by Ellen Butler
“Shit. When?” Rick hopped into the van.
Christoph arrived. “What’s going on?”
“They’re moving the girls,” I threw over my shoulder.
“They know about the warehouse raid, and the fact that Hector is dead. Someone’s coming to get them now.” Hernandez shook his head. “Sounds like they’ll be here in fifteen minutes.”
Expressions of irritation, anger, and frustration swept across Rick’s features in quick succession. “We can’t wait for Jin. Are you ready?” He glanced around at the team.
“I’m ready,” Josh answered.
Christoph nodded. Hernandez gave a thumbs up while continuing to listen to the one-sided phone conversation.
On the monitor, I watched smoking man hang up, toss his cigarette to the ground, and return to the living room. Unfortunately, he slammed the screen door with a quick flick of his wrist, effectively shutting off the MAV’s access back into the house. He then shoved the large sliding door closed, but it bounced back open about two inches. Hernandez moved the bug to observe through the window and hear better.
The two men seemed to get into a heated discussion. The girl curled up into the corner of the couch, her eyes wide and fearful. Her boyfriend lifted the gun and brandished it in the air, while smoking man shook his head, and I distinguished the words tranquilo and cálmese.
“What’s going on?” I whispered.
Hernandez held up a finger, listening intently.
I didn’t like the looks of the hothead on the couch. Of the two, I assumed smoking man was the leader because he’d received the call. However, a hothead with a gun could quickly shift the balance of power. I couldn’t hear or understand what he shouted, but I had a bad feeling he was suggesting that getting rid of the girls with a bullet to the head would be a lot easier than smoking man’s plan.
Hernandez’s jaw hardened and instead of answering me, he dropped the headphones and turned to Rick. “We need to go. Now.”
“Josh and Christoph, you take the front. Hernandez and I will take the back. Go on my command,” Rick said, delivering the orders. “Hernandez, bring up Josh’s body cam, and coms for Cardinal on the computer—listening only. You—” He speared me with his intense gaze. “Do. Not. Leave. This. Van.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” I rocked, rubbing my hands up and down my thighs against the soft knit of my yoga pants.
“Try not to worry,” was Josh’s parting shot before he slammed the door.
Far easier said than done. The risks had just gone up for everyone involved. The warehouse raid put our suspects on alert, and any moment, their backup would be arriving.
The MAV’s footage was probably still rolling, but, in his haste, Hernandez didn’t put it up on a split screen, so all I could see was Josh’s footage. I watched as they jogged the two blocks to the house. Josh’s body cam bounced up and down in a jarring manner that made me nauseated, and I had to look away.
I tuned back in when I heard Rick whisper over the coms, “Subject One has returned to the patio.”
From Josh’s camera, I saw the back of Christoph. Both were hunched down in front of the house, near the door.
“Do we breach?” someone asked.
“Negative. Wait for my signal. Hernandez, take care of Subject One,” Rick said.
There was a grunt, some scrabbling sounds, and then Hernandez uttered, “Subject neutralized.”
I heard a loud bang! and then Rick yelled, “Go now, breach, breach, breach!”
Josh and Christoph busted in through the front. Chaos ensued, the noise of the breach, shouts, and then a buzzing came over the coms. Josh ran into the family room with the television.
Hernandez tasered the guy on the couch, while the girl sat screaming with her hands around her ears. “Cállate!” he barked at her.
Someone muted the noisy movie.
“Clear the other rooms!” someone shouted—Christoph, I think.
“Hernandez, cuff him. I’ll cover you. Then we’ll take the basement,” Rick said.
Josh followed Christoph down the hallway, busting down the bedroom doors one by one, checking closets, under beds, and behind large pieces of furniture. Each yelled “clear!” when they found nothing.
“Dios mío, would you look at that,” Hernandez whistled across the coms.
“Joshua, are you done clearing the rooms yet?” Rick asked.
“Almost.” Josh took the room with Trudea. He put a finger to her neck. “Pulse is steady on the girl in the back room.”
“Chris, you better get down here,” Rick said.
