“And they go a long ways back,” Mike said.
Pickett just wanted to be sick. The people kidnapped were being held in concrete rooms right under Las Vegas. Or at least some of them. How was this even possible?
“How big is the complex?” Sarge asked, his voice low and clearly shaken. “Can you tell?”
“Going to take some time to analyze all of these images,” Mike said. “But at a glance, it’s huge. Maybe upward of five or six thousand rooms carved from the ground. And all are square.”
Robin pointed to the screen tracing her finger along a line. “Looks to me that the pattern is a complex of five rooms that has one door off a main tunnel leading into it, like a front door of a house.”
Mike was nodding. “No other way out. Each suite could hold six people easily.”
“This is insane,” Pickett said.
Mike nodded and changed out the images. “This is a cut through the old storm tunnel,” he said. “Looks like all the new rooms down there are about the same height as the old tunnel, all leading off to the west from the tunnel.”
They all kept silent as Mike went through more images, explaining what they showed. They all confirmed that there was a massive complex down there.
Massive.
Picket wished she hadn’t eaten lunch now. This was far, far larger than they could handle. But she doubted these images would be enough to stop all this either.
Finally, Mike got to an image and suddenly sat back.
“Oh, God,” Robin said, shaking her head. “Can you switch that area to an eagle-eye view?”
Mike nodded and switched the view. A giant mass showed up on the screen.
It took a moment before Pickett’s eye saw what they were looking at.
Thousands of cars.
A hundred feet underground.
“Where does the elevator leading down to that come to the surface?” Sarge asked a moment before Pickett could.
“In the back garage of the August Tux Shop,” Mike said, turning and smiling at the three detectives.
“Now we have enough for a warrant,” Robin said.
“But how do we keep those people in those rooms, if they are there, from being hurt if we raid on the top floor?” Pickett asked. “There has to be some major forms of communications with that area down there back to the surface somewhere.”
“Especially if they are loading out porn videos,” Sarge said. “All the wedding rapes, all the voyeur videos and who knows what other things they are doing to those people. All have to be taken out of there somehow and loaded onto the dark web. Am I correct?”
Mike and Robin both nodded.
“He’s right,” Robin said. “We need to find that connection and control it first. I’ll get Will and all our people on this.”
She turned with the phone to her ear and moved out into the hallway.
Mike nodded and glanced at Sarge. “Can I use this computer? I’ll get my people on this as well. You two need to talk with someone you can trust completely on this to get a warrant when we need it. We still go in tonight.”
Pickett glanced at Sarge who was nodding.
“Thanks, Mike,” Sarge said.
Then he and Pickett went out into the hallway and turned toward the kitchen. Pickett needed a glass of water, something to take the dry, desert feel out of her mouth.
Something to help her grasp the size of the evil they had just found.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
October 20th, 2016
Las Vegas, Nevada
SARGE FELT AS if his entire body was in shock. He remembered the feeling from a few different times over the years. Always after finding something so horrid that it was impossible to believe a human being could do such a thing.
But humans could. There was no way to ever overestimate the ability of humans to commit pure evil.
“Do you think most of the missing are still alive down there?” Pickett asked as they got bottles of water in the kitchen and stood facing each other across the island. Outside the sun was bright and the sky clear, adding an even stranger feeling to the bright kitchen considering what they had learned.
“I think the ones that didn’t give up on hope of rescue are alive,” Sarge said.
“So more than likely there are a lot of graves down there as well,” Pickett said, her voice soft.
Sarge only nodded to that. He was sure she was right.
A lot of graves.
“We are dealing with mass murderers as well as kidnapping on a scale not seen in modern America,” Sarge said. His mind felt numb; he felt numb.
How was any of this even possible?
“We’re still missing a lot of things, aren’t we?” Pickett asked after a few long moments of both of them just standing there lost in their own thoughts.
Sarge looked at the beautiful woman he was quickly falling for and his mind came back to the task at hand like a cloud vanishing letting the sun shine through again.
“You’re right, we are,” he said, nodding. “Sewer, water, power, ventilation, and a ton more. All has to be provided for and hidden. And on that scale, that can’t be easy. And to say nothing of the amount of food needed and waste generated.”
“How many people are involved here?” Pickett asked. “An operation of this scale can’t just be a few people.”
Sarge grabbed his notebook and jotted down all the questions he and Pickett had just come up with.
She was right, this had to be a fairly large operation, which meant people were being paid somehow. From the people who did the kidnapping to the tech people who cleaned up and loaded out the videos to the people who ran the supplies, not even counting the security forces.
“Who can we trust?” Pickett asked, staring at him with those deep brown eyes.
“Mike’s people,” Sarge said. “Robin and Will’s people. Julia and Lott and Andor and Doc Hill and his people. That’s a lot of highly trained help there.”
