by Matt Lincoln
“Didn’t Nelson say he was going to arrange to have some cops meet us here?” Charlie asked as he looked around the pick-up and drop-off area in front of the airport. “Where are they?”
“That might be them now,” I remarked as I pointed to a large SUV that was pulling into the area. It had “Jamaica Constabulary Force” emblazoned across the side in large white letters. The car came to a stop in front of us, and two men wearing dark blue uniforms and heavy, bullet-proof vests stepped out.
“You are the federal agents from the United States?” The taller of the two men asked as he looked between Charlie and me.
“That’s right,” I nodded. “I’m Agent Patel, and this is Agent Hills. Our office made arrangements about having you escort us to the site of a potential crime scene.”
The man raised an eyebrow at me before breaking into a low chuckle.
“They sent a woman to investigate such a serious crime?” he jeered.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Charlie asked before I could say anything in response, and the man shrank back as Charlie loomed over him. He wasn’t as muscular as the other man, but Charlie was tall and had an intimidating presence. His scowl alone was enough to cow most suspects into submission, but I was worried the officer might take offense and try to start something. Even if he was a jerk, we were on their turf, and it was risky to be antagonizing them. Charlie and Junior had had a problem dealing with crooked police officers during their last mission, and Jamaica was no stranger to corruption among law enforcement.
Their tense standoff continued for what felt like an eternity as Charlie glared at the officer, waiting for an answer.
“Nothing,” the man finally replied as he flashed us a fake smile. “It was only a joke. You Americans have no sense of humor. Now, how about we get going, then?” He moved past Charlie before opening the door to the backseat.
“Ladies, first?” he asked mockingly as he shot me a look laced with malice.
“Certainly,” I responded as I pushed past him to open the front passenger side door. As I climbed inside, I caught sight of the other officer snickering. He got back into the driver’s seat, which left the jerk officer with nowhere to sit aside from the seat he’d offered to me.
“Here’s the address,” Charlie called as he handed his phone to the officer in the driver’s seat.
“Okay,” the man nodded. “We should be there in just a few minutes.”
As we drove off, the thrill I’d felt at having rebuked the sexist officer faded as I realized I’d made a grave error in seating myself directly in front of him in the car. He clearly had a problem with me, and it had been foolish to leave my back exposed to him. I didn’t like that I couldn’t keep an eye on him like this, but I knew that Charlie was back there with him and that he wouldn’t let him try anything.
Nevertheless, I was still glad when we made it to our destination, and I no longer had to stay in that position. It was a nice home and expensive by Jamaican standards without being ostentatious. Before I could get out, though, the sexist officer rushed out and slammed the door behind him.
“Better go make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid,” Charlie sighed as he got out of the car as well. I was about to follow him when the officer in the driver’s seat gently took hold of my arm.
“I’m sorry about back there,” he apologized before I could castigate him for touching me. “What Tobias said, I mean.”
“That’s his name?” I asked. “Tobias?”
“Yes,” the officer nodded. “I’m Leo, by the way. We didn’t get a chance to introduce ourselves with what happened back there. Sorry again, by the way. He’s always such a jerk to everyone, but especially to women.”
“How unfortunate,” I frowned. “He must be a joy to work with.”
Leo shrugged.
“Yes,” he chuckled. “But the look on his face when you ignored him and took the front seat! I wish I had taken a picture of it. I’d tape it to the wall at the station.”
“Are you two ever going to get out?” Tobias yelled. “Or does the little lady need more time to fix her makeup?”
The comment was irritating, but I was far more concerned about the incensed expression that came over Charlie’s face as he suddenly marched over to Tobias.
“Oh no,” I groaned as I hurriedly opened the door. I needed to do damage control before Charlie ended up getting into a fight with a Jamaican cop on Jamaican soil. Federal agent or not, it wasn’t going to go well for him if he did. I could hear Charlie muttering something to Tobias as I approached.
“Why?” he responded to whatever it was Charlie had said. “Just look at how indecently she’s dressed! She wants people to take her seriously when she’s walking around like that?”
Charlie opened his mouth to say something in response, but before he could, the sound of a bullet tore across the front yard, and a spot of red bloomed on the side of Tobias’s head.
“Gun!” Charlie yelled as he pulled his own gun from his holster and pointed it somewhere to my left. I threw myself to the ground as I heard more shots go off. I lifted my head and looked behind me in the direction the bullet had come from and saw a man leaning out of the driver’s side window of a car. I got to my knees and drew my gun just as he started to pull away.
I lifted my gun and emptied the chamber into the back of the car. The third shot shattered the rear windshield, and the fifth blew out one of the rear tires. The man panicked as the tire exploded and caused the car to shift to the right. He over-corrected as he turned the wheel forcefully to the right, causing the car to spin out and come to a stop sideways across the road. I ran to the car and threw open the door. The suspect inside was bleeding and appeared to be dazed. From what I could see, he hadn’t been wearing his seatbelt and had cracked his head against the window when the car spun out.
I sighed irritably as I hauled him out of the car. I always hated when suspects got injured. Not because I felt bad for them, but because it always delayed our timeline and led to more paperwork.
