by Matt Lincoln
“Okay,” Patel nodded as she walked back over to me and tucked her phone back into her pocket. “Wallace said that he’s arranging a plane for us now. It should be waiting for us when we get to the airport, so we should head there now. If what Jackson said was true about his partner warning Davis that we’re coming, he’s probably already on guard.”
“No time to waste then,” I agreed as I flagged down a taxi. I pushed my turbulent thoughts over what had transpired during the interrogation away. Patel was right. We had the information we needed, and that was what I needed to focus on right now.
26
Junior
The first thing I became aware of when I opened my eyes was a throbbing pain across my torso and abdomen. The second was a suffocating, prickly smell that burned my throat and made it difficult to breathe. It took me a moment to remember where I was and how I’d gotten here. Then I caught sight of the shattered windshield, and everything came flooding back.
Something large and dark had suddenly swerved into my lane. I couldn’t remember any concrete details, but judging by the size, it must have been a cargo truck of some kind. I’d panicked and sharply turned the steering wheel in an attempt to avoid it, but I’d been unsuccessful. The truck had hit the car, and my attempt to swerve out of the way had only caused me to veer off of the road with more force. I thought I could remember the car flipping over. The roof and the driver’s side door were partially caved in, so that must have been the case. The car was right-side-up now and filled with a hazy mist, most likely a combination of smoke from the engine and the powder that was released when the airbags inflated.
“Junior!” Miranda’s voice broke through my thoughts. I turned to look out the window and groaned when the movement caused my head to throb. “Don’t move. Just stay still, okay? I’ve already called nine-one-one. They’re going to be here any minute.” She was looking at me through the window. She had a cut on her head but otherwise seemed fine.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “How’s the other driver?”
“He left,” she yelled angrily. “Some moron in this big, brown delivery truck. I got out to go check on him and saw him driving away. Stupid piece of-”
“It’s okay,” I replied in an attempt to calm her down. Even if she didn’t seem to be physically hurt, it wasn’t good for her to get worked up like this right after an accident. That, and her yelling was causing my head to throb even more. “He obviously wasn’t hurt if he drove away. You’re not hurt, either, so it’s fine.”
“What about you?” she asked. “Does everything feel okay? I didn’t want to move you or anything until the ambulance got here.”
I checked myself for major injuries slowly, starting with my legs. I could move both of them, which was good. It meant I hadn’t sustained any severe nerve or spinal damage. Both of my arms felt fine as well. The worst pain seemed to be radiating from my head, most likely as a result of whiplash or hitting the window when the car flipped. I looked down to check myself for any signs of bleeding and noticed for the first time that my arms and torso were covered in small cuts.
“That must have happened when the windshield shattered,” I muttered to myself.
“What?” Miranda asked.
“I’m fine,” I insisted. “My head’s killing me, but I don’t think anything’s broken.” I tried to push my door open, but it had been crushed and wouldn’t budge. The passenger side door seemed relatively unharmed, which meant that the truck must have struck mostly my side of the car. I scooted over to the other side of the car, desperate to get out of the mangled heap.
“Hey, what are you doing?” Miranda asked with concern.
“I’m getting out,” I answered. “It’s hard to breathe in here.”
“Okay, just be careful,” she warned as she walked around to the other side of the car to help me out.
My legs felt fine, but the pain in my abdomen intensified when I stood up. I lifted my shirt to inspect the damage. My eyes widened with shock at the large red and purple bruise that spread from one end of my waist to the other. My chest, too, was sporting a similar bruise. It must have been from when the seatbelt caught me when we crashed.
“You look like crap,” Miranda balked as she took a step back to assess the damage.
“Thank you,” I deadpanned.
“No, really,” she insisted. “You’re covered in blood. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“They’re mostly superficial cuts,” I sighed. The shirt I’d worn that day was white. Now the entire thing was stained dark red and made my injuries look worse than they were. “My head hurts more than anything.”
“Well, that’s not surprising,” Miranda frowned. “You were out cold for a minute there. And considering how bad the wreck was, I’m surprised we both didn’t end up with worse.” She nodded toward the car, and for the first time, I turned around to take a good look at it. It was destroyed. The front and top of the car were both smashed in, the glass over all the windows had shattered, part of the bumper was gone, and the entire surface was scratched and cracked.
“Thank goodness for seatbelts,” I remarked. “Have you called Wallace yet?”
“Oh, no, I haven’t,” Miranda replied. “I was too focused on calling the ambulance. I totally forgot to.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket again. Though she’d seemed collected, if a little angry, earlier when I’d first regained consciousness, I could see that her hands were beginning to shake now. It was normal after a traumatic incident like a car crash for victims to go into shock after initially experiencing a burst of adrenaline. I’d probably start exhibiting the same symptoms in a few minutes as well.
“He’s meeting us at the hospital,” Miranda informed me as she ended the call. “He wants us to let the paramedics take us since we might have internal injuries or brain damage or something.”
“He’s not wrong,” I shrugged.
Miranda rolled her eyes.
