a simplistic task. There were so many other opportunistic, greedy hoodlums on offer. She was not about to be dictated to by one of them, neither was she willing to share any more with Fabian than she already had.
She took out her cell phone and selected a contact. “Jin? I want to see you in my office right now.”
Within minutes, a tall, slightly-overweight oriental male wearing a dark suit entered. His shaved head and stature complemented his cold, hard features.
“Fabian was just here,” she said.
“I saw him.”
“He’s become a problem.”
Jin smiled with a hint of sadism.
“You know what to do,” she said. “Make sure you leave no trace.”
As he left the office, Mae Ling sat back, linking her talon-nailed fingers with no hint of regret.
Fabian stepped back into the parking lot feeling particularly happy, certain he would receive what he’d demanded. With a smile, he continued toward the entrance.
Halfway across, he spotted a silver Mercedes speeding into the lot, seemingly from nowhere. It stopped only inches from mowing him down.
Darting back instinctively, he stumbled into Jin who’d come up behind him. Jin grasped his shoulders, and Fabian immediately knew. Oh, shit.
Four Chinese goons exited the Mercedes and made slow, daunting steps toward him.
“H-hey, hey, guys. Look, let’s talk about this,” he said. “You know me. I was just kidding. You know. Kid—”
Cut off mid-sentence by a blow to his solar plexus, he fell to the floor in agony. With one hand braced on the ground, he grasped his stomach with the other. The blade of a hard shoe collided with his elbow, breaking the bone, causing him to collapse with an ear-piercing shriek.
But it didn’t stop.
He felt his jaw shatter under the impact of a heavy boot, followed by another. Stars appeared before his eyes and a veil came over him, as though it wasn’t really happening.
The heavies kicked Fabian senseless within seconds, until his face was unrecognizable and bloodied. Wasting no time, two of them grasped him under his arms and dragged his limp form across to the Mercedes. Jin opened up the trunk and hurled Fabian inside.
Without a word, they closed the trunk again, climbed into the car, and sped out of the parking lot. Jin spun the car around, accelerated along the dockside, and drove on into the night.
Fabian began to stir as the car came to a halt, unaware of how long he’d been unconscious. The pain in his right arm was excruciating. His face stung severely and felt three times its actual size.
He tried to twist around but couldn’t. Fear gripped him in his disorientation. Cramped up in total darkness, he suspected he’d been buried alive.
The car doors closed and vibrated through to the trunk. The back of his head knocked against something that felt like a tin container.
As the trunk opened, he looked up to see Jin and his four cronies gazing down upon him, smiling.
Strong hands gripped his lapels and pulled him from the trunk. The pain in what was left of his elbow screamed through his body. He roared under the effects of a torture he’d never before imagined. “Please. Please, no more.” His cry came out as a muffled drone, his speech severely impaired by his broken jaw.
They emptied his pockets and took his wallet. He knew they were ensuring there wasn’t a trace of identification on him.
They cast him to the floor again, and he looked around to see they’d brought him to the middle of the desert. There was nothing other than rock and cacti for as far as the eye could see. In that moment, he knew they were going to kill him.
Two of them gripped him under his arms again and pulled him along farther into the desert.
“Guys, don’t do this,” he said with a pleading tone. “I’ll do anything. I’m sorry, all right? I’ll work for free, I swear. I’ll catch you the hottest bitches you’ve ever seen.”
Cold, cruel laughter was their only response.
Finally, they released him and cast him down again. He looked behind to see the Mercedes was at least a hundred yards away.
Jin walked slowly toward him holding a gasoline canister. Fabian realized it must have been what his head had knocked against in the trunk and became blind with terror. “Oh, my God. I’m begging you. Please, Jin. Don’t do this!”
Jin continued toward him, grinning. He was quickly upon him, unscrewing the canister, and looked down at him for a prolonged, intimidating moment.
Without warning, he hurled a large splash of gasoline onto Fabian’s face. He screamed as the flammable liquid burned into his skin and open lacerations. Jin paused for a moment before pouring more across his body, soaking his jacket and jeans.
Fabian attempted to stand in order to run, but accidentally put pressure onto his broken elbow. The shocking pain almost caused him to lose consciousness again.
Jin poured a short trail away from Fabian on a line of rock and took a cigarette lighter from his pocket.
Only now, at the end, did Fabian experience a moment of repentance. The faces of the women he’d brought into slavery came to his mind as a legion of specters. The looks of terror in their eyes at the moment they’d realized they’d been duped by him, flashed across his mind.
Especially the nun.
“Oh, God. Sweet Jesus. Holy Mary, forgive me.”
Jin flicked the lighter and the flame appeared.
“No!”
Jin threw the lighter into the gasoline trail, and Fabian was instantly consumed. His screams echoed across the desert in response to the most horrific, torturous agony a man could experience. He attempted to roll around to extinguish the fire, but found he was too weak, further hampered by his broken elbow.
The flames seared his flesh as his howls continued to echo into the night. Every moment seemed like an eternity to him, an infinity of indescribable, blazing horror.
After almost a minute, he cried out his last. His final thought—the realization that during his life, he had always been playing with fire.