“Are you okay?” Charlie asked as he caught up to me.
“I’m fine,” I responded. “Help me cuff him. Is Tobias alright?”
“I don’t know,” Charlie huffed as he glanced back to where Leo was kneeling over Tobias’s still form. “The other cop already called for backup and an ambulance.”
“Okay,” I replied. “Let’s take this one over to Leo. We need to do a search of the house ASAP. There could be children inside.”
The suspect seemed to be coming out of his dazed state and began to struggle as we frogmarched him over to where Leo was standing.
“Leo, we need to clear the house,” I informed him. “Are you okay to watch the suspect?” His eyes were wide and blank as he looked down at his fallen partner, but a moment later, he blinked hard and turned to look at me.
“Yes, I’m fine,” he nodded as he took hold of the suspect’s arms. “Shut up! Hold still and stop making a fuss!” It was a little jarring to hear him yell so authoritatively. It was a stark contrast to the gentle way he’d spoken to me earlier.
I walked up to the door of the house and was disappointed to find that it was locked.
“Let me,” Charlie insisted before kicking the door down with intense force. I winced as I watched him. He spent so much time doing that, and he’d probably develop knee problems as he got older.
I rushed into the house behind Charlie.
“You take the right,” he suggested. “I’ll go left.” I nodded before following his instruction. The house was lovely and nicely furnished, and I’d spent enough time in the Caribbean to know that only someone wealthy could afford to live in this kind of house. I had a strong suspicion that the suspect’s wealth hadn’t been honestly earned.
“There’s no one here,” Charlie called as he finished clearing his part of the house. “No suspects and no kids.”
“None over here, either,” I called as he walked into the office room I’d just cleared. There was a computer i
n this room, along with several stacks of folders and notebooks.
“Did you find something?” Charlie asked.
“Maybe. Look at this,” I replied as I picked up one of the notebooks. On the front, someone had written the word “May” in French. On the notebook below that one, someone had written “April.” I flipped the first notebook open and was shocked to see what looked like a manifest. On each page was the name, age, and physical description of a child, as well as a picture. The page would also detail what day the child had been acquired and what day they were sent to the United States, as well as various other bits of information such as any health issues.
“It’s a record of sales,” Charlie muttered as he took one of the other notebooks off the desk. “One for each month.”
“There are dozens of children in here,” I gasped, my heart dropping as I considered how many there must be in total. “How absolutely vile.”
“We need to call Wallace,” Charlie nodded. “I’ll take some pictures as evidence and send them to Fiona. She can get started on tracking them down. It doesn’t list specific addresses, but maybe she can find something using the dates that they were flown over.”
I nodded slowly as I watched him pull his phone out of his pocket. My heart was beating so hard it felt as though it was trying to press its way out of my chest. I could feel my hands trembling as I looked over the multiple stacks of books piled high beside the computer, and I felt a rage more intense than any I’d felt since I was twenty-two years old and setting a fire to escape my own captivity.
19
Charlie
Two hours after finding the notebooks, Patel and I were at the police station preparing to interrogate the suspect. We’d both been surprised at how quickly he'd been released from the hospital so that we could speak with him. I’d been even more surprised by how callously the department’s chief had been as he informed us of Tobias’s death.
“Of course, we will need some statements from you both,” he informed us. “As a formality since you were on the scene. Aside from that, we should not have a problem. Now, if you would be so kind as to wait, the suspect will be ready for the interrogation in a few minutes.”
Patel and I left the chief’s office and went to sit in a small lobby right outside the station’s bullpen.
“That was kind of cold,” I frowned as I took a seat on a hard, plastic bench. “It’s like he wasn’t even affected by the officer’s death.”
“Maybe he wasn’t,” Patel shrugged as she sat down next to me. “Jamaica is a gorgeous country, Charlie. The scenery is breathtaking, and the people can be so kind and generous, but it’s not all beauty and tropical beaches.” She lowered her voice and leaned closer to me before continuing. “There’s corruption, too. People fight and claw their way to the top, and they won’t hesitate to push others down to do so. It’s a dog-eat-dog world here. And Leo told me that Tobias was a jerk and no one really liked him, so there’s that.”
“I noticed,” I nodded. “I don’t get what his deal was with you. Especially about your being dressed ‘indecently.’” Patel was wearing a sleeveless, button-down blouse that didn’t reveal anything below her collarbone and a pair of long gray trousers. “Unless he was talking about your heels, which might be the dumbest thing you could wear while chasing a suspect, but I wouldn’t call them indecent.”
Patel pinched my arm in response.
“First off,” she began haughtily. “I wasn’t expecting to have to chase down a car less than an hour after getting off the flight. If it hadn’t been for Tobias behaving like a complete sleaze, I would have asked to stop at the hotel to shower and change first. And second, that’s not what he was calling indecent.” She tapped her bare shoulder with her finger.
“What, your shoulders?” I asked incredulously.