Pickett nodded.
At that moment Robin joined them and dug out a bottle of water from the fridge and took a drink. “Will is as angry as I have ever seen him,” Robin said. “I’m so disgusted at what we found, I am shaking.”
Pickett just nodded and gave Robin a moment to take a drink and take a deep breath.
“Does Will know a judge he can trust to get the warrant on this?” Sarge asked.
Robin nodded. “My worry is the connection between the crew on the surface and the ones underground. The entire place could be rigged to explode and just kill and bury everyone.”
“Shit,” Sarge said. He hadn’t even thought of that, but the type of people who could do this would think nothing of just burying all those people and trying to get away.
“So how do we make sure that can’t happen?” Pickett asked.
Robin only shook her head and took another drink of water.
“Power,” Sarge said, looking at both women. “Between lights, air, and everything else, that place has to be using the same amount of power as a decent-sized hotel. We need to find how that is being fed into the place and cut the power.”
“Damn, you’re right,” Robin said, her phone appearing at her ear almost instantly. “Tell Mike.”
Robin turned to the living room while Sarge followed Pickett back toward his computer room.
It took them only a moment to explain their fear to Mike and he nodded and turned back to the screen, talking to someone through the computer. “Find the power source.”
Mike’s people found it just before Robin’s people did. A small two-hundred room hotel just two blocks from the August Tux Shop was drawing about three times the power it would actually need. Normally that would never be noticed. But the hotel was owned by a corporation owned by the LaPine family. They also owned two small restaurants nearby under different corporation names.
“I’m betting those two restaurants order far more food than they sell to regular customers,” Pickett said.
“So we cut the power,” Sarge said
. “Any thoughts on what we do next?”
“We get the warrant to hit all the above-ground locations and arrest the bastards there,” Mike said, “including the owners of all this right out of their beds.”
“Will and his people are on that,” Pickett said. “They can make sure that will happen and have people they will vet and trust on the legal side.”
“The rest of us go in the tunnels and try to get those people out of there that way,” Mike said, still working the computer.
Sarge glanced at Pickett who looked pale, but was nodding.
Sarge didn’t like the idea, but they had no choice at this point. And Mike and his trained men and women would be leading the way in.
Sarge nodded to Pickett. They could do this.
All that mattered now was getting all those people out of there and safe. If there really were people still alive down there.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
October 20th, 2016
Las Vegas, Nevada
PICKETT FELT SO at home in Sarge’s place that when she ordered pizza for them, she first gave her condo address. Sarge corrected her with a smile. She really, really wanted this to be all over so that she and Sarge could just relax a little, as retired persons were supposed to do, and get to know each other even better.
Both of them had been spending the entire afternoon working over the plan for the evening rescue, trying to make sure that no detail was missed.
They had gone over and over all the tunnel diagrams and the ground penetrating radar images of the complex.
Pickett thought she could almost walk some of it in the dark which she might have to and that scared her more than the idea of a possible gun battle.
The plan, on the surface, seemed simple, which also bothered her.
Mike and his people were going to cut the power to the entire place and hope that there was no real backup power below. Or at least not enough backup power that would allow them to blow up the entire place. That was a risk they were going to have to take.
Then Mike and his people would, at the same time as the power went down, block all surveillance in the entire area, both above ground and below.
Then Mike’s people inside the new tunnel would open up the entrances to the old tunnel. And then they would go in and take care of what resistance there was in guards.
Mike said he didn’t expect much, but they were going in strong from both ends to make sure no one got away.
Robin said that she and Will agreed. They didn’t think there would be many guards at all underground, since with the layout of the complex and everything being recorded at all times, there was no real need.
Robin just wished they could find the feeds to those rooms being sent out, but so far no luck on that.
At the same time, Will’s people with police they could trust would be taking care of the arrests on the surface, including the entire LaPine family that owned the August Tux Shop, the hotel, and the restaurants.
Pickett and Sarge and Robin’s job was to get the kidnapped victims out while Mike’s people secured everything and made sure there were no traps or hidden explosives.
Pickett and Sarge and Robin had split up how they would take the large complex and what they would say to people as they went in.
Once the victims were on their way out, Will and the police would meet the victims at the mouth of the new tunnel and take them to a staging area and for medical attention.
Anyone not able to walk out on their own would be cared for by emergency techs as soon as the complete all-clear was given.
All effort was going to be made to keep the press from even getting a whiff of the fact that a lot of missing people had suddenly been found for at least a few days, until families could be notified.
At least Pickett hoped they were going to find a lot of missing people. They had no evidence but the huge cavern of cars to really back up their assumption that the missing would be down there.