Josh returned to the narrow hallway, and Christoph pushed past him. “On my way to the basement.”
Josh paused as he entered the TV room. The two men were handcuffed with zip ties and lay face down on the floor. The girl sat on the couch, also cuffed, looking frightened but no longer screaming. Hernandez stood at the top of the staircase.
“What’s in the basement?” Josh asked.
“You need to see it.” Hernandez jerked his head. “I’ll keep an eye on them.”
At the bottom of the stairs sat a folding table surrounded by two empty chairs. A deck of cards, two empty beer bottles, a half bottle of tequila, two shot glasses, and a half-eaten slice of pizza were scattered across the table. Josh turned the corner, and it took a moment to process what I was seeing through his grainy body cam. Six cubes, two-by-two-feet square each, wrapped in light blue plastic, sat in the middle of a makeshift counter created by a pair of saw horses and an old door. It was cash, and a lot of it. Running a fifteen-foot length of the back wall was a shelving unit filled from floor to ceiling with industrial-sized bottles of pills—enough to fill a pharmacy—and wrapped white packets. Kilos of drugs, I assumed. Christoph counted the packages on the shelves.
Josh stood in front of the cash. “How much do you think it is?”
Rick, on the other side of the counter, shrugged. “Depends on the denominations. Could be millions.”
“Why weren’t there more guys guarding it?” Josh asked.
Rick’s brows turned down, as if wondering the same thing. “No idea, but if there is this much money and drugs in here, they’ll be sending an army to retrieve it. Is the rest of the house clear?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s go get the girls, we don’t have much time.” Rick turned to Christoph. “Have you called it in?”
“There’s got to be at least fifty kilos,” Christoph mumbled almost reverently.
“Chris,” Rick barked to get his DEA pal’s attention, “you need to call it in. Now.”
“Oh, yeah. On it.” Christoph pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and dialed.
“Get a couple of teams down here,” Rick ordered. “We don’t know how many men Montoya will be sending.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Christoph put the phone to his ear and returned his attention to the drugs.
Rick frowned, regarding his DEA pal.
As if reading his boss’s mind, Josh said, “You stay here, I’ll go get the girls.”
Rick gave a brusque nod.
Josh returned to the front hall. After two whacks with the butt of his shotgun, the lock broke off. The door opened and my sister rolled out at Josh’s feet. An empty water bottle fell from her lap. Her wrists were cuffed with zip ties and her ankles were duct taped together. Josh bent and scooped her up.
I didn’t wait for more. Abandoning my post, I climbed into the front seat and cranked the key that the boys handily left in the ignition. The engine noise sounded loud in the relatively quiet neighborhood. The van jerked forward as I planted my foot to the floor and peeled away from the curb. Things in the back slid around, dropping to the floor with bangs and clanks. I cringed. I hadn’t taken the time to secure the equipment. Braking, I wheeled around the corner at a slower pace. Only a few items dropped to the floor as the van wobbled back and forth, returning to its center of gravity. I hoped they weren’t expensive electronics bouncing around back there. Hernandez might not forgive me if I broke
his toys.
Creeping around the next turn, I saw a dark sedan pull into the driveway. A man got out of the driver’s side, carrying a gun at his side. Hunched over, he approached the busted front door hanging drunkenly from its hinges.
“Damnit, Rick. This is why you should have given me an earpiece,” I grumbled.
Working with what I had, I pinned the guy with my high beams. Blinded, he fired off a couple of wild shots. One hit the side mirror and another, the windshield, dead center. Ducking down, I gunned the motor, jumped the curb, and blared the horn. His body made a whap as I hit it, and he flew forward into a hedge of boxwood. Hernandez and Josh were at the door in an instant. Hernandez leapt over the body, aimed his weapon, and nailed another man—who had gotten out of the sedan and was running away—with a beanbag round, square to the back. The guy went down, howling.
I turned off the ignition but left the lights on. Their brilliance bounced back at me off the white siding as I hopped out. “Where’s my sister?”