“Anyway,” she continued. “He wants to talk to us just in case whoever hit us was related to the case somehow.”
“Does he think they were?” I asked.
“I dunno,” Miranda shrugged. “I was just thinking it was some selfish jerk pulling a hit and run, but it could be related. Someone sent a bomb to Fiona three months ago to stop her from investigating a case. It’s not that unbelievable to think that someone would try to take us out, right?”
“That’s true,” I agreed. I could hear sirens approaching. The ache in my head was beginning to intensify, and the sound of the sirens wasn’t helping. We watched as the ambulance pulled up beside the wreck and a pair of paramedics hopped out of the back. We agreed to ride with them to the hospital in the ambulance, but we both turned down the idea of using a gurney.
“Could you turn the sirens off?” I asked once we were on the road.
“Are you experiencing head pain?” One of the paramedics asked.
“Yes,” I answered.
“Any other symptoms?” the man asked as he moved forward to shine a small flashlight into my eyes. “Numbness, confusion, memory loss?”
“No,” I answered. “Just my head and neck.”
“Okay,” the man responded before moving to the front of the ambulance to say something to the driver. A moment later, the sirens went silent, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
At the hospital, Miranda and I were separated so we could be checked out properly. I was formally diagnosed with whiplash but was told I didn’t appear to have a concussion or any neurological issues.
“Just be careful not to overexert yourself,” the doctor warned. “It should get better with the aid of ice and painkillers, but if it’s still painful in two weeks, make an appointment for a follow-up visit.
“Got it,” I nodded, though I knew full well I probably wouldn’t be following his orders. At least not the part about overexerting myself. Every time I got hurt on the job, the doctors told me the same thing, and every time, I didn’t listen. I couldn’t. This was a physical job, and danger w
as just another everyday aspect of it. The doctor had given me an injection of painkillers, and just a few minutes later, I was feeling significantly better.
I went off in search of Miranda and found her sitting in a nearby waiting room, playing a game on her phone.
“Hey,” she smiled at me as I approached. “What’s the damage?”
“A few lacerations,” I answered. “And I have whiplash. The doctor said it should go away on its own, though. What about you?”
“Three stitches,” she announced, pointing to the bandage on the right side of her forehead.
“I hope it doesn’t scar,” I frowned sympathetically. Injuries to the face were upsetting for anyone, but I imagined it must be especially upsetting for women. Miranda didn’t seem very vain, but she liked to dye her hair and wore some pretty bold makeup, so it seemed she cared at least a little about her appearance.
“It’s fine if it does,” Miranda shrugged. “I already told you, scars are sexy. And it’ll make a fun story. The time we got hit headlong by a truck and survived.”
It didn’t sound like a fun story to me, but Miranda seemed happy about it, so I didn’t argue.
“Chapman, Castillo,” A voice interrupted our conversation. I looked up to see Wallace and Nelson heading toward us. “Are you both alright?”
“I’ve been worse,” Miranda shrugged.
“Yeah, the car took the brunt of the damage,” I replied.
“Good,” Wallace remarked. “I’m glad you both walked away with minor injuries.” He and Nelson sat in the chairs across from us.
“What exactly happened?” Nelson asked. “Can you give us a play-by-play of the events leading up to the crash?”
“Beginning from when?” I asked.
“From the moment you secured the child,” Nelson replied.
“I brought her out of the gas station,” I began, trying to remember as many details as I could. “There were a lot of people standing around, cops and onlookers, so I took her around the back to give her some space.”
“Did anything stand out about any of the people there?” Wallace asked.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I wasn’t really paying attention, to be honest.
“What about you, Agent Castillo?” Nelson asked.
“I don’t really remember either,” she frowned. “After Junior left with the kid, I was trying to calm down the cops. They were pretty angry about him rushing in like that.”
“I heard about that,” Wallace nodded, throwing me a disapproving glare. I shrank down a little in my seat. “We’ll discuss it later. Right now, we need to focus on what happened with the crash.”
“What happened after that?” Nelson asked.
“Miranda came and talked to me,” I replied. “She went to call social services. I was behind the gas station the entire time, so I’m not sure what was happening up front. Irie arrived, then I gave her Lakshmi, and they left.”
“Nothing else?” Nelson prompted.
“One of the cops got in Junior’s face,” Miranda scoffed. “He was all bent out of shape about what he did and was yelling at him. I told him to step off, and he left.”
“You think he had something to do with it?” I asked.
“It’s difficult to say,” Wallace frowned. “But I don’t think so. You mentioned that it was a delivery truck, right?”
“I think so,” I nodded. “It happened so fast. I just remember it was big and a dark color. Brown or black.”
“It was a delivery truck,” Miranda interjected. “The kind that delivers mail packages. I remember it was pulling away when I got out of the car. I saw the logo on the side. I wasn’t thinking straight, or I would have gotten the license plate number. I was still rattled by the crash.”
“It’s okay,” Nelson replied gently. “Just having the logo will allow us to narrow it down and figure out it was. Even if it was unrelated to the trafficking case.”