“I’m afraid so,” Patel nodded. “A lot of public buildings in Jamaica, including libraries, hospitals, and police stations, have rules about how women are allowed to be dressed. Shoulders are just far too provocative for some men to handle, it seems. It’s been a while since I was here, so I had hoped perhaps things had changed, but apparently, they have not. Tobias very helpfully proved that the moment he saw me.”
“Whatever,” Charlie scoffed. “If he can’t handle working with a woman without having his pride hurt, then he’s not much of a man. Or, well, wasn’t much of a man, anyway.”
“Agents,” a police officer greeted as he came to a stop in front of us. “The suspect is ready in the interrogation room now.”
“Thank you,” Patel replied as she stood up. I followed after her as the officer led us down a hall and toward the interrogation room.
“His name is Aaron Brown,” the officer informed us. “No family in the area. No official job on the record, which is peculiar considering the expensive home he lives in.”
“I’m pretty sure we know where he’s getting his money from,” I growled, and the officer shook his head in disdain before opening the door and stepping aside to let us through.
The man had a bandage around his head, and his entire body was shaking with fear as we walked inside. There was only one other chair inside the room.
“You sit,” Patel offered as she walked around the table to stand just behind the suspect. “I much prefer to stand.” It was a subtle but effective power move, and I could see the suspect break out in a sweat as he nervously glanced over his shoulder. Patel just stared down at him menacingly.
“Can you tell me what these are, Aaron?” I asked as I showed him my phone. Displayed on it was a photo I’d taken of the notebooks.
“I didn’t do anything illegal,” Aaron insisted. “I was hired to keep track of certain shipments and to keep records. I didn’t hurt anyone, and I didn’t break any laws.” He spoke robotically as if he was saying something he’d rehearsed in his head a hundred times.
“See, I don’t know if I agree with that,” I sighed as I leaned across the table toward him. “I mean, can you really sit there and pretend you didn’t know what the ‘shipments’ were when I have all of these notebooks filled with the names and pictures of missing children? I found them in your house, Aaron.”
“I didn’t do anything illegal,” he insisted again.
“Okay,” I nodded slowly. “Let’s say I believe you. This is all just a big misunderstanding, right? If you really had no idea what was really going on, then just tell me the names and locations of the people that you work for, and then maybe the judge will believe you were just a clueless pawn, and you won’t have to go down for human trafficking.”
“I didn’t touch any of those kids!” he protested. “You can’t charge me with taking a kid I’ve never even seen before! All I did was keep track of their locations and handle the money. Being an accountant is not a crime!”
“It is when you work for a group of child kidnappers,” I snapped at him. “All that money you were keeping records of was gained through the buying and selling of children. You’re delusional if you think you won’t go down for this just as hard as the rest of your little group if you don’t cooperate with me.”
“That’s not fair!” the suspect sputtered.
“No,” I snapped. “What’s not fair is convincing an impoverished mother that you’re going to give her child a better life and then selling her to a rich American couple to be their live-in slave. If you don’t have anything to say to me, then this interrogation is over. You can spend the rest of your life rotting in prison.” I stood up and turned around as if to leave the room.
“No!” Aaron called. “Don’t leave. I’ll talk to you. But I really don’t have names to give you.”
“Then I don’t see why I should sit here and listen to you,” I sneered.
“Just wait,” Aaron pleaded. “I don’t know their names or where they are. They only communicate with me through texts. They’re very careful about divulging any information. But I do know when the next pickup will be.”
“Pick up?” I asked. “You mean you know
when they’re planning on taking the next kid?”
“Yes,” Aaron nodded. “I keep records of what dates the kids are picked up. I don’t know exactly where, but I do know which neighborhood. It’s going to happen tomorrow night. They’ve already spoken to the kid’s parents and are planning to get him tomorrow after the sun goes down.”
“You’re certain?” Patel asked, startling Aaron. It seemed that he had forgotten she was hovering behind him.
“Yes,” he nodded. “I know because it was actually supposed to happen tonight, but there was an issue with the mother. She wanted to change her mind, but they convinced her and changed the date to tomorrow. The child will certainly be taken tomorrow evening in Trenchtown.”
As he revealed the location, I saw a spark of recognition in Patel’s eyes.
“What part?” she asked coldly.
“Near First Street, I think,” Aaron responded. “As I said, they do not share every detail with me, but I am sure I heard them mention that area.”
“Alright,” I huffed as I pushed my chair back to stand. “Thank you for your cooperation.” I believed what he was saying about not knowing anything else, and if that was the case, we didn’t need to waste any more time here. The faster we contacted Wallace and formed a plan to intercept the pickup, the better.
“Wait,” Aaron called as I made to leave. “What about me?”
“What about you?” I asked derisively. I really wasn’t interested in spending any more time with him than was necessary.
“I spoke with you,” he barked. “I betrayed my employer, so what’s in it for me?” I raised an eyebrow at him. It was a little late for him to be trying to bargain now that he had already spilled everything to us.
“I already told you,” I sneered. “If you’re honest with us, then you’ll only be charged as an accessory rather than as one of the main conspirators. You should be grateful that you’re getting any bit of leniency at all considering the severity of this crime.”