“You were supposed to stay in the van,” Hernandez admonished over his shoulder.
“I did,” I replied, indicating the guy moaning in the bushes.
“You broke my leg,” he cried.
Pushing past Josh, who was pulling the guy out of the hedges with cuffs ready, I found my sister laid across a flowered couch beneath the window. The van’s high beams lit up the front room, bright as day.
Josh had removed the cuffs and tape. Her wrists were rubbed raw, and I gripped her clammy hand. “Jilly? It’s me, Rina. I’m here, c’mon, you can wake up now.” I shook her gently, but her head lolled back, revealing a dark bruise across her left cheek. I pressed a hand to her cold forehead. “Jilly? Wake up, hon.” Her breath seemed shallow. Calming my own breathing, I felt for a pulse and found it slow and sluggish. “JOSHUA!” I yelled over my shoulder, to find him striding through the front door, carrying a black duffle bag with lots of zippers and pockets. “Something’s wrong,” I cried.
“She’s been drugged.” He unzipped the duffle, revealing gauze, bandages, and other medical paraphernalia.
I tucked a lock of hair behind her cheek. “Is there anything we can give her? Like an epi-pen or Narcan? Do you have that in your bag?”
He shook his head. “Not until we find out what’s in her system. I think it’s a tranquilizer, maybe valium or similar, but I can’t be sure. There’s an entire pharmacy in the basement. If I give her the wrong medication it could send her into cardiac arrest. Hernandez!”
Hernandez came in through front door. “Yeah?”
“See if you can find out what they gave her,” Josh said.
He disappeared into the TV room and I heard a spate of angry Spanish.
“Here, put this resuscitation bag over her nose and mouth.” Josh handed me a balloon-shaped bag attached to a mouthpiece, the likes of which I’d seen on a variety of medical shows.
I put the cup over her nose and began quickly squeezing the bag.
“Hold on, not like that. Here, cup your fingers around the valve and draw her chin up to make sure the airway is open. Use these fingers to keep it anchored.” He put his hands over mine and positioned my fingers properly. “Squeeze and allow the bag to refill fully before administering another breath. See how her chest is rising. That’s good.” He returned to digging around in the duffle.
“What are you doing now?” I asked, ignoring Hernandez’s increasingly loud shouts at the two suspects and the unmistakable sound of flesh hitting flesh.
“EMTs are on the way. Since you conveniently brought the van, I can start her on an IV drip.” A minute later, my sister had a needle in her arm and Josh hung the IV bag on the nearby lampshade. I thanked the stars he’d been a Navy corpsman before joining Silverthorne.
“Keep doing what you’re doing, I’m going to check on the other girl.” He scooped up the duffle and headed down the hall, leaving me alone with Jillian.
Hernandez continued spewing Spanish, but he didn’t seem to be making headway. I didn’t like the looks of Jillian’s coloring.
Rick came in from the kitchen. “SWAT and DEA are on the way. The ambulance is eight minutes out.”
One of the men yelled out in pain, and I flinched.
“This isn’t working,” I growled. “Here, take over with the bag.”
To my surprise, Rick complied. I walked in to find Hernandez with the butt of his gun in the air, ready to bring it down on the bald man’s hand, which he held down with his foot. The girl had backed herself into the corner between the sliding glass door and the wall, and her frightened eyes were as big as baseballs.
I went over and got in her face. “You speak English?”
She nodded.
I jerked her upright, pulled her into the front room, and pointed at my sister. “What did they give her?”
Her eyes darted to the room’s doorway, where her boyfriend lay. She shrugged. I realized she wouldn’t talk as long as he was within hearing distance. She stumbled as I dragged her down the hall into the empty bathroom. Slamming the door, I pushed her down onto the toilet seat.
“Listen up,” I hissed. “If we don’t get the antidote to the drugs you gave her, she might not make it. If she dies, whether or not you gave her the drugs, you’ll be an accessory to murder by virtue of being in this house. You got me? That’s murder one.” I held up my finger in her face. “Murder with intent. And here in Virginia, we don’t just lock you up. Oh, no, in Virginia, we like to give you the chair.” My mouth spread into an evil, Grinch-like grin. “You know, fry you up like a churro. Zzzztt.”