“But you think it was?” I asked.
“It’s a possibility,” Wallace nodded. “After all, you were on a long stretch of road out in the desert. Few other cars were around, and you had just located one of the missing children. It’s a pretty big coincidence.”
“I don’t think it was a coincidence,” Miranda suddenly interrupted. I looked over at her. Her face was pale, and her brows were knit in worry. “I think I’ve seen that truck before.”
“Are you sure?” Nelson asked. “If it was just a regular package delivery truck, then it’s possible you’ve seen similar ones.”
“Yeah,” she nodded. “But you just said yourself, it’s a pretty big coincidence, right? So what are the odds that I saw an identical truck parked right in front of the office five nights ago?”
“You’re certain?” Wallace asked.
“Yes,” Miranda nodded. “It was the night that we found out about the tracking devices and stayed late at the office. Charlie and I were in the parking lot, and this delivery guy startled us when he dropped a bunch of packages. Charlie even mentioned how weird it was that he was still out making deliveries so late at night, but I just brushed it off. How could I be so stupid? He ran off as soon as we saw him and got into a truck just like the one that hit us. I thought he was just embarrassed that we saw him dropping all his stuff, but what if he was actually trying to flee?”
The four of us fell silent as we considered the implications of what Miranda was saying.
“You’re right,” I nodded. “A brown delivery truck is spotted outside our office the day we get a huge lead on the case, and then we happen to be hit by a similar brown truck just minutes after finding one of the kids? That doesn’t sound like a coincidence to me.”
“Because it’s not,” Wallace frowned. “This wouldn’t be the first time we’ve been tailed by the enemy, and it wouldn’t be the first time that a suspect used a disguised vehicle to mask his movements. We need to call Hills and Patel and warn them that the trafficking group has been on to us and tracking our movements for at least five days.”
“I’m on it,” Nelson replied as he fished into his pocket for his phone.
“How did they find us so quickly, though?” Miranda asked, her voice tinged with frustration. “I know that the bust in the upstate neighborhood caused a lot of buzz, but we were never specifically mentioned in the news, right? They only said that it had been a raid conducted by the FBI.”
“That’s right,” Wallace nodded. “I deliberately made sure that MBLIS’s name was never mentioned in an effort to keep the trafficking group in the dark for as long as possible. That clearly didn’t work.”
“Maybe it was the tracking device,” I suggested. “The one that Fiona got back online. It’s literally a tracking device. Maybe the group used it to find the location of our office.”
“That can’t be it,” Wallace frowned. “You saw the truck the same night that we got our hands on the tracking devices, right, Castillo? That would mean that the traffickers managed to get to our location awfully quickly. It’s more likely that they already knew the location of our office. Furthermore, we established that the signal was transmitting to an address in Jamaica, which makes it even less likely that they’d be able to dispatch someone to our office so quickly.”
“Then it must have been the supplier,” I concluded. “The one whose number we found on the Weavers, the Anderson’s, and Atkins’s phone records. The one based within the United States. He must have realized we were onto him, somehow.”
“Her,” Miranda corrected. “Atkins told us the person he spoke to on the phone was a woman, but it was a man who showed up to his house with the kid. When he said that I thought maybe they were just using a female member of the group to pose as the children’s mother, but what if the woman he spoke to was the supplier?”
“That would explain why she sent one of the men instead of going herself,” I nodded. “In case something went wrong, she wouldn’t be caught.”
“That still doesn’t explain how she found us so quickly,” Wallace interj
ected. “Let’s regroup back at the office. We can go over the events of the past week and figure out when our information might have been leaked.”
“I’ve alerted Charlie and Miranda,” Nelson informed us as he put his phone away. “They were just about to get on the plane to Bermuda. They were already operating under the assumption that the group was aware of them since one of the suspects they were after last night escaped. I’ve told them to be extra cautious in any case.”
“Let’s go then,” Wallace nodded as he stood up.
The rest of us followed and headed toward the entrance of the hospital. As I walked out of the cool building and back into the blisteringly dry Las Vegas heat, I couldn’t shake the dreadful feeling that I was missing something. The supplier had clearly become aware of us far sooner than any of us had realized, and I couldn’t figure out how she could have gotten that information when we’d gone to such lengths to keep our agency’s name out of the media coverage.
27
Naomi
I sank back into my seat and chewed my lower lip nervously as I digested everything that Nelson had just told me. Junior and Miranda had been involved in a car accident. Thankfully, both appeared to be fine.
That news alone would have been sufficient enough to twist my stomach into knots, but that wasn’t the only reason I felt anxious. Charlie and I were currently on a flight bound for Bermuda, the suspected location of the trafficking group’s home base, and coincidentally where my parents happened to live. I knew it was pathetic of me to feel nervous just at the thought of going there. I’d already had an in-depth conversation about this with Charlie, who’d knocked some sense back into me. Or so I’d thought. It was irritating how just the thought of running into my parents made me forget that I was a confident and successful federal agent and instead made me feel like a helpless young girl again.