But her gut said they would be right. She just hoped that a lot of the missing would be there and not in mass graves in some back cave.
The three of them had talked for almost an hour on what they would say to those being freed from the rooms. And what they might run into in a way of resistance of pure fear from the survivors. Some of those poor souls had been locked in those rooms for over eight or nine years. Being freed suddenly would not be an easy thing to grasp for them.
Pickett had no doubt about that. She couldn’t imagine getting ready for the happiest day of your life, your wedding, and then suddenly being kidnapped and held in a concrete box with no windows and one locked door and no way to know where you were.
A horror story by any standards.
PART SIX
Down Into Hell
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
October 20th, 2016
Las Vegas, Nevada
SARGE CLIMBED OUT of Pickett’s Jeep SUV and looked around the lower level of the concrete parking garage just one block off the strip. No cars were down this far and the place had a moldy smell.
Pickett climbed out of the driver’s side and stretched and came around the car to him.
They both knew they were being monitored by the kidnappers. At the bottom level of this garage, about fifty paces from where they had parked, was a service access into the main storm drain just about a quarter mile from where the old tunnel was walled off.
They had to go down nine flights of stairs to get to it, but it was a logical way to go in.
As soon as Mike gave the word, all surveillance and all power to both the main areas above ground and the entire complex below ground would be cut.
At that point the police and Will’s people would raid all the above ground property and make arrests.
Sarge glanced around, making sure he and Pickett were alone. He knew they weren’t really alone because three of Mike’s men were already staged on the floor above and another was pretending to be a homeless man sleeping in one corner with a shopping cart that happened to be full of weapons and other things needed underground.
All four were former Special Forces, as were the other five coming in near the other tunnel entrance. Robin was with them.
It was seven-fifty-eight in the evening. They had two minutes.
Pickett came up to Sarge, put her arms around his neck and pulled his head down and kissed him before he even had a chance to realize what she was doing.
That surprised him and pleased him more than he wanted to admit and he went with the kiss, pressing back into her and holding her as well.
They spent one of the two minutes in the kiss until she finally released him and pushed back, smiling.
He knew he was smiling as well. He could feel it.
“For luck?” he asked.
“More of a promise for later,” she said, smiling.
“Let’s be careful and make damn sure there is a later,” he said.
She nodded to that. “That idea I like.”
“Stand ready, everyone,” Mike said in both their ears through their com links. “Mission is a go. Cutting power and surveillance in twenty seconds.”
Both Sarge and Pickett nodded and smiled at each other as they waited.
It felt to Sarge like a very long twenty seconds.
Then Mike said, “Everyone go.”
Sarge nodded to Pickett as they both turned back to the SUV.
Pickett clicked open the back hatch and both of them put on vests and grabbed their guns and some extra ammunition. Sarge didn’t expect them to need the guns with Mike’s people going in ahead, but they were taking them just in case.
Both made sure their badges were in clear view as well. The vests said Las Vegas Police on both front and back. They both wore helmets with LED lamps in the front and both carried first aid and extra small LED flashlights in small packs.
They had just finished and closed the latch when the three men from the level above headed for the door now guarded by the one man who had been pretending to be homeless.
Sarge and Pickett reached the door to the tunnel entrance as the first three men went through. One of Mike’s men would follow them down for protection.
All four of Mike’s men were in full combat gear and their faces were streaked black. All carried assault rifles and packs on their backs.
“It’s clear of scanning,” one man said and started down the metal staircase moving silently and quickly.
The staircase looked like a standard garage staircase with concrete walls and concrete on the runners. There were lights spaced evenly all the way down and only a couple had burnt out. Sarge felt like he was descending into hell and if this operation went south, that might be exactly what he was doing.
They all moved surprisingly silently until they reached the access door to the modern storm tunnel. At points, Sarge felt like he was tiptoeing to make sure he made no noise at all.
The man in the lead again checked a device on his arm, nodded, and then whispered, “Still clear.”
Sarge watched as the guy opened the door and went through low and to the right while the man behind him went through low and to the left.
“Clear,” the voice said softly and the third followed and Sarge and then Pickett followed, clicking on the LED lamps on their heads as they went.
All six of them had on their head lamps and had spread out.
The storm tunnel was all concrete on four sides, with water marks and debris along the center from the last floods. The ceiling was about eight feet overhead and Sarge could almost touch it. The entire thing was about as wide as a double car garage.
It smelled of damp earth and some rot and felt very claustrophobic and frightening with the shadows from their lights moving like bad dreams on the walls.
Sarge had not thought of himself as afraid of caves or tunnels, but at the moment, with the four special forces crew going up against some clearly smart and prepared enemies, being in this tunnel just flat scared him.
Dead Hand: A Cold Poker Gang Mystery Page 11