She flinched.
“Now, I’m going to run some water in this bathtub.” I turned on the taps. “Then I’m going to have my big blond friend put you in. And then, I’m going to take this taser here and shoot it into the water to give you a taste of what it’ll feel like in the electric chair. You understand?”
I had zero plans to actually carry out the threat, but I must have been convincing enough because she shied away from the tub and started talking. “Roofies. They gave her roofies. They put it in the water bottle.”
My sister must not have realized they drugged the water. “How much did they give her?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Anything else?” I shook the taser at her.
I must have looked vicious enough to carry out my threats because her frightened face paled and she pulled back further. “I don’t know. Flaco told me to go to one of the bedrooms and wait while he and Leon took care of business. That’s all I know.”
“What about the other girl? In the bedroom? Same thing?”
She shook her head. “Trudy’s drug of choice is heroin, but Flaco might have given her roofies too. I’m not sure.”
I opened the door. “Joshua!”
He stuck his head out of the bedroom right next to me.
“They gave my sister roofies. Sounds like Trudea may have a heroin cocktail going on.”
I closed the door again and assessed the girl in front of me. As much as I wanted to return to Jillian, this girl gave me answers, at the risk of taking a beating, or worse, getting killed. “Are you Flaco’s girlfriend?”
She produced an ugly look and wouldn’t meet my eyes. “He chose me. I didn’t choose him.”
“Are you one of the gang? Do you want to be here?”
Her toes curled inward, and she stared down at the floor with the slightest shake of her head.
“Would you be willing to testify?”
Her head started shaking violently.
“The police can put you into witness protection,” I explained.
The shaking continued. “I’ve got a grandmother and brother. They’ll kill them before I walk out the front door,” she declared.
“What if I have you arrested with Flaco and his pal? The FBI can get your family members to safety, while they take you in.”
Her eyes narrowed as she assessed me. “You can do that?”
“I can make that happen, but
they’ll want you to testify. The drugs, guns, prostitution rings, everything you know. I realize this is a big leap, but it’ll get you out of here. How old are you? Eighteen? Nineteen?”
“Sixteen,” she whispered.
I drew breath through my teeth. “You can go back to school and be safe. Away from here.”
She scowled and stared at the running water.
I shut off the taps. “You need to make a decision now. Once I walk out this door, I’m done helping you. In or out?”
“In,” she murmured.
“Then play along.” I pulled her to her feet.
“What are you doing?” she asked in a panic.
“Come here, lean over the tub, I need to get you wet.” There was a plastic cup on the counter which I filled with water and poured over her head, soaking her stringy hair and face. The water was ice cold and she squealed in protest. “That’s good, make some more noise.” I poured a few more cups on her before dragging her back down the hall and shoving her to the floor next to Flaco and his pal. “This one’s no use to us. She’s drugged up. Doesn’t know shit. Worthless,” I said with disgust.
Flaco sported a swelling middle and pointer finger, while Leon’s eye was darkening to purple. Hernandez must have showed some restraint. I’d expected ripped-off fingernails and waterboarding from these guys.
Returning to my sister, I took over the bag from Rick. “What’s that?”
Josh stood above her, pressing a syringe of clear fluid into the IV. “Flumazenil, it’s the antagonist to the Rohypnol, a.k.a. roofies.”
“Thank you,” I said with feeling. Twisting back to Rick, with a jerk of my head, I indicated he come closer. “The girl wants to testify for immunity and WITSEC. She’s got a grandmother and brother who need to go with her. Can you arrange it?” I murmured.
Rick nodded and left the room, putting a cell phone to his ear.
Jin stepped through the front door just then. “Looks like you started the party without me.”
“You’re late.” Josh adjusted the IV bag. Sirens wailed in the distance.
“Paperwork.” Jin shrugged, hooking his thumbs in his pockets. To me, he said, “I heard you bounced someone off the bumper.”